Self-analysis is difficult for director Derek Yee Tung-shing. He prefers to let the film critics probe his psyche as they pull apart his movies, saying he gets insights through the eyes of others.
'Emotionally moving' are the two words most likely to pop up in any conversation about Yee's films.
'I can't analyse myself,' says the 38-year-old director, leaning back in an armchair. 'Usually after interviews, critics write about what kind of a person they think I am. I get an idea of who or what I am through these articles. It is very difficult to do one's own analysis.' Speaking in his Tsim Sha Tsui office, Yee seems serious and intense, only occasionally flashing a shy smile.
He makes movies about the ordinary man, for the ordinary man, and that's the way he wants it to be. Yee was a child star, enjoying glamour, fame and fortune at an early age, but he finds he can best articulate tales which are rooted in reality.
'I can go without the glamour and the trappings of showbiz,' Yee says. 'In life you need a certain amount of comfort and to take care of the basic necessities, but I can adapt.
'If you ask me to make a film about the upper strata of society or tell a rich man's story, I don't have any interest in it. I don't have the kind of perspective to make something look nice.' Yee grew up in an artistic family. His father was a producer, his mother an actress in Shanghai. His two elder brothers - Paul Chun Pui and David Keung Tai-wai - also began as child actors. Chun is still acting, Keung has branched out into directing.