Full exposure Six very different directors with films screening at BIFF lay bare the passions that drive their work
YONFAN The Hong Kong director tells Liz Shackleton why he is personally overseeing the digital restoration of his 13 films, a selection of which are being screened in Busan
An independent film-maker who emerged in the 1980s, Yonfan is one of the few real auteurs in Hong Kong’s commerce-driven film industry. Born in China in 1947, he grew up in Taiwan and moved to Hong Kong as a teenager, where he started taking photographs on film sets. He then studied in the US, spent several years mixing in Europe’s art circles, then returned to Hong Kong in 1973 where he worked as an importer of European arthouse titles and as a celebrity portrait photographer. He started making films in the early 1980s — writing, directing, producing and working as art director on his movies. “I don’t think there is a great
difference between still photography or cinematography,” Yonfan explains. “A good still photo can be in action or tranquil according to your will; so should the motion picture. The only difference is the scale of the production.” His early works, such as A Certain
Romance (1984) and Story Of Rose (1985), were more mainstream romantic films that
MASATO HARADA Japanese writer-director Masato Harada talks to Jason Gray about his latest work, Chronicle Of My Mother, which is the closing film at BIFF
Mainstream movie-goers who do not follow Japanese cinema may be more familiar with multi-hyphenate Masato Harada than they realise. Playing opposite Tom Cruise in the role of scheming Meiji era capitalist Omura in 2003’s The Last Samurai, Harada’s mustachioed manipulator made a strong impression. But for Harada, acting is a sideline. A respected film critic since the 1970s, he has also written novels and even translated the Japanese subtitles for the likes of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. But it is Harada’s 19 features as writer-
director, including several English-language productions, that truly display the range of his creativity, shifting between pop social commentary (Bounce Ko Gals), sports dramas (Rowing Through), horror and science fiction
(Suicide Song, Gunhed) and intense docu-dramas (The Choice Of Hercules, Climber’s High). His latest work, Chronicle Of My Mother, closes
BIFF on October 14. Harada reunited with star Koji Yakusho for the fifth time in their careers for this affecting drama based on famed author Yasushi Inoue’s novel. “It is an absolute honour,” says Harada of the
closing-night spot. “I have close ties to the Korean film world and would like to collaborate on a project in the near future.” He is also attending Busan’s Asian Project Market with East Wind, Rain. The screening holds further importance for
Harada as the first opportunity to see the film with a festival audience. “In Korean society the concept of ‘a mother’s love’ is very strong, so Busan is the perfect place for me to experience the film with an audience for the first time.”
helped introduce leading Hong Kong stars such as Maggie Cheung and Chow Yun- fat. In the 1990s he began making films that dealt with marginalised characters: transsexuals in Bugis Street (1995) and gay hustlers in Bishonen (1998). His last film, Prince Of Tears, which premiered at the Venice film festival in 2009, is a historical drama set in 1950s Taiwan during the anti-Communist campaign. Yonfan’s films are a visual treat —
lush romances with colour-saturated photography — and his storytelling has a touch of wry humour beneath the melodrama. He is now undertaking the digital restoration of his 13 titles and Fortissimo Films is handling sales of the library outside Hong Kong. A BIFF retrospective is screening a selection of the digitally restored films. “I’m personally supervising every step
of the restoration, because those chapters were once your love affairs, you want them to be told correctly or at least the way you want,” he says.
n 12 Screen International October 2011
www.screendaily.com
Benny Li Shun Yan
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