Filmmakers in Asia are increasingly reaching beyond their national audiences to attract viewers in other Asian countries. HAQ interviews Peter Chan, the director of films such as "He's a Woman, She's a Man" and "Comrades: Almost a Love Story", and a pioneer of the new Pan-Asian cinema.

Peter Chan is a Hong Kong film director whose credits include “He’s a Woman, She’s a Man” (1994) with Leslie Cheung and Anita Yuen, and “Comrades: Almost a Love Story” (1996) with Maggie Cheung and  Leon Lai, which won nine prizes including best picture at the Hong Kong Film Festival. In 1991, Chan was a co-founder of the independent film makers’ group UFO (United Filmmakers Organization). In April 2000 he joined directors Teddy Chen and Allan Fung to form Applause Pictures, a Hong Kong production house that aims to foster ties among Asian film industries.

HAQ: You have said before that Asian co-productions are the future of Asia’s film industry, and your establishment of Applause Pictures was one step in this direction. How successful has the project been so far?

Chan: It’s not exactly a project, it’s more like a career that will carry on into the future. I came out of the Hong Kong film industry in the 1980s and 90s, which was its heyday. I started Applause Pictures two years ago in the midst of the downfall of Hong Kong film, and we looked to the greater Asian region as more than a market for Hong Kong films. Neighboring countries are increasingly recognizing other Asian films – mainly from Korea and Thailand. As a film fan myself, I have been very much attracted to the young and energetic films from these two countries, which are not limited by the norms and restrictions we have in Hong Kong. Everything is still relatively fresh for them, and there is no set formula for how to make movies. In Hong Kong, movies from other Asian countries have been box-office successes, in part due to Hong Kong’s very open-minded audience and its willingness to experiment with new languages and cultures in film.

Korean & Thai films will fit into the vacuum that Hong Kong films have left. Being a Hong Kong filmmaker, I want to continue to support Hong Kong films as much as I can, but you can’t beat your own drum and say your own films are good when the quality has really gone down. Audiences’ trust of mainstream Hong Kong films has also diminished, apart from a few really exceptional movies. The major market for Hong Kong films has always been Asia, and our first export country was Taiwan. When these countries turn their backs on Hong Kong, we can’t survive. When we started Applause Pictures, we wanted to make sure our films were not just for Hong Kong, but for Asia in general. I am doing this not because I am a pioneer, but out of necessity. If we don’t do it today, we’ll all be drinking from a pool of dead water.

HAQ: How does pan-Asian film work as a business proposition? 

Chan: In terms of film, Asia can really be seen as a single domestic market, and the domestic market is critical for any film industry. In Hong Kong the market is only 6 million, which is too small to support even independent films. But if we add the population of Korea, which has 40 million; Thailand, which has 60 million; Japan, which has 150 million; Taiwan, which has 20 million; and Singapore, which has 3 million – the total population is around 300 million, which is even bigger than the US domestic market. Hollywood films are successful because they have a strong domestic market, and they can produce a large volume of films. If Asian films have a larger domestic market, we can do exactly the same thing.

HAQ: Will the new Asian cinema as you envision it be something that ordinary people in Asia enjoy?

Chan: That’s precisely our goal. There have always been independent and artsy pan-Asian and international films that fall into niche markets. These films are really for the more intellectual and open-minded crowd, since it’s easier to cross boundaries where there is an educated audience. But what we want to do now is make popular films that will also be enjoyed by ordinary citizens all over Asia. I think there’s really no formula, and that’s why it’s exciting. In most genres, there is a way of categorizing your film. For pan-Asian cinema, every film is a different combination.

HAQ: How have you approached the making of  pan-Asian films? What are some examples of your work so far?

Chan: There have always been foreign art films from Japan, Korea, and other countries, but in the past few years we have seen more mainstream crossover hits. Instead of waiting for the next Love Letter from Japan or, on a more popular note, waiting for Iron Ladies from Thailand or My Wife’s a Gangster from Korea, we are trying to start everything from the ground up. Rather than making a Korean movie, a Hong Kong movie, or a Thai movie and hoping that it’s popular and then selling it, we want to create a network with filmmakers and distributors. I have great relationships with other film directors, since we really appreciate each other’s films.

One great example of our work is One Fine Spring Day, directed by Heo Jin-Ho. Another example is Jan Dara, which is a very Thai movie with a very Thai theme, and essentially the only capacity that Applause had in it was as an investor. Jan Dara was an entirely different genre because of the controversial nature of the book and the popularity of Thai cinema both in and out of Thailand. We convinced the director to use a movie star from Hong Kong, Christy Chung, which helped sales internationally. The film got ten times more attention than it would have received without Christy. But one can’t really do this in every film since putting a Chinese actress in a Thai film is not always the best way to package a movie.

In the case of Jan Dara, it was the creative casting choice that made the film pan-Asian. Sometimes it’s not about how good the film is, but about the ability to bring the ordinary Joe into the theater. Otherwise, it would merely stay at the level of a “foreign film”.

People in Asia are quite unfamiliar with the Thai language, but might be familiar with the Chinese language. So Hong Kong really works to connect local industries to the rest of Asia. For example, Korean films are becoming popular in Hong Kong, and Thai films have, somewhat selectively, become quite successful in Hong Kong as well. So we are trying to be the middle, to bridge the difference among Asian peoples.

HAQ: What new projects are you working on right now?

Chan: I am in the middle of a project called Three, for which we’ve moved several steps forward and taken three directors from three different countries – Korea, Thailand, and Hong Kong – to make a film with three sets of languages, actors, and locations. It’s an omnibus film, with three short films put together. All three directors are popular, which will create a large domestic base.

Hong Kong filmgoers will have no problem with this film as I am directing a third of it, and they are used to both Korean and Thai films. However, in Korea, this will probably be most moviegoers’ first experience with the Thai language and Thai cinema. In Thailand also, the audience will likely never have watched Korean films before, but will probably watch the movie because two-thirds of the movie is in languages that they are used to – Thai and Chinese. And then they see the Korean part that will broaden their range and their taste for other types of film. Every example is different. You have to do it very carefully, and every time you never know what the result will be. That’s where the fun is.

HAQ: What are the limitations on the growth of pan-Asian film?

Chan: I think the biggest limitation today is still the distribution people. They are conservative, stick to the “hard facts” and are not dreamers. They are not supposed to be dreamers. They look at precedents and box office records and argue against you – they’ll say that a Korean film has never worked in Thailand and therefore they wouldn’t want to release an experimental film. The business side of filmmaking is the single biggest obstacle for pan-Asian cinema.  There’s nothing wrong with their attitude – there’s always a balance between the creative people and the business people. 

HAQ: Is Asia’s  linguistic diversity a barrier?

Chan: A lot of people will tell you the problem is language, but I strongly disagree. Hollywood films control 80% of the market share in Asia, and they are in English. And don’t kid yourself, not everybody reads and speaks English in Asia – a lot of people read subtitles. And then you say it’s because people are used to English due to years of exposure to American movies. But then again, why can’t they get used to the Thai language or the Korean language?

I think Hong Kong is not in as good a shape as Korea, where there is a revival in the domestic cinema. But based on the Hong Kong experience I can tell you that in ten years or less, Korea will go through what Hong Kong went through a few years ago, because what goes up must come down. If you don’t have a big enough domestic market – and as strong as Korean cinema is today, the country’s population is only 40 million – you still don’t have the competitive edge to go up against Hollywood. Yes, it is 7 times bigger than Hong Kong, but it is still 6 or 7 times smaller than the US. So I think that the way forward for Asian films is through the development of pan-Asian cinema. When I say pan-Asian I don’t mean that all films have to be pan-Asian, but if a certain percentage of films, say 10 or 20% every year, are pan-Asian, those films will become an alternative to Hollywood films. There will still be very local products that do well domestically and abroad as art house films or foreign films. But I do want to create something that can balance the products coming from Hollywood.

HAQ: Do you think Hong Kong will become the center of Asian film?

Chan: I don’t think there will be a single center. Asian films should be made in different places. I don’t believe that there should be a Hollywood for Asia, because when Asian film becomes like Hollywood it will become formulaic. In a way Hong Kong was the center of Asian film 15 years ago, when Hong Kong films were made all across Asia. But in the future I don’t think this will be the case, because the Koreans are very strong. However, even the Koreans need Hong Kong to communicate with the rest of the world. This is not only because of their language, but also because they are not as comfortable communicating with the West as Hong Kong is. We’re much more used to working with people from different countries, and Hong Kong people are very open-minded. So Hong Kong will play an important part in the deal-making aspect of pan-Asian cinema, but I don’t think it will be the production center.

HAQ: Will this shifting of emphasis hurt filmmaking in Hong Kong?

Chan: No, I don’t think it will hurt. If Hong Kong films are good, they will always come back. Outside the film industry, Hong Kong has always been a great dealmaker, although it has never really been a production place. Everything else in Hong Kong is about being a middleman and facilitating transactions. In the movie industry, though, we have a great pool of creative people, technicians, and directors. I think the reason that Hong Kong films have declined in popularity is that Hong Kong people are still looking for stories to tell. They don’t have stories to tell right now because they have yet to ascertain their true identity. That will take some time – a few years, maybe even a decade.

The fact that we are dealmakers will not hurt the film industry. It will only help. It means that we will be exposed to the best filmmakers and films from the rest of Asia, which will only inspire other Hong Kong filmmakers to make better films. In the last two years I have worked with many young and talented filmmakers from different countries in Asia who have inspired me. I hope they will inspire other directors in Hong Kong too.