Wu-man catches his wave Wu-man catches his wave
David Wu's speech is delivered at the speed of machine-gun rattle. Words trip out and over themselves and he does not take a breath until they are all spat out. Then there is a silence as he gears up for another burst.
Most subjects prompt an impressive display of verbal energy from the 31-year-old Channel [V] VJ. But his passion at the moment is reserved for the film he has just finished shooting in Beijing.
Called Restless, it is an unusual project - first of all, in that it was shot in China at all, as the country has recently pulled the strings tight on international co-productions. But secondly, Restless is the first attempt at a Sino-US 'generation X' drama.
It is the feature-film debut of American film-maker Erica Marcus, a Putonghua-speaker who, as a former resident of Beijing, knows her subject matter well. And Restless stars an international cast - there are 40 speaking roles - including Sarita Choudhury (Kama Sutra and Mississippi Masala ), Shiang-Chiyi Chyen (the Taiwanese star of The River ), Catherine Kellner (Six Degrees Of Separation ), and David Wu, aka Channel [V]'s 'The Wu-man'.
The Wu-man is an elementary school nickname for the American-born, Taiwan-educated Wu. 'I don't care if I never hear it again for the next 25 years,' he admits. In Restless, he plays a Chinese-American who returns to Beijing with his grandfather's ashes - a role described as 'a young man who lives only to surf'.
'Filming Restless was like nothing I've ever done before in my life,' the Taiwan-based Wu says. 'We had Chinese, Taiwanese, American actors and crew members, a big old mix of people, and me, who had only worked in commercial Hong Kong movies before. When you have Western and Eastern crews working together, you're going to have clashes. But everyone got into the groove. We became closer than I've ever seen on a movie set - after three months, people were crying when it came to time to leave.' The plot of the US$3 million (HK$23 million) film, which will be released next summer, is new, he says. 'It depicts Beijing life for a group of people in their late 20s and early 30s.
'Expats mingling with Asian society and a Chinese kid from the US transformed from being totally ignorant of his culture to becoming a 'grown-up'. It's a different story and a different approach. It's not political, but it does place China in a very good light as opposed to how we're used to seeing it - all those heavy dramas about the Cultural Revolution,' he says.