After making movies for more than 20 years, Taiwanese director Kevin Chu Yen-ping has had the most gratifying filmmaking experience of his career with his new action movie, Kung Fu Dunk, starring Taiwan's Jay Chou Jie-lun.
Filmmaking is all about money, says Chu, who has more than 80 movies under his belt. 'The bigger the budget you get, the easier it is to make the film. You can hire the best people to help you. I only have to say yes or no and don't have to worry too much.'
Kung Fu Dunk, a HK$70 million production financed by Hong Kong's Emperor Motion Pictures and the mainland's Chang Hong Group, is the first movie Chu has made in four years and the biggest film the 57-year-old director has ever made.
The film has veteran kung fu master Ching Siu-tung as stunt co-ordinator and Yee Chung-man designing costumes, and features a lot of computer-generated imagery that contributes to the physically impossible slam dunk moves and fighting scenes.
Co-starring Twins' Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin, Chen Bo-lin from the acclaimed Taiwanese film Blue Gate Crossing and veteran actor Eric Tsang Chi-wai, the movie depicts an orphan (Chou), who is raised in a martial arts school and then spotted by a street-smart hustler (Tsang), who invites him to play in a basketball team with the pretence that this will help in his search for his parents.
Chu says it was a pleasure directing Chou after the young star's debut directorial work in Secret. 'He knows the pains and difficulties of being a director,' says Chu. 'When he was directing, people gave him many comments and ideas; he knows it's not easy to turn people's ideas down. Therefore, after expressing his ideas, he would leave me alone and let me make my own judgment. He wouldn't wait for me to say yes or no,' he says.
Famous for the comedies he made in the 1980s and 90s, Chu, Taiwan's answer to Hong Kong's Wong Jing, was at one time Taiwan's most successful director. However, he has been criticised for continuing to make the same style of movie and for their tasteless and blunt storylines. Critics have also noted the similarities between Kung Fu Dunk and Stephen Chow Sing-chi's Shaolin Soccer, which also fuses kung fu and a modern sport.