Lau Ho-leung on cops, gangsters and movies
- By Tom Cunliffe
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E-mail China.org.cn, May 19, 2015
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Lau Ho-leung [Photo/China.org.cn] |
"I went to watch a movie with a gangster boss," Lau recalled. "In one of the scenes a policeman caught a gangster, and this gangster boss I was with got very excited. Wait a second, I felt very strange about this – why was this gangster boss so excited about seeing a gangster in the film being caught? What if they caught you? And the gangster boss replied that when he's watching a movie he thinks he is the policeman and gets behind the police characters. So I thought it would be very interesting to create this story."
Again, the message that actions are louder than words – no matter who you are or what you do – shines through.
Unlike many other film industries in the world, especially Hollywood, where the script is very important, filmmaking in Hong Kong makes use of a much more flexible approach, as Lau described.
"I went to the location on every movie I've written because in Hong Kong we have a very strange method in writing a script. We go to the location and write a script on that location. Every day was like this. We don't know what we'll be shooting tomorrow. Some of the directors will just change the script on the spot whilst shooting. This is Hong Kong style!"
Lau said that no matter where he shoots a film, be it a co-production with Chinese mainland or a film in America, it will still be a Hong Kong movie with a Hong Kong feel or flavor.
"Two Thumbs Up" is one of several similarly themed films recently made in Hong Kong that seem to mark a mini resurgence of the cops and robbers genre. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues over the next few years.
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