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Wanted: hometown heroes >> Will Chiu Cheuk and Tsui Hark save the day for Hong Kong cinema? by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
Directors like John Woo and Ringo Lam, and actors such as Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat, have already been kicking at the gates for a few years now. However, as happy as we are to see the stars of Hong Kong hopping the Pacific for lucrative Hollywood careers, there's a sour flipside to this exodus of talent. The Hong Kong film industry is in something of a crisis right now. Compound financial woes with the directly related departure of many of the former colony's box-office heavyweights, and you've got a local film industry that can't compete with monstrous imports like Titanic. What Hong Kong needs now is a few good men and women. What we call heroes. Chiu Cheuk might be one of those. In Hong Kong, he's had to live in Jet Li's shadow, both as a graduate of the same martial arts school and as Li's replacement in the massive Once Upon a Time in China series. Ironically, Montrealers will know him as a far more diverse actor than Li, having seen him in a wide spectrum of roles. In his first film Fong Sai-Yuk, he played the villain opposite Li (talk about foreshadowing!). In the kung-food freakout The Chinese Feast (a personal fave of this writer), he played a fallen master chef who has to pull himself out of the gutter. And in the stunningly beautiful Green Snake, he was a wrathful monk, torn between heavenly duties and earthly longings. The morally conflicted hero/anti-hero is a staple of HK cinema's "new wave," and you can't get much more conflicted than maintaining a vow of celibacy while being pawed by Maggie Cheung... in wet silk, no less. In his latest film Blacksheep Affair (which Chiu will be in town to present at Fant-Asia), the conflict continues. Chiu plays an elite, patriotic soldier of the mainland Chinese army, stationed in Lavernia, a fictional new Russian state. When not squaring off against a psycho Japanese cult leader, Chiu's character is forced to face his feelings for an old childhood flame who fled the Reds during the turmoil at the end of the '80s. Who does he love more, her or his homeland? Hong Kong's moviemakers face a similar dilemma. Fortunately for Chiu, he has a good lead to follow: that of director/producer Tsui Hark. It was Hark who cast his protégé in Green Snake, and Hark who saw Chui as the ideal replacement for Jet Li in the role of classic Chinese hero Wong Fei-Hong in OUATIC 4 and 5, after a falling-out between Hark and Li. And it was Hark who found Chiu a leading role in The Blade, a fast, dense and profoundly artistic thumbing of the nose at the current unfashionable status of historical martial arts films in Hong Kong. Although Hark has been tackling Jean Claude Van Damme films of late, it should be noted that he's also taken the time to produce HK's first animated feature, a remake of his own Chinese Ghost Story. Then again, Hark is the guy who jumpstarted HK cinema's "new wave" in the early '80s, produced John Woo's breakthrough The Killer, and started the first special FX studio in Hong Kong (Film Workshop). Frankly, Hark won't ditch Hong Kong, at least not until he can make his dream film, the definitive version of the legend of the Monkey King. Like Montreal, Hong Kong faces a brain drain at the hands of the damn Yankees. With heroes like Chui and Hark on hand, the last reel of this little drama might just be a happy one. Chiu Cheuk will be present for screenings of The Blade on Friday, July 10 at 9:15pm, and Blacksheep Affair on Saturday, July 11 at 6:30pm. Both films at Cinéma Impérial
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It's a definitive year for Hong Kong's pop cinema. Jet Li makes his American debut. Jackie Chan's Rush Hour is rushing towards theatres. And Bruce Lee's classic Enter the Dragon, the single most pivotal film in terms of Western awareness of martial arts movies, is back in glorious new prints, for its 20th anniversary.