RINGO Lam Ling-tung looks like a man whose mission is going well. He sits with a once-rare smile tugging at his lips, his head obviously filled with pleasant thoughts. It is not difficult to conclude that the reason for his contentment lies in the fact that his new Hong Kong movie, The Victim, is almost ready for general release. But the director dispels that notion when he starts talking about not The Victim, but fatherhood and 'slavery' instead - his own slavery, to be exact, which started with fatherhood and has turned out to be a condition that seems to have made him more content. 'I don't own myself,' he says with uncharacteristic cheer. 'I've come to the conclusion that there is actually very little in this life that I do own. Very little that I do is for myself.' His master - and his motivation - is his eight-year-old son. 'My son owns me; I belong to him,' he adds, happily. 'My considerations for work or for making money are all motivated by the thought of providing for him. He's my boss! 'I have to consider making my films cleaner and less violent because of him, too. 'Previously, my work was rather explosive and violent, but I have to tone it down now.' There certainly are a lot worse things to be motivated by, as evidenced by the many films that have been produced with nothing but the proverbial fast buck in mind. Hollywood is still beckoning after his 1996 debut in the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Maximum Risk, but Lam is not keen on uprooting his family to move to Los Angeles. 'I don't feel comfortable or safe there,' he explains. 'I haven't really even had the inclination to read the scripts.' But that is the one thing that has not changed for Lam, however. He likes making films of his own 'stories' which is not surprising since they are about the only thing that he feels truly belong to him. Ever since he made the switch from television work to films in 1983, he has stuck to his principle of making only one film a year - even though he knows that he can make a lot more money if he takes on more work. 'It takes me that long to get a film ready anyway,' says Lam, adding that he stopped 'chasing' money shortly before the handover in 1997. 'I saw a news snippet about a 2,000 sq ft apartment in Repulse Bay which was selling for more than $50 million. 'Yes, it had a nice sea view but that was more than $20,000 per sq ft. How many films would I have to make to earn that kind of money? 'I only make one film a year and I couldn't even make that kind of money in 10 years. Can you imagine working 10 years and all you can afford would be that apartment? 'And even if I had $50 million, I wouldn't be able to live in that place because then my overheads would be higher. I would need a nice car to go with it. 'You have to ask yourself if what you miss out on to make that extra money would be worth it. Right now I make one film a year. 'I live in Sai Kung, I drive an old car but it's enough.' One of the defining moments for Lam came when he was filming Undeclared War for eight months in China. When he left, his son was still a bawling newborn but when his wife and baby came to visit him towards the end of his shoot, he opened the door to see a young boy crawling and learning how to walk. 'It hit me then that I had missed a whole phase of his growing-up process.' Lam's new look at life has obviously impacted on The Victim and not only for the reason that he mentions earlier. As a director who prefers to write his own screenplays, Lam spent almost six months devising the script for The Victim. He could make life easier for himself if he passed on the task to someone else, but 'nurturing' a script to its screen 'birth' is something he would never pass up. 'With your own script, you have an emotional link with it even before it's in existence. 'There are already parts of me in there already. The actual script itself is to let the crew know what is going on so that they know what to do. 'I already have in my mind what I want this 'child' to be before that. 'When I get a script written by others, it's like adopting a child . . . you have to spend a lot of time and effort getting to know that 'child' before you can insert your own influences into it.' Lam, who made his Hollywood debut with Maximum Risk, has been writing his own scripts since his legendary City On Fire in 1987. 'I don't even know why I wrote that story. 'I just thought of a film I would want to see and started from there. 'But when the response came back rather positive, I carried on from there,' he says. He has written nine out of the 10 films he has done since then, the only exception being Maximum Risk. His latest offering, The Victim, marks the 11th he has written (and the 17th he has directed). Unlike his other in-your-face, all-out action movies where the protagonists are usually the good guys, The Victim looks at life and society through the eyes of a twisted criminal. 'When I was making the film Full Alert [1997], it occurred to me that a story from the viewpoint of the crazy criminal played by Ng Chun-yu would be really interesting,' Lam says. 'Obviously, I could not do the same story all over again, so it is a different tale - but the inspiration came from that.' In The Victim, versatile actor Lau Ching-wan plays the heavily indebted Manson who has lost everything in the post-1997 financial crisis. After he is captured and taken to a spooky mansion one day, his behaviour changes drastically and he becomes moody and unpredictable. Lest this all sounds like a supernatural thriller, the highly erratic Manson uses his computer skills to mastermind a large-scale counterfeit operation. But the question that plagues both his girlfriend (Amy Kwok Oi-ming) and the policeman (Tony Leung Kar-fai) after him is this: is Manson truly crazy or is he just a brilliant criminal? Lam is quick to point out that the film is not another in the recent spate of horror films invading Hong Kong cinema, although it did allow him to indulge in his passion for nostalgia. 'But you have to admit that whenever we come across behaviour that we cannot explain, we either brush it off as craziness or the person being possessed by evil spirits. 'So you can think of it as involving either the supernatural or the psychological. I think both could apply in this case,' he adds. 'The spooky atmosphere is a new attempt for me, however. But I have always loved the old songs of singers such as Poon Sau-keng. 'I always thought that era very romantic but had never been able to make any films about it.' Lam willingly admits that The Victim - which is still in pre-production - will probably turn out less explosive and violent than his fans have come to expect from him, but it is in keeping with his new direction. 'All that matters is that it must be true to the heart because that gives it an invisible power that attracts your audience - and the audience can always tell whether something comes from your heart.' Spoken like a devoted father. The Victim opens in Hong Kong on October 16