"TRIAD" Production Blog #1

My new film project "TRIAD" had its first production meeting today at the Local Productions office. Present were our 2 lead actors, William Chan and Derek Tsang, our maverick producer Ng Kin Hung from Local Productions, Chucky Kom our Co-writer, Jimmy Wan our Line Producer and of course yours truly. For 5 hours we discussed script and characters and what it's like to be a gangster in the 90's which is when the film is set in ...In 2007, Producer Ng made "Rebellion" starring Shawn Yue and Chapman To... Since then, there hasn't been a gangster or triad film made in Hong Kong... Since 2004 I have been working on numerous variations of the same screenplay, and I am proud to say, "TRIAD" is the amalgamation of 7 years of research and rewrites. I always thought of my writing as "DA BOMB" until May this year when I met a pair of prolific writers Frankie Tam and Chucky Kom that I realized I still had so much to learn about gang culture in Hong Kong... 7 months later, here we are, going into pre-production with a great script that Frankie and Chucky co-wrote together...   For the past few weeks, William, Jimmy and I were luck enough to meet with a lot of "Active" triad members and retired gangsters in Hong Kong as part of our research process. I can't speak for William, but I was very intimidated by their sheer presence. What questions would you ask a gang member the first time you meet them? It took me a few meetings with them to build some rapport and soon, we were taken on a ride through the volatile and often violent history of of the Hong Kong TRIADs... While I can't exactly share any of these anecdotes here with you guys, I can say one thing that pretty much sums up my impressions of the working gangsters in Hong Kong... "There is no honor amongst gangsters"... These days the police will try and do anything and everything to get the "dirt" they need... As the saying goes loose lips sinks ships... The mere mention of gang affiliation will land you in prison for a minimum of 8 months... Many newbies would blap their gang ties, get turned by the police and "rat" on their superiors...Cos of my size, I have often been told by these "Uncles" that I would make a good "Red Baton" (The muscle of the gang) which carries the code rank "426" back in the old days... Strangely enough, modern gangsters are businessmen, fighting costs money and why spend money on hiring muscle when that money can be spent on bridging gaps and mending fences... 426's are few and far between nowadays... So I guess I should stick to making movies for now... Stay tuned for more updates...