Cinespot : An Exclusive Interview with Hong Kong Director Pang Ho-cheung

An Exclusive Interview
with Director Pang Ho-cheung
(Part II)

My Filmmaking Career

Cinespot: You're already a famous writer before you became a filmmaker. Can you tell us when did you begin to love filmmaking, and how did you become a filmmaker?

Pang: I actually wantd to be a director since I was in Form 4 (equivalent to about 9th~10th grade of high school). But I realized that a good director must know how to write a script, so I decided to first learn about screenwriting. I took a screenwriting class, and got acquainted with the instructor Dante Lam Chiu-yin. After I finished secondary school (high school), I went to Taiwan to further my study, but I didn't really like it there, so I returned to Hong Kong and called Dante. He was working at HKATV at that time, and he recommended me to work with him as a screenwriter there, while I also became a host at some programmes. And then I moved to the radio station, and had been doing several positions in this field.

Cinespot: Not every director is good at screenwriting, but you certainly possess the talent in both fields. So do you see it as an advantage?

Pang: Yes, the best thing is that I don't need to wait for a good screenwriter or a good script. I don't have to wait for anybody as I can conceive my own ideas and write about it. It allows greater freedom for me to experiment with different styles and approaches. If someone writes for you, it may not meet what you want, but if you can write it yourself, you can make sure what you write is what you actually want.

Cinespot: Last year you won the Best New Director at the HK Film Academy Award Ceremony, and from now on you are certainly heading for the Best Director category. So how would you define your position in this field now?

Pang: I don't really try to define my position, I don't want people to position me as a "black comedy" director. It is actually not very correct. I love all kinds of movies. Apart from comedy, I am also interested in filming other genres, for examples, romance, thriller, love and action. I have even thought of making an "action thriller" movie combining elements of different genres. That is similar to the mixing of couple/gangster in Men Suddenly in Black. I hope I can create some new things from this mixing of genres.

Cinespot: Talking about genre mixing, it seems that not too many directors actually dare to do it, so how did you come up with such "cult" ideas?

Pang: I think it is not "not too many", but "none" (lol). I remember when I was writing the script (of Men Suddenly in Black, nobody believed that it'd work. But I thought it was interesting, so I decided to try it out. From my experience of going to the cinema and making friends with young people, I think I understand what they want. So if they think something is interesting and I also happen to like it, then I guess other people will also like it, and I'll work on it.

Cinespot: But would it be hard to look for financing?

Pang: Yes, it is not easy. Because my first movie You Shoot, I Shoot did not do very good at the box office, the investors began to lose faith in my second movie, they might ask, "Nobody has done similar things before, would it work?" Many distributors believe that if something has not been done in Hong Kong before, it must not work. I don't really agree with it. Why do we always have to make the same kind of movie that we are all familiar with? Why can't we make something that has not been done before? I think all of the companies that have worked with me before are very brave. Like Golden Harvest, Vincent Kuk was the producer of my first movie, I think he's a very brave man, as he allowed a new director like me, without any experience, to do whatever I wanted. Eric Tsang was also bold backing me up in Men Suddenly in Black, I know that many people told him not to do that, haha (lol). This time, I would also love to thank Meiah (ditributor of Beyond Our Ken) for giving me the opportunity to try out something new.

Cinespot: From You Shoot, I Shoot to Men Suddenly in Black, it is clear that you're using more and more big names actors. What is your view on star power?

Pang: I think it is the same everywhere. For instance, in Hollywood, everyone loves to see Brad Pitt. It is just the reality. Many good independent movies do not do well at the box office because of the lack of a famous cast; On the other hand, many mediocre movie do well simply because of an attractive cast. If the audiences don't know any of the actors in a movie, they will not go see it. The audiences have no responsibility to buy the ticket unless they are the relatives of the director.

Cinespot: Have you ever thought of building a specific director's image for yourself?

Pang: No, as I said before, I don't want people to label me as a "black comedy director". I want the audiences to see me as a director who can provide different and fresh products everytime. So if you are just looking for something I have done before, you may have a totally different viewing experience this time.

Cinespot: Is there any actors you would really want to work with?

Pang: I think every new director would love to work with Tony Leung Chiu-wai...and I also want to collaborate with Karena Lam.

Cinespot: In your two previous works, the characters' behaviors are all very crazy. Does it reflect your disappointment with the society?

Pang: I believe it is normal for anyone to do something crazy occassionally. I enjoy seeing small potatos going off boundary. That is, because of a little crazy idea, they would do something without thinking of the consequence. I like it because I am also such a person. I'd do something meaningless just for fun. For instance, there is a big metal cabinet in my office. When I first bought it, I thought it would be interesting if I could hide myself in the cabinet and scare my colleagues. Then I really went inside and waited for my colleagues to come back. But after half an hour, nobody came, and I was in there for such a long time. Perhaps a lot of people would simply come out after three minutes, but I indeede stayed there waiting for thirty minutes. That's me, always try to take a break from ordinary life and have fun.

Cinespot: Do you think this will cause your movie to become alternative or non-mainstream?

Pang: I don't have a strong definition of mainstream and alternative. If I like something, I'd just do it. Sometimes what I find funny is mainstream, sometimes it is not. Like Men Suddenly in Black, people might say, "Pang Ho-cheung is doing mainstream now! He must be doing it for the sake of the box office." It is actually not related. I just began to do it because I thought it was funny, I didn't realize it could be mainstream until I was indeed working on it. Another example is Beyond Our Ken, the project was started merely because I thought it was very funny. But then when it was premiered in Tokyo, the critics found it quite a surprise, they even believed that if they didn't know who the director is, they would think it is not my work. So even I myself don't know whether my movie is mainstream or not, at least not until I have finished shooting it.

Cinespot: So you rely a lot on your instinct when making a movie?

Pang: Yes. Take Beyond Our Ken as an example, when I told everyone about my encounters in Taiwan during the time when I was doing post-production for Men Suddenly in Black, even my screenwriting and editing partners thought it was impossible to expand such a small incident into a feature length movie. But I just thought it would be an interesting subject, and so I decided to further develop it, and now it has become the movie you are seeing now.

Cinespot: Where do you usually get your inspiration?

Pang: I don't have a specific answer. I usually just hover around here and there. Sometimes I just suddenly think of something crazy, sometimes it is from a book, or from newspaper, or from my friend.

Cinespot: You said before that you're not a fast worker. So do you have pressure when your boss urges you to finish your script as soon as possible?

Pang: No, I don't, as I don't really care about it! Haha (lol). They understand that pushing only causes negative effect on the quality of my work. Moreover, they are usually very nice to me, giving me freedom and respecting what I love to do. Luckily, I always have a lot of crazy and funny ideas for them. I think I am just like a brewery, making new wines occassionally. When the boss comes and asks what kind of good wine I have, I would just show him my collection, perhaps a 1982, or 85, 86. If I recommend the 86 but he doesn't like it, it is fine. The most important thing is that he should not bring his own wine to my brewery but rather choose from my collection. It doesn't matter which one he likes, as everyone of them is brewed by me. If he likes none of them, it is also ok with me, I'll just continue brewing new wines. As for the old ones, I'll just keep them first and try to refine them later.

Cinespot: We all know that in these few years, Hong Kong film market is having a hard time. As someone who just arrived to the market for not a long time, do you feel discouraged (considering that the golden day of modern HK cinema was 10~20 years ago)?

Pang: Yes, sometimes. But on the other hand, I also think I am already very lucky. My path to filmmaking isn't really that tough. I started directing my first movie at 27, and now I have made 3 movies. Looking back, I think I am very lucky as I have never made a movie that I didn't enjoy doing.

Cinespot: Have you ever thought of becoming an actor?

Pang: I have tried it before when I was working at the TV studio and radio station, but just for fun. Because filmmaking usually takes me a lot of effort, I sometimes do it to relax.

My works

Cinespot: You are the original author of Fulltime Killer. Tell us how Johnnie To got in touch with you, and how did you feel when you were aware that they wanted to turn it into a movie? Did you participate in any parts of the movie version?

Pang: Actually it was Andy Lau who first made the contact. It was because he also worked at the radio drama of Fulltime Killer (the radio drama was made before the movie), he loved the story and bought it. I myself love this story very much too, so I definitely felt very happy when I knew that they wanted to adapt it. During the time when they were writing the script, I contributed quite some comments, but then I believed that as the original author, it was not a good idea for me to join the screenwriting team. It was because as the author, I certainly love every part of the novel, and would love to put everything in the movie. But since novel and movie are two different medium, it's inappropriate and impossible to adapt everything in a 250,000 words novel to a 90 minutes movie. So I would just leave the job to the screenwriters and let them decide which part should be included in the movie.

Cinespot: Can you tell us some of the filmmaking problems you have faced before?

Pang: Because of the tight budget and short production time, every one of them was not easy to make. It is especially hard to maintain the quality if you are given such a short period of time to work. For instance, even though I was much more demanding than before, it only took 14 days for me to finish the shooting of Beyond Our Ken, which wasn't a normal practice, at least I got 15 days to make You Shoot, I Shoot! What I learned from this is that now I knew how to distribute my time on screenwriting much better. When I knew that I only had 14 days to shoot, I would write a script that could be done in 13 days, leaving an extra day for me to wrap things up, and it turned out to be quite successful. This time there was almost no deleted scene, I put almost 98% of what we have filmed in the final cut.

Cinespot: Our reviewer Ryan is a fan of Men Suddenly in Black. He believes that there are some political implications behind the story, like the wives, husbands and the foreign woman, they are just like metaphors of China, Hong Kong and England. Is it correct to say so?

Pang: It is actually not that appropriate for me to explain everything. But anyway, it is not wrong to say that there are some kind of implications behind. For instance, the night club is a symbol of the golden days of Hong Kong, especially for my generations who haven't experienced the "10 Golden Years" in the 1980s, these things were just like imaginations that had never actually existed before. When I came out to work, the economy was already having a recession, so I just heard about these luxuries from people instead of having experienced them myself. My role is just like Bo (Spirit Blue) in the movie, he is from Beijing and just hears about the luxuries from his uncle, everything is simply like the nostalgic imaginations in his uncle's mind. When he is travelling with the group from HK island to Kowloon, he encounters a discouraged feeling that it is not his time now.
I remember when I initated the project of Men, I was attempting to make a cheating husband version of Apocalypse Now. So the taxi is the battleship, sailing along the river to search for the colonel, that is, the girls. Their mission is to travel around Hong Kong to look for the good old memories that do not exist nowadays.

Cinespot: Does it mean you have strong resentment against the society today?

Pang: It isn't really resentment, but just some sentimental attachments, and so I put them in my movie.

Cinespot: There is a scene in Men Suddenly in Black about Eric Tsang visiting Tony Leung Ka-fai. It kind of resembles a similar scene in Jiang Hu - A Triad Zone. Did you draw any inspiration from that?

Pang: I have seen Jiang Hu - A Triad Zone before, but I didn't really get the inspiration from the scene in that movie. Because visiting "old brothers" is quite a common and typical story idea for the gangster genre. In addition, many people asked me if Men Suddenly in Black was inspired by Infernal Affairs, but in fact when I first initiated this project, Infernal Affairs hadn't come out yet, so it wasn't really inspired by IA. IA was inspired by a lot of cops movies anyway.
Referring back to Men Suddenly in Black, I actually drew more inspiration from To Be Number One (Poon Man-kit 1991, starring Ray Lui), especially the scene when Jordan Chan leaves the hotel and the group engage in argument. It is just like the scene in To Be Number One when Waise Lee casts out Ray Lui. If you listen to the dialogues carefully, you'll find out that they are quite similar! Another scene when the group is having a discussion near the pier, it is instead influenced by a scene in Heat (Michael Mann 1995) in which Robert De Niro is discussing with Val Kilmer in a construction zone. I think it is a classical moment in cops/gangster movie.

Cinespot: So will you continue to make a spoof of other movies in the future?

Pang: I don't have any plan of playing with this approach again at this moment. I actually want to try other new things, but I wouldn't say no too. Right now my production house is having a lot of projects, so we'll try to finish those projects first before thinking about it.

My Future

Cinespot: Talking about new plans, can you disclose a little more?

Pang: Haha, there are a lot, including every genre. When my boss asked me what I wanted to do, I said I could do thriller, romance, actions, whatever you wanted me to do! (lol) The one that is soonest for us to begin is a cop movie. But certainly that is not going to be a traditional cop movie! It is quite complicated, I can't really tell what kind of movie that'll be. I guess I just want it to be a "Pang Ho Cheung's style" cop movie. I want to bring some new surprise to the audiences, something that is out of their imaginations.

Cinespot: Not traditional? Can you tell us a little more?

Pang: I really can't tell you at this moment. It is also the same question my boss has been asking me. I would just tell him, "Boss, just like Beyond Our Ken, you'll know after it is done!" I think it is better for him to ask me which actors I want or how much I will need, and then just let me finish it on my own. Again, I would really like to thank Meiah for letting me do what I wanted to do without actually knowing the direction of the movie (Beyond Our Ken). It was not until at the premiere in Japan that they saw the movies for the first time. The same also happened to the Japanese distributors. When they bought the movie, they didn't even know what it is about, not even the cast. They just got the see it the first time at Tokyo International Film Festival. I was grateful that they had put such huge faith on me, believing that I was capable of doing my job. Therefore, for the upcoming project, I would love to do the same thing. Actually even if I've told you what I am going to do now, perhaps you probably wouldn't understand what it is about. Because this time I want to employ a very complicated approach to tell a story. I believe that it is possible to mix several styles together in a movie, and the end product may turn out to become something like salad!

Cinespot: What is "Pang Ho-cheung's style"?

Pang: I want to let people know that I am always trying to introduce different things to them. It is like when you come to my restaurant, you never know what you are going to get. You only come because of the good reputation. There is no menu in this restaurant as the food choice is designed by me. You only need to come and I'll make the decision. Don't come in and tell me you want to eat sashimi, as this may not be included in my menu this time. I want to make sure everytime you come, you'll have the opportunity to try out something new.

Cinespot: Do you think that it is perhaps very risky to make something that is too "new" (or experiemental)? It may not have any commercial potential.

Pang: Actually it is always risky, just like You Shoot, I Shoot and Men Suddenly in Black. But if you tell me to make a movie based on the taste of other people, I guess that is even more risky as I just wouldn't be able to do it well. It is just like the restaurant example I said before. The menu should be designed by me. If you force me to make Indian cuisine, which I am not good at, I am sure I'll never be able to do it better than those who excels in it. So if you really love Indian food, perhaps you can just go to an Indian restaurant. (lol)

Cinespot: Thank you very much for sharing a good afternoon with us. I am sure this is a very enlightening interivew for those who want to learn more about director Pang and his works. We wish Beyond Our Ken, as well as your next project, all the success.

Pang: Thank you very much.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the interview was a big success. Director Pang Ho-cheung was very generous and patiently answered all of our questions in details. Again, we would like to appreciate director Pang for taking his valuable time and sharing his insight with us. Please give a round applause to director Pang!

Special thanks to Making Film for coordinating and making the interview possible.

Thank you!

Host / Text / Photos: Eric Liu
Planning: Eric Liu, K. Lui
Translation: K. Lui

11/2004

Click here to go back to Part I.