There needed to be a lot whirling round in Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s thoughts because the Shanghai International Movie Pageant (SIFF) was drawing to a detailed.
Vital selections have been pending in his function because the jury head for the occasion’s essential Golden Goblet competitors, and there was a masterclass filled with hungry younger minds, prepared to hold on his each phrase, scheduled for that very afternoon.
Then there was the impact of the fixed and inescapable noise being generated in and across the competition all week lengthy about elements affecting the very way forward for the movie {industry} — chief amongst them the appearance of synthetic intelligence (AI) and falling international box-office returns.
However what the Hong Kong star does when he sits down to talk is precisely what he’s been doing throughout a profession that now spans over 4 a long time. Leung delivers.
First, and unprompted, Leung sound-checks the recording tools for the video crew who’ve joined us to verify all the things is working easily, after which he eases again right into a dialog that covers all these points, and extra.
So let’s begin with the industry-focused facets of the dialogue, as a result of at this 12 months’s SIFF there was a stream of AI-focused seminars dissecting the professionals and cons of those technological advances — and their impression on the movie {industry}.
“I think AI is a double-edged sword,” he says. “It saves us a lot of time on pre-production and post-production. It saves a lot of money but this will go to mainstream movies, the popcorn ones — because [AI filmmaking] is easier and saves money. But at the same time, a lot of people have lost their jobs. You don’t need to think. There’s no creativity. It’s just calculations … there’s no soul.”
These are points — and challenges — the {industry} will proceed to face, says Leung, together with find out how to appeal to a rising era for whom movie is just not the one leisure possibility, because it was for him rising up within the Hong Kong of the Seventies, when there gave the impression to be a cinema down each road.
“When I was a kid, I enjoyed that kind of theatrical experiences. That, to me, is movies,” says Leung. “You have to watch it in a big screen. If not, you will miss a lot of film language, a lot of details. So when I was a kid, I used to watch a movie in a big cinema with a big screen, and this was just good.”
Leung has to this point resisted the temptations of content material supplied on smaller gadgets — “I don’t even watch movies at home,” he says — and noticed his masterclass as a possibility to achieve a youthful viewers in Shanghai, with a sold-out screening of his newest function — the distinctly arthouse musing of Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Pal — set to precede the session.
“We need to educate them on how to enjoy different types of movies, not just one template,” he says. “It’s not just enjoyment, but sometimes [movies] don’t have an answer for you and you have to try to figure it out yourself. That’s why we need different kinds of movies. I think smaller-scale productions will dominate the market because of so many challenges — the short-form videos, the streaming, the gaming, and all other entertainment. The new generation, they have never had a theatrical experience so you have to find a way to invite these young kids to go to cinema.”
For the previous week, Leung has led a jury of administrators Guan Hu, Aktan Arym Kubat, Déa Kulumbegashvili and Fernanda Valadez, producer Dora Bouchoucha and actress Xin Zhilei.
They’ve watched, and mentioned, and judged the relative deserves of 12 movies from a mixed 15 international locations and territories.
“It’s been a very interesting experience,” says Leung. “To me it’s a learning process because I can hear [the jurors’] opinions, and it’s very subjective. There are a lot of different perspectives, so it’s fun. I think you need surprises from movies and of course the film can resonate across our whole team, but all of us agree we can enjoy a movie in a different way.”
By way of his personal profession — one which began with Hong Kong’s home TVB channel and has since moved via motion classics (Infernal Affairs) and a superb spell below the gaze of auteur Wong Kar-wai (Joyful Collectively, Within the Temper for Love) and on to Hollywood (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) — Leung appears genuinely thrilled and impressed by the transfer into European arthouse circles with Enyedi.
“It was chaos,” he laughs, of his expertise making a film concerning the lifetime of a ginkgo tree and the individuals who come into contact with it. “I really enjoyed working with such a mini crew. We found a harmony, like dancing together. You don’t know what we are going to do next. It’s really, really interesting and inspiring.”
Forward awaits a beforehand introduced venture with fellow Hong Kong veteran Johnnie To, a return to his roots (of kinds) in a Hong Kong sequence made for a streamer, and extra work with Enyedi, he says. There’s even the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye when providing a “maybe,” and a pause, to a query concerning the prospects of a reunion with Wong.
“I choose the director first,” says Leung. “What kind of story, what genre, is not important to me. I need to have some feelings for this person or love their movies or I love this person but I never plan because I don’t want to control something that I can’t control because that’s life — it won’t happen as you wish.”
