Q. and A.

: Peter Chan on Making Movies in China

Peter Ho-sun Chan, 52, was born in Hong Kong, spent his teenage years in Thailand and studied film in
Los Angeles. Despite his transnational upbringing, the director of films such as Comrades, Almost a Love
Story (1996), about mainland Chinese migrants in Hong Kong, and Perhaps Love (2005), a musical set
in mainland China, still sees himself very much as a Hong Kong filmmaker. No matter what the subject
matter is, the Hong Kong sensibility in me will never change, Mr. Chan said by telephone from Hong
Kong, where he lives. I cant pretend that Im mainland Chinese and make films like a mainland Chinese.
I will always be an observer and a storyteller with a Hong Kong perspective.Mr. Chan has made a number
of Hong Kong-mainland China co-productions over the years, most recently Dearest (2014), starring the
mainland actors Huang Bo and Vicki Zhao, about a couples quest to find their kidnapped son and the
moral issues that arise once they are reunited. Last weekend, Mr. Chans We Pictures company announced
that he would be directing a new film about another mainland Chinese subject: the tennis star Li Na, the
only Grand Slam singles champion ever to come from Asia. Production will begin this year with a
scheduled 2016 release date. In an interview, Mr. Chan talked about Ms. Li, the changing tastes of Chinese
moviegoers, working with censors and what Hollywood will be learning from China.
Q. Why Li Na?
A. Its not just tennis, but also how she represents a whole generation. The people born in the 1980s really

make up a critical mass in China. And I think its time to have a story about somebody from that post-80s
generation that reflects the changing landscape of China today. The sensibilities of the post-80s
generation are very different from traditional Chinese values. China is a very collective society, and
everything is less about self and more on the group, more on the society and the country. Here we have the
post-80s, which is very much a me generation. In that sense shes very, very different from all the
characters that weve been dealing with in American Dreams in China and Dearest. Li has a very
strong personality, and you could not confine her to a group, because she definitely would stand out and
be very visible anywhere you put her. Its very typical of the younger Chinese. They dont like to conform.
Q. What will the film focus on?

The film director Peter Ho-sun Chan.

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A. Well basically cover most of her life. You cant talk about Li Na if you dont show her background. It
probably wont be chronological. There will be flashbacks and flash-forwards. The film will talk about her
childhood and her early teens with the death of her father. Well definitely show both of her matches, the
two Grand Slams, and the period in between.
I think people only see her success and the glory of going independent, when she started to manage her
own career and her own life. But people dont see that she went through a lot. In the first few years she
actually lost money. I dont think she could have done any of it without her husband, Jiang Shan. That
relationship is very important, and its something we are going to show.
Q. Who will play Li Na?

We Distribution

A. No idea. Im going to use real news footage, but Ill also cast an actress to play her, which means that
you will see that there is a real Li Na and that there is an actress Li Na. That will be a challenge, but I dont
think it will be a problem, because I think itll give the film more authenticity.
Q. Dearest takes on the issue of child abduction in China. What about the subject
interested you?
A. I noticed the story in a news documentary, so most of the film is based on fact. Of course there were
fictitious events that we came up with. But what really got me interested was not the issue of child
abduction, it was the story behind the story. There are many layers that are relevant to society today. It
doesnt just focus on the parents who lost the kid, but it was also one of the rare cases in which the parents
found the boy.

A scene from Peter Chans 2014 film Dearest.

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Then you realize that theres another part of the story. The kids were not kidnapped by the people who
kidnap kids for a living, but by the husband of one of the characters in the film. So you see both sides of
the story, of the two sets of parents who raised the kids that were abducted. It makes for a kind of duality.
You see justice balanced against law.

Q. The idea that the characters are all good people doing the best they can in a difficult
situation is kind of reminiscent of the 2011 Iranian film A Separation.
A. Yes. Its different from A Separation because the culture is different, but in a way I think the creative
impulse is pretty similar. In A Separation, the film was about Iran, and it showed how the Islamic
religion affects society. In China, its about the one-child policy and traditional Chinese feudal beliefs that
boys are more important than girls. Its also about rural versus urban and the gap between the rich and the
poor and how girls are abandoned and boys are kidnapped.
Q. What about censorship? The film touches on some sensitive issues such as the one-child
policy and portrays the government at times in a negative light.
A. In terms of censorship, every filmmaker in China knows you have to deal with it. Every place has its
rules. It doesnt matter whether you think theyre reasonable, but its about how you adapt to those rules,
how you push the envelope and make the film you want to make and then show it.
I think the scariest thing about censorship is not censorship, its always self-censorship when you think
its going to be censored and you stop before you even start and then you dont even make the film. So its
about how you push the envelope and how you get through the system.
Yes, there are compromises. But you have to weigh the pros and cons. Are some of the minor details that
important or can you sacrifice them and still tell the story you want to tell? Its a lot of hard work, but we
have to go through that for every film. Thats just the reality of it. And if you dont shy away from the
confrontations, the negotiations and the awkward situations, its always worth it when you can get a movie
past the censors onto the big screens that you can be proud of.
I was actually quite surprised that the film basically passed. I dont think we had to compromise too much.
There were some scenes here and there, you dont have to cut the scenes, but adjust the degree of emotion
or confrontation. The scenes with officials could have been longer or more confrontational like the
scene in the family planning office. That was a very sensitive scene, but it passed through censors. I
probably shot 10 to 15 more seconds of fighting between the parents and the official, but I decided I could
do without it.
Q. One of the production companies behind Dearest was Alibaba Pictures Group, the film
production and investment arm of the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. How would
you describe the increasing influence that nonentertainment-focused companies such as
Alibaba and Wanda have had on the film industry in China?
A. Ive been in the film industry for more than 33 years, but I have not seen a better day for film than the

present day in China. The audience is there, and its getting bigger and bigger. There are more and more
requirements on the consumer side for good-quality products, and then theres full support from the state
in developing the film industry and the content industry. Then you have all the different investors, the
Internet companies, the exhibitors like Wanda and the other big businesses that want to have a piece of
the pie.
A lot of distribution and exhibition methods have been borrowed from the U.S. or Hollywood, because
they are oldest industry. But right now in China there are already more Internet users than in the U.S.,
and the number is still growing. So I think you will see China come up with a lot of very innovative
methods of distribution on the Internet. In that sense I think very soon the world will be borrowing
methods from China.
So over all, the industry is going in a positive direction, but there have still been a lot of complaints in the
last few years. The more intellectual crowd likes to talk about how Chinese films are getting worse and
worse and trashier and trashier, but you have to understand that the demographic has changed. The
reason you see the box office increasing so much is because there are a lot of new cinemas being built in
the third- and fourth-tier cities, so a lot of the box office growth is coming from outside cities. The
audience is getting younger and more rural. The movies they choose to watch are different. Movie ticket
purchasing is the most democratic action in the world, because people buy tickets with their own money,
so they are voting with their money. We can say that they like trash, and we like high-quality films, but
who are we to judge other peoples tastes?
Q. How has the rapid growth of the mainland Chinese film industry affected your work as a
director?
A. As the film market becomes more commercialized, I think a lot of mainland filmmakers have become
very frustrated that their market has turned into what it is today. But its actually a positive development,
because now the market is bigger. Even though there are some films that I might not like, some films that
I actually hate and are making ridiculous amounts of money, it doesnt matter. It makes the box office
bigger. It gives me more freedom to do what I want to do.
For example, five years ago, I would never have been able to raise the financing for a film like Dearest
given its box office prospects in China. It would have been considered an obscure, nonmainstream film.
And those films usually perform terribly. It probably wouldnt have even made 30 to 50 million renminbi
[$4.8 million to $8 million]. Now the film has made 350 million renminbi, which is 10 times what it would
have made a few years ago. So in that sense, I dont think it matters what kind of films have caused the big
picture to change, because the growth in the big picture is helping everyone.
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