Young Hong Kong director’s perseverance pays off as his debut feature hits cinemas
With its shoestring budget and its unconventional coming-of-age story about an underdog baseball team from a Sha Tin school, Weeds on Fire was an endless challenge for Steve Chan but, much like the team, he just kept on pushing
In some ways, the meaning of the title of Weeds on Fire has been lost in translation. Its English title suggests that weeds, though they are considered lowly plants, are also able to bloom; its Chinese counterpart, also a homophone of a Cantonese profanity, directly translates as half a step.
It was meant to signal how close one is to success – only half a step away. But in reality, emerging director Steve Chan Chi-fat had to take more than a few steps to bring his film to cinemas.
The 27-year-old says that even during his days as a film student at Baptist University, he has always wanted to produce a movie about regrets of the young and brotherhood. After graduating in 2012, Chan was directing advertisements when he chanced upon a newspaper clipping about the development of Sha Tin. It touched on the story of local baseball team Shatin Martins, whose members were from a low-ranking secondary school and lived in a public housing estate.
And it immediately struck a chord with Chan, who also came from a humble background. “I also grew up in a public housing estate and have experienced a lot of things there. I have a lot of feelings I want to share,” he says.
The coming-of-age film chronicles the lives of two teenage boys with contrasting personalities: Tse Chi-lung (played by Lam Yiu-sing) is quiet and unassuming, while Fan Chun-wai (Tony Wu Tsz-tung) is brash and pompous. Both are recruited into a baseball team formed by secondary school principal Lo (Liu Kai-chi), who sees potential in the rowdy students. But it won’t take long before Fan’s overbearing ego threatens to tear the team apart, and the two childhood friends eventually go their separate ways.