Lifting the cloud
Action director Dante Lam's own brush with despondency led him to focus on his characters' emotional side in his new film
Director Dante Lam Chiu-yin wants to make films that will give people hope in their battle against the dark dog that is depression.
"I believe there are a lot of difficult moments in life," says the 49-year-old filmmaker who, not so long ago, went through a black period of his own. "The most important thing in my mind is to show the audience that … everyone has these experiences, and that they can be overcome. I also believe that humanity is important and showing this is a big part of the work."
Nick and I went through some dark, depressed moments in our own lives. We wanted to emerge from that. We wanted a movie that gave us as well as others hope.
Lam achieved critical and commercial success early in his career with movies such as Beast Cops (1998) and Jiang Hu: The Triad Zone (2000), but subsequent works such as Hit Team (2001) and Undercover Hidden Dragon (2006) under-performed at the box office and attracted little critical acclaim - and he began to feel his career was going nowhere.
In 2008, however, he stormed back with The Beast Stalker, a dark, gritty thriller that won him his first best director award (at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival) since 1998, when he shared the same accolade with Gordon Chan Ka-seung - for Beast Cops - at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
Having achieved commercial success with his action-packed dramas, Lam now wants to make quieter, more character-driven themes. "I've had a lot of ideas for a story that wasn't entirely action-focused for some time now," he says about his inspiration for Unbeatable, which had its world premiere at the Shanghai Film Festival in June.