Lau Ching-wan Hasn't Made a Love Story in Years. In *A Tale of Three Cities*, He Says, He Found a Little of Old Hong Kong

"The love story I want to make is very simple: you love one person, and you just love that one person. What choices you make, and how your choices and your fate play out."

Lau Ching-wan has not starred in a love story for a long time.

Think back over his films of the past few years: Overheard, Life Without Principle, The White Storm, Storm Words (《暴疯语》). All of them are cops-and-robbers films. They may have some romance in them, but as Lau puts it, films like these use love as packaging: they add a bit of romance, or a few jokes. A film purely about love is still a hard sell once commercial considerations come in.

So A Tale of Three Cities, just released, gave him a chance to star in a pure love story. Lau plays Fang Daolong, who is in fact Jackie Chan's father. The film is based on Chan's parents. Most of the details come from the director's imagination, but the main story is unchanged.

In a time of war, Lau's Fang Daolong falls in love with Chen Yuerong, played by Tang Wei. They move through three cities, and only after many setbacks do they finally end up together.

Still from A Tale of Three Cities

Lau says it is not that he hasn't wanted to make love stories in recent years, but that "there are fewer love stories."

For one thing, as the Hong Kong film market shrank, fewer people were willing to fund or make love stories. Lau may feel this more than most. He stays mostly in Hong Kong, and he usually finds his next film over dinner with friends: someone mentions a project and asks whether he wants to be in it. If it sounds right, he takes it.

For another, "directors who make love stories would rather cast younger actors." And for him it also depends on how the script is written. A girl who loves him, and also loves another man, is not the kind of story he likes. The love story he wants to make is very simple: you love one person, and you just love that one person.

A Tale of Three Cities is that kind of film, and the director couple Mabel Cheung and Alex Law happened to come to Lau for the role. When they approached him in 2013, his schedule did not really fit, but Cheung, the director, and Law, the producer, felt that Lau matched the character. Law says they told Lau "I'll wait for you," just as Daolong waits for Yuerong in the film. In the end they did work together.

Two Hong Kong directors made a pure love story set in wartime. For Lau, it was another chance to act in a love story, many years after films such as C'est la vie, mon chéri (《新不了情》) and Lost in Time (《忘不了》).

Still from A Tale of Three Cities

For the film's backers, though, it is still a gamble.

Even with the actors asking very low fees, recreating wartime scenes pushed the budget of A Tale of Three Cities to 70-80 million yuan. As of September 1, six days after release, the film had taken a little over 11 million yuan at the box office. Wang Zhonglei of Huayi Brothers, the film's backer, angrily accused cinemas on Weibo of stealing its box office. Behind the anger, the worry about the film's takings is plain.

This year Lau won Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards for Overheard 3. In his acceptance speech he made a declaration of love to his wife, Amy Kwok, and interviewers often asked him about it while he promoted A Tale of Three Cities. That is no surprise: for a film like this, the selling point, besides love, is love as played by Lau, Tang Wei, Qin Hailu and Jing Boran, or the love story of Jackie Chan's parents.

Many people who have seen the film do not think much of it, and say it reminds them of The Crossing and The Golden Era. It looks as though the pure love story Lau came back to after so many years will not do especially well at the box office.

Q: QDaily

L: Lau Ching-wan

Q: How did this film come to you?

L: I think it was June 2013. The producer Nansun Shi gave me the script.

Q: Did you decide to do it as soon as you read the script?

L: It actually took a while. When I read the script, I liked it. But I had already signed on to The White Storm and Overheard, and because of those films I was afraid I wouldn't have time to practice many things. I worried there wouldn't be enough time to prepare for this one. I kept worrying about it, and I thought for a long time about whether to do it or not. If I said yes, I needed time to prepare everything properly.

Q: Why were you so cautious?

L: Because I really wanted to work with Mabel Cheung. I had seen her films, a lot of them. We were in the same film world, in Hong Kong, and had never had a chance to work together. I rarely get to be in a film by a woman director. There aren't many women directors to begin with. I really wanted to see what Lau Ching-wan would turn into in Mabel Cheung's hands.

Q: And what did he turn into? Was it what you imagined?

L: When I watched it at the dubbing stage, I found it a little unlike me. A little unlike the feel of the films I'd made before. It's hard to say exactly how. It's just different from what male directors shoot. A man's view of me and a woman's view of me are very different. A male director generally wouldn't shoot me like this. For example, there's a scene with my scarf. She would say the scarf isn't right like that, the clothes aren't pulled right like that.

I think this character is the director's real Fang Daolong, her script, and Lau Ching-wan, all mixed together. In this love story, the love isn't between me and Tang Wei. The love is Mabel Cheung's. It's hers, all of it: what love is like in this world, what the male lead should be like, what Tang Wei should be like, all of it is her imagination. Everything romantic in the film is hers.

Q: So it sounds like the role was quite a challenge?

L: I'd say it was a bit difficult at the start. At first I didn't yet understand the world of Mabel Cheung's films: how she thinks about this story, what kind of relationship these characters have. Later, as we shot, it got easier.

Q: Having read the script and played the role, did he turn out different from the character you had imagined?

L: A little. The character as I actually played him is gentler than the Fang Daolong I imagined. I imagined him as tougher, somewhat... not so tender.

Q: Do you think he became gentler because you were the one playing him?

L: I think the director also liked the character having a gentler side. She told me this man is a bit rough and fairly blunt. But he is very good to Yuerong. She likes the gentler side of this man.

Q: While making this film, did you suggest any changes to the script?

L: Not many. Only in one or two scenes. For example, there's a scene where Yuerong comes to our house for dinner and we drink together. The director wanted us to interact more and look at each other. I told her, why don't we have a drinking race, see who drinks faster? That would feel more natural on camera. Otherwise, me looking at her and her looking at me the whole time would be strange. So we did it that way. And then my father, watching us, feels the two of us really are a perfect match.

Q: This role was once meant for Jiang Wen and Gong Li. How do you think your version differs from what Jiang Wen would have done?

L: Oh! That's hard to say. Different actors play a part very differently. It's hard for me to imagine how Jiang Wen would (play it). But Jiang Wen is a very good director and a very good actor. If Jiang Wen had played it, maybe the box office would be a bit better. (Laughs)

Q: In recent years you've rarely made pure love stories like this.

L: Because there are very few (of these films). Pure love stories are generally difficult (commercially). Directors usually won't make a pure love story. They add some comedy, and if not comedy, then cops and robbers, as packaging. Inside the packaging there's love, but only as one part. The story isn't mainly about love. Love just happens in the film and makes everything more complicated. Films like A Tale of Three Cities that talk about love so simply are rare. Who would come and see it? (Laughs)

Q: When you say love stories have become fewer, you mean the Hong Kong market, right? On the mainland there are still quite a lot of them.

L: Right, the mainland is actually different. You'll find this film of ours is different from what you usually watch. But in most places love stories are heavily reworked. Now a lot of films have a girl who loves one man and also loves another. Or a guy who loves you and also loves her. It's always that. And there's more witty dialogue, a faster pace. And everything gets said out loud in the lines, with less actual acting. The love itself matters less. It's all lines to make the audience laugh. That's the more common approach.

Something as pure as A Tale of Three Cities is rare now. It has almost no jokes. It doesn't say "I love you" over and over, doesn't lecture about love, doesn't tell you what love should be. Tang Wei and I don't have many scenes together. Every time we're together and feel the future holds some hope, we're separated.

Q: Why do you think that is?

L: Maybe Hong Kong film still loves cops-and-robbers and action.

Q: The films you've made in recent years all lean toward cops and robbers and tough guys, very masculine films.

L: Actually, I didn't deliberately choose them. Usually I read the script and talk to the director. Take The White Storm: I hadn't made a film with the director Benny Chan for a long time. Then he told me about a film he was making with Louis Koo. He wanted to make that type of film, and there would be a song in the middle. It was that simple. A lot of the time, that's how our films start. We meet up and say, let's make a film together, we haven't worked together in ages. Especially the Overheard series. Overheard isn't cops-and-robbers; it's actually a very dramatic film. There's plenty of romance in it too.

Still from Overheard

Q: People now say Hong Kong has a missing generation of actors. Hong Kong's male stars used to come out of places like the TVB training class, and those are gone now, right?

L: Most still come from the TV station. But in our day there was a training class, a year of lessons. That training class seems to be gone now. Now, to become an actor in Hong Kong, you have to get into a performing arts school, or come in some other way. Maybe you start by playing minor roles at the TV station. A training class like ours doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Q: Why has it come to this? Is the missing generation because the market is in decline?

L: It isn't really a missing generation. I think there are just fewer actors now. Because in Hong Kong it seems not many people are making films or shows anymore, and there are very few films. There's one reason: the market is better on the mainland now. It's just that many of their actors don't have to make films; they make TV dramas as well. Films are few, (but) China makes a lot of TV dramas every year, so there are many more opportunities. Maybe the actors have all chosen TV dramas. The real gap is that fewer films are being made.

Q: In recent years we seem to rarely see films with a purely Hong Kong flavor.

L: You could say that. Hong Kong used to sell (films) to places like Southeast Asia, but that market has dropped off. Back when Hong Kong didn't yet have a mainstream, nobody knew what to make. That was when Johnnie To, Wai Ka-fai and I just made films. Because there was no mainstream, people actually had a chance to do something different. Later the market changed. OK, now I hear one film has made 2 billion yuan, and it's all here. Many Hong Kong directors now think about the mainland market when they make a film, and aim it there.

Many people worry that local Hong Kong film is gone, because the films directors make now aren't made for Hong Kong audiences. But I see it differently. Like what you just said about the Hong Kong flavor of Hong Kong film: the 1980s and 1990s had the Hong Kong flavor of their time. Now Hong Kong film has changed, the market has changed. We can't keep every old flavor alive in the present.

Those things belong to the past. Today's Hong Kong film has the flavor today's Hong Kong film should have. We have to change. The world is changing; if we don't change, we lose everything. We would still be making the films of the 1980s and 1990s, and audiences wouldn't go to see them, because the young people who go to the cinema now won't watch your old stuff. So you're right that the old Hong Kong flavor is gone, because the old is past. As for A Tale of Three Cities, I actually think it keeps some of the old flavor.

Q: Which part of it has the Hong Kong flavor?

L: The rhythm, and the way it looks at things. Mabel Cheung's world is very particular. There are no bad people in it. Her bad guys are only characters like Cai Yinghua, who barely count as bad at all. Her world is a fairy-tale world, a beautiful world. So her films, the films she made in Hong Kong before, didn't have that much Hong Kong flavor either. Hong Kong film back then was that kind of action film. Action, bang bang bang. Go back and watch An Autumn's Tale. The reason I like her films is that, for that era, it was a completely different kind of film. Love, really interesting.

Still from An Autumn's Tale

Q: Speaking of films with a Hong Kong flavor, I think of Temporary Family. It isn't cops-and-robbers or action, not the same type as before, but it has a Hong Kong flavor too.

L: I've seen that film too, and I also think it's no longer the old type. It breaks out of the mold a bit more. It's closer to the way mainland films do things. The whole film is more like the romantic comedies we see on the mainland. Anyway, watching it, I didn't feel it resembled the kind of Hong Kong film we used to see. Compare Mabel Cheung's An Autumn's Tale: her An Autumn's Tale broke out of the mold in its day, broke out completely. It was different.

Q: It seems you still like working with Hong Kong directors.

L: I live close to them. I haven't really thought about which directors I should work with. If mainland directors have good scripts, I can work with them too. It's just that in Hong Kong I live near them. Directors nearby have dinner together, chat a little, and a lot of the time that's how films get made. When I'm not working in Hong Kong, I don't have dinner with many people either. I like to keep things simple. Friends, or staying home.

Q: What kind of film do you want to do next?

L: I've already signed on to one. When I go back in October I'll shoot it, also a true story. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a gangster who robbed, dealt drugs and used drugs himself. After serving time in prison, he changed and became a good man. He used his own experience and abilities to help drug addicts and gangsters. But even after he reformed, he still had a gangster's temperament; that didn't change. A true story.

Q: Do you have a preference for the kind of role you take?

L: Right now I hope to make films, and actually I've always felt this way, that aren't purely commercial, like the one I'm going back to shoot. I want people to know that there really are people in this world who made huge mistakes, but if you give them a chance, they can change. I think that's very important.

I think people today have lost that kind of understanding. Maybe it's because the world we live in now is so competitive, a matter of you or me. There's no compassion, no giving someone a chance to get back on their feet and live a decent life.

Q: And would you still want to take on a pure love story like A Tale of Three Cities?

L: That's a bit difficult. Love stories usually go to younger actors. Love stories go to actors in their 30s; at my (age), the chances of making one are smaller now. It also depends on how the script is written. That's very important. He says it's love, lots of people say it's love, but you have to see what kind of love you yourself want to make.

Q: What kind of love story would move you?

L: The love story I want to make is very simple: you love one person, and you just love that one person. Only that one. That matters a lot to her, and it's not just respect: you have to let her know she's the only one in the world for me. I think I'd like that kind of film much more. Not the kind where you're like her, and the two are much the same. (Laughs) That's not very interesting, is it?