[Firestorm] Taking risks in a firestorm
Andy Lau promotes
upcoming 'Fire Storm Showbiz sensation star Andy Lau is well known for his
acting and music career, but as Liu Wei discovers, he is also an ambitious film
producer who is willing to take risks, physical and financial.
In his new film Firestorm, to be released on Dec
12, 52-year-old movie star Andy Lau jumps from the 11th floor of a building in
Central, the business center of Hong Kong.
It is a stunt he managed to pull off despite his
acrophobia - he even hates roller coasters.
"I don't know why people pay others to get
scared,' he jokes.
The film, the directorial debut of former
scriptwriter Alan Yuen, had Lau finding himself doing a number of hair-raising
stunts, such as rushing among the hustle and bustle of Central, holding a
machine gun.
The singer and actor known as the "heavenly
king" of the Hong Kong entertainment industry does not have to do the
stunts himself, but he loved the script and as producer and co-investor he was
conscious of keeping costs down.
"To use stunt men means more money. I would
rather use it on protecting our actors," he says.
The film's other investor is Bill Kong,
an established producer behind the success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon and Zhang Yimou's Hero.
This is not the first time Lau has supported a new
director.
Andy Lau promotes upcoming 'Fire Storm With 146
films, more than 100 albums and 300 concerts, Lau is no doubt a show business
all-rounder, but he is also a producer with a philanthropic bent.
He initiated the Focus: First Cuts project in 2005
and has invested in more than 10 projects of young directors. Some of them have
been very successful, such as mainland director Ning Hao, who received 4
million yuan ($640,000) from Lau to direct Crazy Stone. The black comedy
grossed 20 million yuan and was the most acclaimed domestic film of that year.
Ning is now a household name.
In 2011 Hong Kong director Ann Hui brought her
script A Simple Life to Lau. The story of the last days of an old maid and the
son of her master did not appeal to most investors. Lau, however, was touched
by the effortless story between ordinary people.
The film won critical and popular accolades,
winning lead Deanie Ip the best actress award at the Venice Film Festival that
year. Lau recouped his investment from the mainland and Hong Kong box office
takings and the film's overseas copyrights.
As an investor, Lau prefers
down-to-earth directors and original stories.
When he first saw the script of Crazy Stone, it was
named Diamond. Ning said he needed 8 million yuan. Lau told him First Cuts
could afford only 4 million yuan for every director. Ning's immediate answer
was: "OK, 8 million for diamond, 4 million yuan for stone." He
changed the storyline from revolving around a diamond to a piece of fake jade.
"This is what I call a down-to-earth
director," Lau says.
Every year Lau receives about 300 scripts. His
assistant will read them and write a summary of each script, listing its genre,
important scenes and target audience. The summary is usually more than 1,000
words. Lau will pick up about 15 scripts according to the summary and read them
himself.
"It is hard to define a genre I favor,"
he says. "But I like films I have never seen before in this market."
Andy Lau promotes upcoming 'Fire Storm Take
Firestorm, the first Hong Kong cop thriller shot in 3-D.
Shooting in 3-D enhances the action,
but requires more money. Bill Kong is known for his strict control of a budget.
Lau used HK$500,000 ($64,503) of his own money to make a 3-D trailer as a
demonstration to persuade him.
While an actor is only responsible to his director,
a producer and investor have more people to answer to.
In Firestorm, Lau did something that has never
before happened in Hong Kong films - put an explosion in Central.
"In Speed, a film shot 20 years ago, they had
had these impressive scenes inside the Metro of Los Angeles," he says.
"Although the shots were filmed using a miniature model, they were very
imaginative and exciting. Filmmaking is about dreaming of things
impossible."
But the area is only available to filmmakers
between 8 am and 11 am on weekends. To shoot the scene the crew needed to shoot
and then wait for 15 weeks. It was too long in-between.
Lau went to Kong to persuade him to build a set in
a deserted airport, which cost HK$15 million.
"The first thing he said to me was, 'half of
the cost will come from my pay packet'," Kong recalls.
Lau was not a wise
investor at the beginning of his behind-the-scene career. He would rather call
himself a "dumb kid", the name of one of his hit songs.
ong Kong superstar Andy Lau promotes
his new movie Firestorm in Beijing. He is the leading actor, producer and
co-investor of the movie. Photos by Jiang Dong / China Daily
Source:
http://en.ce.cn/entertainment/movie/201311/06/t20131106_1715317.shtml
