Unbelievable. I just learned by luck today, that the French DVD of Daniel Wu's mockumentary THE HEAVENLY KINGS was released... two months ago! (March 2012)
This edition features an interview of its director and lead actor Daniel Wu that I conducted and shot in May 2006 when he was promoting it during the Cannes Film Festival (thanks to Winnie Tsang of Golden Scene for arranging it).


I didn't supervise the video editing of the interview so I don't how it looks and how long it is on the DVD (the rough footage were about 30 minutes, but during that time we talked about his whole career from 1998 to 2006)


Spectrum Films, the compagny who released THE HEAVEALY KINGS French DVD (available on Amazon France here) will give me more material about it after this year's Cannes Film Festival (where they are now).

FA: It's been three years since the Pang brothers signed a 10-year contract with Universe?

MS: Yes. Their collaboration will be beneficial to each other. Under Universe they have the freedom to do the projects they want to try to do, like INFERNO 3D a disaster film. They have never made that kind of film before. It is one of the two big projects that we announced this year at FILMART. It is an $18 million US budget film, the hightest budget movie ever made by Universe, even more expensive than THE STORM WARRIORS. INFERNO is still in pre-production but we have already confirmed that the cast includes Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo. It is the second movie made by the Pang brothers in 3D; the first one was CHILD'S EYE, a horror film.



MS: No. It's a temporary key-art that we prepared before FILMART. We used some of his old movie images but that's just a way to remind people what Lau Ching-wan did before. Because that film is one of his classics, right? I think that it will be an interesting partnership between him and Louis Koo who is, like him, a major Hong Kong actor now.  



FA: "Inferno 3D" will be co-produced by Mainland Chinese companies?

MS: Yes, we have some investors from China which is a very important market, of course. We also have some stars from Mainland China like Wang Xue-Qi from BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS and Wang Bao Qiang who recently acted in Dante Lam's FIRE OF CONSCIENCE. They are both very popular now in Mainland China.  

FA: It's only been one day since the beginning of FILMART, but can you tell if you already have people interested in the INFERNO project?

MS: Definitely. Everybody who comes to our booth asks us about INFERNO and the new Benny Chan project, the untitled one, which is about drug trafficking. It's a modern cop action movie, and people have been looking forward to this movie. Those are basically the two movies that people are showing a big interest in.

FA: What about the 3D trend? It started, I suppose, with the success of AVATAR?

MS: That's true but in Mainland China there's still a high demand for 3D movies, especially the high budget, big scale 3D films. And as we remember, they have done martial arts films in 3D but not disaster films. So I think that the combination of fire and 3D will be very interesting. And that's why it will take a year to do the post-production.

FA: What is FAIRYTALE KILLER about?

MS: It's a solo project from Danny Pang; a suspense thriller which will be released this May in Hong Kong. It stars Lau Ching-wan and Wang Bao Qiang again. And also our own actress Elanne Kwong, who is one of the female leads in CHILD'S EYE. This one is quite interesting for the overseas distributors as well because the storyline is very clear. It's about a detective, played by Lau Ching-wan, who has to investigate serial killings done in a fairytale way, but also a bloody way, a brutal way. Lau Ching-wan knows who is the murderer is from the beginning. It's like a cat and mouse game where good and evil fight against each other. This one has a $3.5 million US budget. They shot it in Thailand.



FA: ...a country where the Pang brothers have often worked since the beginning of their career...

MS: Yes, Danny and Oxyde Pang worked with a Thailand crew for many years, so they feel comfortable there. The production and the post-production from Thailand are high quality.

FA: Tell me about CONSPIRATORS.

MS: Do you remember THE DETECTIVE and THE DETECTIVE 2 by Oxyde Pang? This is like the finale of the whole "Detective" film series. We changed the name to CONSPIRATORS because the producer wants to differentiate this movie from the previous two, even if they were well acclaimed. But for this one, the final one, the production budget is higher. It is $5 million US and we have another major actor in this film: Nick Cheung, who is such an awesome actor. The chemistry between Aaron Kwok and Nick Cheung, who are both award-winning actors, should be something that the audience can look forward to. We are still shooting the movie in Malaysia, Thailand and Mainland China. We just got a rough promo ready right before FILMART.



FA: Did the first two "Detective" movies have good distribution in other countries?

MS: Yes, in the Asian territories mostly. We sold THE DETECTIVE to Japan, which for example is a very tough market. Part 2 was released last year in Hong Kong, so we are still working on the Part 2 sales this year at FILMART.

FA: Why is there still no title for the new Benny Chan project?

MS: The main cast is not yet confirmed, and we don't want to confuse the buyers with a title that maybe misleads them.


FA: But there will be big explosions as usual, and non-stop action?

MS: As always.

FA: The Pang brothers are also preparing a new project named THE EXORCIST?!!

MS: Yes.  We'll have to announce it a little bit later because the Pang brothers are focusing on INFERNO now. THE EXORCIST will be a more traditional horror film like THE EYE. For this one, they don't want to play with 3D; they'll try to go back to the basics. We'll have Charlene Choi in it as the leading actress.


MS: To us, FILMART is always a good market.  As long as the buyers come to Hong Kong, they definitely have to meet with all the Hong Kong companies. That why we set up such a big booth and launched many new titles at FILMART: in order to pitch the pre-sales in Southeast Asian territories. The result is quite good. I think we can already do some pre-sales for the new projects here in Hong Kong.

Interview conducted by Frédéric Ambroisine at FILMART on March 20th, 2012. Edited by Sylvia Rorem. Cross-published on Twitch.

FA: When did you hear about the tribute retrospective about your work at HKIFF?

PC: It's been a while I think, probably six, seven months ago. I didn't know quite what to make of it or what it means to me. I accept it. In the past six months, through working on the book and giving interviews and doing stuff on my part, I started to pick up more of an understanding of what it could mean to me. And it turned out to be a very rewarding experience because it takes me back down my own memory lane and goes back to my roots; how I worked, and how I got to be where I am today. And also it's a sort of re-evaluation of the first half of my life and career, and also to re-evaluate myself to decide what I should be doing next.


FA: Your recent movie "Wu Xia" is a martial art epic.  You've done one before, "The Warlords". Do you plan to keep on with this new direction, or was it just an opportunity to work on that type of movie?

PC: I wish that it were so simple that we do something and it works, and then we could continue to do it. First of all, the market situation would not permit that. The market is changing very rapidly and changing all the time. And it's almost like, if something works, you have to change immediately. It's not like you can actually ride on the past successes or formulas that you have. So every movie we need to reinvent ourselves, which is difficult. And at the same time, as a filmmaker if you don't try to reinvent yourself, you can't challenge yourself and if you don't challenge yourself, you don't have the passion. And if you don't have the passion you don't have the spark and you can't make better movies. So in a way, I do not consider any of my past work to be monumental enough to be able to continue to do it. What happened is that it's a very difficult and tough business.  To move ahead in the ever difficult enviroment of making Chinese language movies, especially mainland Chinese-Hong Kong co-productions, we just have to keep thinking of new ideas, ideas that are not too repetitious, but also ideas that are not too new so that the audience can follow.  That's pretty tough.

FA: Do you think you can keep your Hong Kong identity in the Chinese market?

PC: The Hong Kong identity is in my blood. It doesn't matter what I make or where I make movies, the core value system, the attitude, and the aesthetics will always be Hong Kong. That peculiar Hong Kong attitude and aesthetics will never change, even if I make an English language movie or a French language movie. So it doesn't matter what we do, and it doesn't matter what the censorship restrictions are, and it doesn't matter who the market is for. You don't have to do a movie in Cantonese to be "Hong Kong" because the Hong Kong-ness is in my system. It will not disappear.


FA: Jimmy Wang Yu, who was in your last movie, was a big star in the 60's as the One-Armed Swordsman character in Chang Cheh's movies. Were you a big Shaw Brothers movie fan?

PC: I was a big Shaw Brothers movie fan. Even though I didn't quite identify myself as a kung-fu film fan, which I wasn't.  But no kids born in the 50's or 60's could ignore Chang Cheh or the Shaw Brothers martial arts films. It doesn't matter if you grow up to make love stories, dramas, romances or even art films, we've all grown up watching action movies from Chang Cheh, and the kind of heroism he's so good with, and all his big screen idols from Jimmy Wang Yu to David Chiang to Ti Lung: it was just a part of our growing up.  

Interview conducted by Frédéric Ambroisine on March 21st, 2012. Edited by Sylvia Rorem. Cross-published on Twitch.
  

FA: As a program manager, what exactly do you do at the Hong Kong International Film Festival?

BC: I take care of program-related things. When the films are selected, I talk to the distributors; the directors about the terms; and I make sure that the prints and tapes arrive on time. I talk with the invited directors to find out when they want to come, etcetera. There are a lot of little gritty things to do.

FA: This year is the 36th edition of HKIFF. What can you say about the evolution of this festival since its inception?

BC: The first HKIFF actually started in the mid-70's. So we are the first Asian Film festival in the Asian region. We were ahead of Tokyo, ahead of Pusan, and ahead of Shanghai, of course. In the beginning there were small programs, and we were showing mostly European art films at that time. HKIFF started as a government-run program and it slowly evolved.  Now we're at the stage of being a non-profit organisation. We still get some support from the government but we have to raise most of the money ourselves through sponsorship.


FA: How many Asian and non-Asian movies are you showing this year at the HKIFF?  And in how many places are they showing?

BC: We have eleven venues all over Hong Kong showing the movies.  The number of films that we show is about 280. I don't have the exact number of how many Asian movies but I would say that it is about two thirds Asian, and the rest of the world is about one third. It's not just European countries but also Africa, South America, North America. We have movies from Iceland, Estonia, Georgia... so we actually have quite a variety of international movies.


FA: Tell us about the partnership that HKIFF has with the Hong Kong Film Archive.  Each year the Film Archive makes a retrospective which is kind of linked to the Hong Kong Festival?

BC: It's not directly linked. The film archive does their own retrospective program, so we think it's a convenient time because, at the time of HKIFF and HAF, there are a lot of foreign guests in Hong Kong looking at the films we have. We think it's a good time because they can take a look at all Hong Kong cinema. So they [Hong Kong Film Archive] contribute a program at the HKIFF.


FA: Now that the HKIFF is part of the Entertainment Expo Hong Kong, which unites nine main events from the Hong Kong film and music industry, is it better or more complicated for you since there are so many events happening at the same time?

BC: Well, yes and no because for us, people are running the festival. A lot of events means that we have to do a lot of extra things; unexpected if things happen suddenly and we have to take care of it. The good side is that we raise our international profile. More people from Europe and America know that HKIFF is an important event, so they like to continue to come here and showcase their films here.



FA: What are the highlights of the festival this year?

BC: This year, we're fortunate enough to invite Ms. Charlotte Rampling to Hong Kong. She is of course a cultural icon in Europe. The highlight would be the movie made by the Chinese director Quan'an Wang called "White Deer Plain". It premiered at the Berlin festival, and I think we are the second place in the world where this film has been shown. It's based on a very famous novel from China, an epic, so we're fortunate to show it...


...And of course, as the Hong Kong International Film Festival we try to promote Hong Kong cinema. So we're showing the world premiere of Pang Ho-cheung's "Love in the Buff", which is our opening film. It's the continuation of his successful "Love in a Puff". The two characters from the first movie meet again, but this time it's in Beijing because they've been relocated to work there. But it's still a very Hong Kong film...



...Pang Ho-cheung also has another film premiere at the HKIFF called "Vulgaria", which I can say is a follow-up to a previous film he made called "AV" about people making cheezy sex movies. It's a satire on present day Hong Kong popular culture, what we call in Hong Kong "pseudo models", teenage girls dressing skimpily, trying to attract attention... These are both very Hong Kong films.


FA: In the last few years there have been a lot of Hong Kong movies co-produced with China. They are very different from the Hong Kong movies made, say, 10 years ago. In you opinion, who are the people who are making the most Hong Kong movies nowadays? Of course, Pang Ho-cheung is one of them...

BC: ...Pang Ho-cheung is one of them. Ann Hui is still one of them. Ann Hui's new film, "A Simple Life" is a very simple film, a very Hong Kong-based film. It's a film that is very true to her heart, and true to the film producer's because it's the producer's own story. It's a very Hong Kong story. I heard it's doing very well in China too. So it's good that Hong Kong filmmakers can stay true to their hearts and tell stories that they want to tell, and if the film is really good it will find its own way into China,. So Hong Kong films are not really losing their identity. So once again, keep this to your heart, and be true to yourself when you make a film, and don't make movies that you expect people want to see.

Interview conducted by Frédéric Ambroisine on March 20th, 2012. Edited by Sylvia Rorem. Cross-published on Twitch.