For Call of Heroes, Benny Chan summons his inner Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone
Hong Kong film director talks about his new film, which transposes the story of a 1960s western into the Chinese wuxia world of chivalrous warriors
Steadfast though he may be to dismiss any intention, Benny Chan Muk-sing can do little to dissuade his more imaginative viewers from seeing Call of Heroes as an allegory of Hong Kong’s recent political predicament.
“I believe that every audience member should have his own opinion, and I’m not going to force them to think in one way or another,” he says of his film, set in China’s Republican period.
After the cold-blooded son (played by Louis Koo) of a powerful warlord murders three innocent people just for fun, the righteous sheriff (Lau Ching-wan) of the fictional town of Pucheng vows to bring him to justice – only for the ordinary townsfolk to insist on the opposite, for fear that this unnecessary bid for the moral high ground will bring an end to their peaceful way of life.
“In the many films that I have watched since I was young – whether they’re the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest productions, or Hollywood and Japanese films – it is more or less the same story whenever characters are made to confront the bad guys,” says Chan, whose film plays like it has transposed the story of a 1960s western into the Chinese wuxia world of chivalrous warriors.