First she made an independent documentary about the standing of women in Hong Kong. Then a low-budget drama about lovelorn twenty-somethings, followed by a battle-of-the-sexes comedy with established names. That was followed by a chick flick written by one of Hong Kong's most politically connected writers, endorsed by mainland authorities as one of the few films made to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China. Judging from her past form, one might think Barbara Wong Chun-chun should be making even bigger films now. Instead, her latest is an intimate 'mockumentary' about a disintegrating love affair between a loafer and a sales clerk determined to break out of her ordinary life. Starring Jaycee Chan Cho-ming and Fiona Sit Hoi-kei - two actors yet to establish themselves as A-listers - the film was financed by the Hong Kong Film Development Fund, the filmmakers themselves and Wong's generous friends. 'I just don't want to feel too secure and stable,' says Wong with a laugh. 'So in 2008 I thought maybe I should strike out for something new. I submitted this proposal to the Film Development Fund. I don't want to make a film with that burden on my shoulders - that a film company can come in and say I've got to change the script to make it marketable. Telling me, for example, how the story won't work with these two young characters, and that it must have a mother played by someone like, say, [award-winning actor] Wai Ying-hung.' Wong says she didn't make Break Up Club as a response to the hurdles she experienced during her 10-year directorial career in Hong Kong. 'Film companies make films to make money - nobody ever starts a business in this industry for the sake of art,' she says. 'I've been very lucky, as I've never actually had producers dictating terms to me. It's just that, for once, I don't want to make a film where I have to strike compromises with anyone.' (To prove she hasn't morphed into an anti-establishment subversive, Wong says she has already finished shooting Perfect Wedding, a Shaw Studios production starring pop idol Miriam Yeung Chin-wah and Raymond Lam Fung.) However, what she wants to achieve with Break Up Club is an in-your-face romance that is real enough to appeal to a generation of viewers brought up on reality television and YouTube exposes, shot with widely available small digital cameras. To attain this, production kicked off two years ago with a public appeal for real love stories. Wong and her producer, Lawrence Cheng Tan-shui, received nearly 400 responses and filmed interviews with 100 of them. Some of the footage is woven into the film's opening sequence in which Joe (Chan) regales Wong (playing herself) about his experiences and the existence of a website that could help people restore their broken relationships. After the filmmakers shove a video camera into his hands, Joe documents his tumultuous relationship with Flora (Sit). Through the use of hand-held camerawork (supposedly Joe's, but in reality shot by cinematographer Kenny Tse) and surveillance-like footage (the source being the key to the film's denouement), Wong lays bare a litany of petty conflicts which threaten her protagonists' affair. 'There isn't a cataclysmic event in the story - and having a third party intruding into the relationship is hardly one, anyway,' says Wong, referring to the narrative twist where Flora falls for a Japanese artist (played by Hayama Go) she is assigned to take care of. 'People fall in love, feel for each other, and split up when the feelings are gone. That's how simple I wanted it to be.' Break Up Club's sparkle lies in the intimacy shown by the two protagonists. The fact that Chan and Sit were (or are, depending on who you talk to) allegedly an 'item', adds to the intrigue. 'There's a lot of chemistry between Jaycee and Fiona, sure - I don't know whether they have been a couple, and I haven't asked,' says the director. 'But it's certainly not as if I have asked them to just be themselves, as it's ultimately just a story. They are as much themselves as I am - playing a filmmaker trying to make a film called Break Up Club.' Acting shouldn't be too difficult for Wong, who graduated from the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts' drama school. Rather than pursuing her career in front of the camera, however, she joined Commercial Radio as a DJ before leaving Hong Kong to enrol in New York University's Film School in 1993. After making her first feature-length film, A Carburetor for Suzy, she returned to Hong Kong in 1999 and made the documentary Women's Private Parts. She then returned to acting in Lam Wah-chuen's The Runaway Pistol - which got her nominated for the best new performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2003. Wong then directed her first commercial film, Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat, which revolves around a group of young, lovelorn men and women who live together in a dilapidated apartment. The lukewarm reviews for her next film, the action comedy Protege de la Rose Noire, were soon countered by Six Strong Guys, a witty piece about six men struggling to walk their tough talk. Her biggest film to date is probably Wonder Women, written by entrepreneur and novelist Leung Fung-yee about the struggles of a failing businesswoman and her young aide, dogged by the financial crises that have undermined Hong Kong's economy since 1997. Speaking when the film was released in 2007, Wong said the story was inspired by how she nearly went bankrupt due to ill-advised investments she made during the same period. While Break Up Club appears entirely different from Wonder Women, Wong says they have a similar theme: female protagonists striving for a better life. While the new film begins with Joe's perspective, Flora is the more complex of the two. When asked about her aspirations, the young woman lists the obstacles she faces: a working-class upbringing in Tin Shui Wai, her struggle to find a better-paid job, and anguish over caring for her delinquent younger brother. 'There are not that many female filmmakers in Hong Kong, and my mission is to voice women's concerns with what I do,' says Wong. 'Men still seem to have problems seeing what women have to face in their lives, although people say Hong Kong is a city where men and women are equal - what a joke.' Wong says she hasn't experienced blatant sexual discrimination in her work, but she could feel how some men - who remain dominant in Hong Kong's film industry, and that of the world in general - would be quick to pounce. 'Imagine male directors who swear on set; they are probably accepted as normal and natural. But if I swore on set, people would think of me as a bitch,' says Wong. 'What if you find a male director breaking down in tears on set? People would probably say, let's give him some space; he's under so much pressure, and so on. If a woman cries, then it will be, 'Told you so, she's not cut out for the job.'' Break Up Club might provide food for thought for indolent young men today. 'Yes, it could serve a lesson to all those passive boys out there,' she says, laughing. Passivity, though, is unlikely to feature on Wong's agenda. Break Up Club is screening now
