Cinespot : An Exclusive Interview with Hong Kong Director Law Wing-cheong

An Exclusive Interview
with Director Law Wing-cheong
(Part II)

Career

Cinespot: As a long time associate director for Johnnie To (To is also the producer of 2 Become 1), could you briefly describe your job duty?

Law: There are sometimes that the associate director has to think faster than the director. He also has to handle some of the less complicated scenes for the director and to make all kinds of job distributions on the set.

Cinespot: From some of the past interviews he did with the press, Johnnie To did mention that he loves to improvise the scenes on the set. As his associate director, would it make your job more difficult?

Law: Yes, you are right that he loves to improvise, but I am used to it already! He improvises a lot, and it could be anything. As long as you get used to his style, it is not a problem anymore.

Cinespot: Talking about your collaborations with Johnnie To, how did you two get to know each other?

Law: In 1990, I was already working for him as an assistant director at TVB. Later when he left the TV studio, I continued to work as a director there for three years. One day in 1997, he recruited me to join his film crew, and then I began to work as an assistant director for him, and gradually I was promoted to become his associate director. In these years, I have always considered him as my mentor ("sifu").

Cinespot: As we all know, you started out your filmmaking career as a film editor. Perhaps you can share some of your experiences in this field?

Law: Actually I didn't begin my career as a film editor. I was instead in the directing stream at TVB starting from the beginning. While I have talked about this for many times before, I think the misunderstanding was caused by some wrong coverage in the past.
People like me who are trained by the TV station mostly have all round knowledge in production. For instance, an assistant director has to take care of the editing process too, and that is when I learned about editing. Later when I was promoted to become a director there, I also got to edit the video myself. Although they had editors at that time, it's necessary for the director to actually work on it and make all kind of decisions. While in the film business, the assistant director is less fortunate. Due to budget issue, the assistant director's job is usually terminated once the filming is over. He doesn't really have the opportunity to learn about the post-production process.
Referring back to working for Johnnie To, while some people may not know his filming intention sometimes, through these many years of collaborations, I guess I could understand at least 70% of what he wants. Therefore after he is done shooting and passes the footage to me to edit, I could come up with a rough cut that matches at least 70% of his needs. Then we could further the discussion and modification from there.

Cinespot: Johnnie To's movies are usually very stylistics, for instance, both PTU and Throw Down are visually impressive. As his editor and long time friends, would you say you two already have some kind of mutual understanding?

Law: Yes, to a certain extent. But director is subjective! Therefore sometimes when I am done with the editing, he would request many minor changes. You could explain to him why you have to edit it this way, and then he would tell you why he prefers it the other way. Certainly, he is always the one to make the final decision. But then, the discussion itself is a very good learning process.

Cinespot: Was there any fierce argument before?

Law: You couldn't argue! It is his film, it is all his decision and you have to respect it.

Cinespot: Talking about argument, as we know, filmmaking is a team effort and it is very likely that different departments like the scriptwriters, directors, or editors might have different opinions. So how would you deal with such a situation?

Law: It is not that correct to put that, as the director is always the decision maker. If someone gives you some good suggestions, you can accept it, otherwise, you need to stay firm against it. For instance, sometimes some actors are full of potentials and they are able to bring out something that is unexpected. If the director likes it, he would ok it and even tell the actors to go further; otherwise, he would tell the actors clearly that it is not what he wants. A director has to be confident about himself. If the actors don't understand, then he should explain to them until they are convinced.

Cinespot: From what you said, you have gained a lot of experiences from different aspects of film productions. Could you share some of those experiences?

Law: I learned mostly from Johnnie To. The most important thing I learned from him is that as a director, you should have profound knowledge on dramatic acting, and in fact you should even know how to act well. Sometimes when you are unable to explain your ideas orally, you have to perform it yourself.

Cinespot: It seems that the film industry is lacking newcomers to fill the gap. What do you think?

Law: There are many reasons, say, if you were the boss, would you believe in a fledgling director? And how much would you invest on him? Filmmaking is business after all. Even if a new director can find a really compelling subject to film, if it has no commercial value and it causes the investor to lose money, who would dare to invest again?

Cinespot: This year the mainland is planning to tighten the co-production policy again. How do you see our relationship with the mainland market?

Law: It takes time to develop... Take bootlegs as an example, while this problem is very serious in the mainland, the situation in Hong Kong is getting better now, as the government is spending more time and effort to deal with it, and it is the same case for the mainland, they need more time to take control of it. I believe that we certainly value the mainland market, as it is a Chinese community after all. About the limitations on the subject matter, it is sometimes inevitable to follow their policy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the interview was successful. Director Law Wing-cheong was very generous and answered all of our questions in details. Again, we would like to appreciate director Law for sharing his valuable time with us. Please give a round applause to director Law!

Special thanks to Media Asia for coordinating and making the interview possible.

Thank you!

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

2/2006

Click here to go back to Part I.