Derek Yee
Pang Ho-cheung
Tsui Hark
HK directors flock to mainland for new audience
Leaning on a couch outside a cinema in Beijing's Chaoyang district, Hong Kong director and scriptwriter Pang Ho-Cheung was crowded by a group of mainland journalists. Much of the time, he and his fellow directors Jimmy Wan and Derek Tsang, repeated the same answers to the same questions. It took them a whole afternoon to finish the screening and a dozen or 20 interviews.
"It was originally set in Hong Kong," Tsang said of their new film Lacuna. "But when Pang talked to us, we thought it was a good idea to shoot it on the mainland."
Lacuna, about how a young man and woman looking for their lost memories after they had a drunken one night stand, is based on Tsang's own experience.
"Once I was drunk and when I woke up the next morning, I realized I did not know anyone in the same room, where I was, or what I had done the night before," said Tsang, a self-admitted barfly. "I even lost my car. It was a very frightening feeling but a good idea for a film."
Larger audiences
It is very common these days for Hong Kong directors make their films on the mainland, and Pang is among the many who have now set up studios in Beijing and work for mainland audiences. But the trend began a decade ago.
In the early 2000s, directors like Tsui Hark and Wong Jing were some of the earliest Hong Kong filmmakers to try the mainland market, and films like Infernal Affairs, The Conman and Kung Fu Hustle gained both critical praise and huge box office in the mainland, indicating future market potential.
"All the capital is here in Beijing," Pang told the Global Times. "And I want my films to reach a larger Chinese-speaking audience," he continued. "I do not think I can make a film for mainland audiences when I stay in Hong Kong. Only living here, living among the young people, can I know what they like and make films close to their lives."
"Where else except Beijing can we go now?" director Andrew Lau once said. "The mainland has various beautiful locations, capital, and most important of all, an enormous market."
Lau who set up his studio in Beijing in August 2009, said he had considered coming to the mainland as early as 2002, when his film Infernal Affairs was a hit. But due to his strict demands on the location of his studio, the plan had been delayed for years.
Lau has previously tried the market in Hollywood and South Korea before, but he is more satisfied with the Chinese mainland. "It is easier to make money in Hollywood because directors are very well paid. But a director has limited control there. Here most of the films start from zero and therefore a director can fulfill many of his visions."
Fading giants
The coming of Hong Kong directors has brought a flourish to the mainland film market. According to statistics from Southern Metropolis Daily, in 2010, five of the top 10 box office hits were made by Hong Kong directors.
However, while the box office of Hong Kong directors' films keeps rising, critical praise has been less forthcoming.
Southern Metropolis Daily surveyed mainland audiences' satisfaction with 16 Hong Kong directors this year. Only two directors, Tsui Hark and Johnny To, scored over 80 percent, while the majority received scores of between 60 to 70 percent.
Upcoming Taiwan and mainland directors are catching up with the old guard. For example, You Are the Apple of My Eye, directed by Taiwan director Giddens Ko, broke box office records in Hong Kong, and Love is Not Blind by mainland director Teng Huatao proved a small-budget film could pull in a hefty haul.
Limited themes
But despite their arrival, Hong Kong directors have plenty of grievances.
Because of censorship and the lack of rating system for films, many works are not able to be screened on the Chinese mainland. Director Derek Yee's Shin Juku Incident is one example. Due to some violent and sexual scenes, this film was rated "IIB" in Hong Kong, which means not suitable for teenagers and children. But on mainland it couldn't be screened at all, not least because it touched on the sensitive issue of Chinese gangsters in Japan.
"I never regretted it," said Yee, referring to his film's mainland ban, which cost him HK$30 million ($3.87 million). "Some people suggested I make some cuts so that it could be screened. But I was totally against that."
Hong Kong directors, who made their names through gangster films, now have to change their focus to wuxia (fantasy kung fu) films, because "violent fights and killings are only allowed in wuxia."
Yee recalled going to register a new wuxia screenplay and discovering more than 20 were already planned that year, most from Hong Kong directors. "I think we all hit the same wall," he said. "But one day the audience will be tired of wuxia."
Another difficulty is the neglect of mid-budget films. Director Stanley Kwan, who came to the mainland as early as the 1990s, believes mid-budget films should be the mainstay of a well-run movie market, but he found mainland investors care the least about them. "They say the most risky films are those between 8 million to 10 million yuan. They will either invest in a blockbuster or give out 2 million yuan or so for a try," Kwan said.
And director Andrew Lau found he had to be a steward when shooting films. "I even had to take care of the cleaning," Lau said. "Many of my staff smoked and threw the stubs everywhere, which is why many places do not welcome filming." But Pang says mainland directors face the same problems. He argues that in the end, if you pour your heart into a movie, the audience will respond, whether on the islands or the mainland.