"With potential access to 1.1 billion people, many Hong Kong
film makers are looking at the bright side of self-censorship."
Hong Kong cranks out pictures the way Hollywood B-studios used to: hundreds of films a year, delivered in a few months
or less. Directors serve as both producers and scriptwriters, and if they go overbudget, the difference often comes out of
their own pockets. Ticket prices have gone up, and American films are now extremely popular with an audience that once
demanded its own cinema. In the city that used to teach Hollywood about modern action movies, "The Specialist" is a hit.
The fin-de-siecle binging has turned studios into trend factories; if a vampire-gore-sex film becomes a blockbuster (as
happened a few years ago), it's an instant genre. Hong Kong's celebrity mill is so overheated that when new stars
emerge, they will make six or more movies a year--cut an album--and burn out fast. But for their duration, they are able to
demand prices that amount to half or more of a production budget. If some like Ringo Lam are hoping for a little chaos,
others like Wong Jing bank on stability. Only in his late thirties, Wong, the director of "God of Gambleers Returns," has
capitalized on the changes in Hong Kong cinema as proficiently as anybody, churning out movies with his frightening
energy. He is part of a group that is negotiating with the Chinese government to open the first foreign-owned theater
chain in the People's Republic. "Our first phase is 400 theaters," he says. China has about 30,000 theaters that are
closed to Hong Kong movies, except for those films in which the People's Republic has an interest. With potential
access to 1.1 billion people, many Hong Kong filmmakers are looking at the bright side of self-censorship. "I know those
officers in mainland China who work with the movie industry," says Wong from his office overlooking Victoria Harbor.
"And actually, they encourage entertainment, they want you to make action movies, comedies--just don't mention politics.
They encourage you to do entertaining movies. They like to laugh. They only don't like you to mention, say, Mao." Wong
has the likable self-assurance of a real estate agent at cocktail hour, riffing but not really selling you anything. "You have
to understand the way Communists are," he explains patiently. "They won't say, "This is how it is.'It's more like, 'I think it's
maybe like this... 'Because the old guys are still alive, they can change anything. So [lower level officials] just cannot
guarantee anything. It's like what they did with 'Farewell My Concubine'--they can ban it and release it, ban it and release
it, several times. But, 10 years, maybe 15 years later, when all the old guys pass on, I think the situation will become
better."
"Chow displays a kind of vulnerability that American stars would preferably not permit
themselves."
It's something of a joke that even when he's playing the romantic lead, Chow Yun-fat rarely gets the girl. In movie after
movie, he's self-sacrificing to the point of debilitation: In one film, he's in a leg brace, in another in a cast, and in a third
he's confined to a wheelchair. His goodness is so overwhelming--both men and women respond to it--that audiences
never get tired of seeing him overcome incredible odds. They love to see him suffer, because when he rises up, so do
they. "Prison on Fire," "City War," "Full Contact," "The Killer," "Wild Search"-- Chow's movie titles often have the crisp
sound of a crack on the mandible. But even when he plays a gangster, an inner goodness beams; he is never truly bad.
The last time he attempted a truly evil character was in 1987, and the results where ghastly. In his action pictures, Chow
displays a kind of vulnerability that American stars would preferably not permit themselves. His characters are never
more alive, never more understandable, than when they are tested by pain--and not just by the physical kind. His
dramatic roles in Mabel Cheung's "An Autumn's Tale" and Ann Hui's "The Story of Woo Viet" show an emotional versatility
that's a minor surprise if you just know the Woo films. He draws from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of gestures that
nail a character, frame a way of being. He idly flicks a lighter and inhales the flame in "A Better Tomorrow II"; he drags his
thumb across his lips in "Full Contact."Sitting with me at a hillside restaurant table, the actor reaches over, snags my
24-ounce bottle of Tsing Tao beer and drinks from it, all in one smooth motion. His hands reinvent cool more often in a
day than Wynton Marsalis has in a decade. Today, however, the coolest guy in Hong Kong is not Chow, sauntering down
the pier near the Star Ferry terminal. That distinction goes to the fat man using balls of dough to catch tiny spiked fish.
Sitting on the dock, he tugs one off his hook and throws it into a metal pail as Chow walks past. The actor asks him in
Cantonese how they're biting, and the coolest man in Hong Kong strikes up a conversation without once looking away
from his line. He acts as though there isn't a movie star small-talking him. Around the fisherman swirls a school of
Japanese teen-agers shouting for Chow's attention, followed by a Malaysian couple and a tourist from Singapore
wearing a Hard Rock Cafe Beijing sweat shirt. The fans are massing, and Chow starts to move away. He says
something to the fisherman, but the man is his own island; he just offers a grunt and lets out his reel. Chow has come
to the pier today to catch a ferry and show me Lamma Island, where he grew up. A few years ago, Lamma was home to
hippies from the West. Today, if there are slackers anywhere in Hong Kong, they live, locals are convinced, on Lamma.
When the boat docks, one of the first people we see is Chow's elderly mother, at a table with three friends, slapping
down purple-and-white ivory mah-jongg tiles. "Her doctor says mah-jongg is what keeps her alive," Chow beams. Round
tables line the shore. Behind them are banks of aquariums, full of groupers and cuttlefish, shrimp and abalone and
geoduck. These seafood restaurants won't come to life until the wave of tourists arrives over the weekend. Walking down
a trail--cars are barred on the island--Chow scans the line of shops and mutters, "It's become so commercialized." As he
says this, we pass beneath rows of blue and yellow pennants, each picturing him in a white dinner jacket, black hair
impeccably slicked back, advertising "God of Gamblers Returns." Chow ducks into a small temple dedicated to the
Taoist queen of heaven and goddess of the sea, Tin Hau, its walls blackened with years of soot. Lighting bundles of joss
sticks, he prays silently, then turns and says, "Let's go." We walk to a tiny stone house about a quarter of a mile away. A
padlock hangs from the wooden door of the 50-year-old structure that sits beneath two huge mango trees. Chow lived
there for years, awaking at 4 a.m. to sell dim sum. Customers called him Gao Tsai, or Little Dog. It was the only name he
knew until he registered for grade school. "I was just like the children in Virginia or Tennessee--a country boy. I was a
very poor country boy, with no slippers on my feet." The house had no electricity, and growing up, Chow saw few movies.
PAGES 1 2 3 4
film makers are looking at the bright side of self-censorship."
Hong Kong cranks out pictures the way Hollywood B-studios used to: hundreds of films a year, delivered in a few months
or less. Directors serve as both producers and scriptwriters, and if they go overbudget, the difference often comes out of
their own pockets. Ticket prices have gone up, and American films are now extremely popular with an audience that once
demanded its own cinema. In the city that used to teach Hollywood about modern action movies, "The Specialist" is a hit.
The fin-de-siecle binging has turned studios into trend factories; if a vampire-gore-sex film becomes a blockbuster (as
happened a few years ago), it's an instant genre. Hong Kong's celebrity mill is so overheated that when new stars
emerge, they will make six or more movies a year--cut an album--and burn out fast. But for their duration, they are able to
demand prices that amount to half or more of a production budget. If some like Ringo Lam are hoping for a little chaos,
others like Wong Jing bank on stability. Only in his late thirties, Wong, the director of "God of Gambleers Returns," has
capitalized on the changes in Hong Kong cinema as proficiently as anybody, churning out movies with his frightening
energy. He is part of a group that is negotiating with the Chinese government to open the first foreign-owned theater
chain in the People's Republic. "Our first phase is 400 theaters," he says. China has about 30,000 theaters that are
closed to Hong Kong movies, except for those films in which the People's Republic has an interest. With potential
access to 1.1 billion people, many Hong Kong filmmakers are looking at the bright side of self-censorship. "I know those
officers in mainland China who work with the movie industry," says Wong from his office overlooking Victoria Harbor.
"And actually, they encourage entertainment, they want you to make action movies, comedies--just don't mention politics.
They encourage you to do entertaining movies. They like to laugh. They only don't like you to mention, say, Mao." Wong
has the likable self-assurance of a real estate agent at cocktail hour, riffing but not really selling you anything. "You have
to understand the way Communists are," he explains patiently. "They won't say, "This is how it is.'It's more like, 'I think it's
maybe like this... 'Because the old guys are still alive, they can change anything. So [lower level officials] just cannot
guarantee anything. It's like what they did with 'Farewell My Concubine'--they can ban it and release it, ban it and release
it, several times. But, 10 years, maybe 15 years later, when all the old guys pass on, I think the situation will become
better."
"Chow displays a kind of vulnerability that American stars would preferably not permit
themselves."
It's something of a joke that even when he's playing the romantic lead, Chow Yun-fat rarely gets the girl. In movie after
movie, he's self-sacrificing to the point of debilitation: In one film, he's in a leg brace, in another in a cast, and in a third
he's confined to a wheelchair. His goodness is so overwhelming--both men and women respond to it--that audiences
never get tired of seeing him overcome incredible odds. They love to see him suffer, because when he rises up, so do
they. "Prison on Fire," "City War," "Full Contact," "The Killer," "Wild Search"-- Chow's movie titles often have the crisp
sound of a crack on the mandible. But even when he plays a gangster, an inner goodness beams; he is never truly bad.
The last time he attempted a truly evil character was in 1987, and the results where ghastly. In his action pictures, Chow
displays a kind of vulnerability that American stars would preferably not permit themselves. His characters are never
more alive, never more understandable, than when they are tested by pain--and not just by the physical kind. His
dramatic roles in Mabel Cheung's "An Autumn's Tale" and Ann Hui's "The Story of Woo Viet" show an emotional versatility
that's a minor surprise if you just know the Woo films. He draws from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of gestures that
nail a character, frame a way of being. He idly flicks a lighter and inhales the flame in "A Better Tomorrow II"; he drags his
thumb across his lips in "Full Contact."Sitting with me at a hillside restaurant table, the actor reaches over, snags my
24-ounce bottle of Tsing Tao beer and drinks from it, all in one smooth motion. His hands reinvent cool more often in a
day than Wynton Marsalis has in a decade. Today, however, the coolest guy in Hong Kong is not Chow, sauntering down
the pier near the Star Ferry terminal. That distinction goes to the fat man using balls of dough to catch tiny spiked fish.
Sitting on the dock, he tugs one off his hook and throws it into a metal pail as Chow walks past. The actor asks him in
Cantonese how they're biting, and the coolest man in Hong Kong strikes up a conversation without once looking away
from his line. He acts as though there isn't a movie star small-talking him. Around the fisherman swirls a school of
Japanese teen-agers shouting for Chow's attention, followed by a Malaysian couple and a tourist from Singapore
wearing a Hard Rock Cafe Beijing sweat shirt. The fans are massing, and Chow starts to move away. He says
something to the fisherman, but the man is his own island; he just offers a grunt and lets out his reel. Chow has come
to the pier today to catch a ferry and show me Lamma Island, where he grew up. A few years ago, Lamma was home to
hippies from the West. Today, if there are slackers anywhere in Hong Kong, they live, locals are convinced, on Lamma.
When the boat docks, one of the first people we see is Chow's elderly mother, at a table with three friends, slapping
down purple-and-white ivory mah-jongg tiles. "Her doctor says mah-jongg is what keeps her alive," Chow beams. Round
tables line the shore. Behind them are banks of aquariums, full of groupers and cuttlefish, shrimp and abalone and
geoduck. These seafood restaurants won't come to life until the wave of tourists arrives over the weekend. Walking down
a trail--cars are barred on the island--Chow scans the line of shops and mutters, "It's become so commercialized." As he
says this, we pass beneath rows of blue and yellow pennants, each picturing him in a white dinner jacket, black hair
impeccably slicked back, advertising "God of Gamblers Returns." Chow ducks into a small temple dedicated to the
Taoist queen of heaven and goddess of the sea, Tin Hau, its walls blackened with years of soot. Lighting bundles of joss
sticks, he prays silently, then turns and says, "Let's go." We walk to a tiny stone house about a quarter of a mile away. A
padlock hangs from the wooden door of the 50-year-old structure that sits beneath two huge mango trees. Chow lived
there for years, awaking at 4 a.m. to sell dim sum. Customers called him Gao Tsai, or Little Dog. It was the only name he
knew until he registered for grade school. "I was just like the children in Virginia or Tennessee--a country boy. I was a
very poor country boy, with no slippers on my feet." The house had no electricity, and growing up, Chow saw few movies.
PAGES 1 2 3 4
Los Angeles Times