31-3-09: 100 YEARS AND COUNTING, continued

Day 2 of the Hong Kong Film Market

The second day of Filmart showed no major decline in the floor traffic and buzz of projects pitched, pondered and passed upon.

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I was happy to meet my friend Ryu Seung-woon, the Korean director (and star!) of ‘City of prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Violence’ (still available from Dragon Dynasty), who was in town with his lovely wife (and producing partner) Kang and their colleague Kyungmi. Ryu had a tough thriller called ‘I, Enforce’ in the Hong Kong Asia Financing (HAF) forum. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of hard boiled American cinema, and told me this was going to walk the line between Get Carter and Point Blank.

I also got to meet the remarkable Gareth Evans, British director of the upcoming Indonesian actioner Merantau. He was in town with his Indonesian producer and with Todd Brown, the creative genius behind Twitchfilm.net, who is helping promote the film. Merantau focuses on the martial art of Silat, and specifically Harimau Silat. One of my old friends from my martial arts magazine days, Richard De Bords, is a ‘guru’ of this style, so it’s great to see it move centre stage for what looks to be an impressive low-budget actioner. (Coincidentally, I just shot an interview for a Silat documentary where I shared my memories of Richard.)

Mid-afternoon, my associate Nick Eriksson was dispatched to pick up my son Ryan from school and deliver him to the Filmart. It was a real surprise for Ryan, getting to come and check out a slice of the local movie world, and on a school night! (I had first cleared it with his Mom, of course, who has given in to the fact that her eldest son is fascinated by the industry, and may not, in fact, covet a proper job.)

Ryan and I encountered my friend, and his idol, Jack Neo, the Singaporean actor/director. The first movie that Ryan discovered as his own personal favourite film was Jack’s ‘I Am Not Stupid, Too’, and he was delighted to get the chance to pepper its director with questions, and to demand a role in ‘I Am Not Stupid, Still’ (if such a film is ever made!).

I was happily surprised to encounter ‘Mortal Kombat’ star Robin Shou, in town to develop a low-budget actioner he’s going to shoot in the region. I worked with Robin on my very first film, Guns and Roses, which was shot in Burrrrmingham, England, London, Paris and Hong Kong. Robin looked to be in great shape, fresh off his recent role in the new ‘Streetfighter’ movie. Given the success of the first Mortal Kombat (still the best bash ‘em up videogame inspired flick), I’m surprised we haven’t seen even more of Robin. We released DOA, in which he had a cameo. Ryan regarded him quizzically and said “Aren’t you that guy from Death Race?” (Yes, I know an 11-year-old probably shouldn’t have seen that film, but that’s another story…)

After the market had closed for the day, it was time for the traditional TWC HK beer and pizza bash at Pepperoni’s in Soho. As ever, we attracted a selection of the more wild and wonderful Filmart attendees, and a good time was had by all (I hope!). We had a lucky draw to give away some Dragon Dynasty DVDs. (Unfortunately, Nick missed it because he was downstairs in the bar doing Ryan’s homework for, sorry, with him…)

Attending the bash was David Huey, director/producer from Cine Excel, who I’ve known forever. Here’s a funny story about David: When I first met him, at Milan Film Market, I only knew him as a film-maker, and I said “You know, there’s a book on kung fu spear play published by Unique Publications, and the guy demonstrating is also called David Huey, and, believe it or not, he even looks a bit like you!” David regarded me blandly. “That’s because it is me…”

Tsui Hark and Nansun Shi held an event at Elements to celebrate 25 years of their Film Workshop.

A ‘who’s who’ of industry legends was at hand to witness, among other things, the reunion between former cohorts John Woo and Tsui. Tsui produced Woo’s first two A Better Tomorrow films and The Killer, but apparently relations between the two cooled, largely, rumour has it, due to a clash over the remake rights to The Killer. (And the film still hasn’t been remade!) All of us who love and respect John and Tsui were happy to see the two men share the stage.

I was also delighted to encounter Ringo Lam, with his movie star handsome son Royce. I remember Royce when he came up to my knee… It’s a true sign of your age when your friend’s sons are getting taller than you are (or, in the case of Roy Horan’s daughter Celina Jade, who I saw earlier in the day at Filmart, smarter.)

To round things out, Nick Eriksson met one of his all-time idols, the great Eric Tsang. Nick may well be the world’s great Infernal Affairs fan, and was thrilled to pay his respects to one of our finest multi hyphenate character actors.