‘All the evil came out’: filmmaker Yonfan talks Hong Kong protests and his 1967-set film No.7 Cherry Lane
- ‘Everywhere people are asking me’ about what is happening in Hong Kong, says director, who explains it is a coincidence riots are the backdrop to his film
- He explains why he chose animation to tell a love story, denies it is influenced by Wong Kar-wai, and says he doesn’t know if he’ll make another film
“There were some reviews saying there was sniggering and walkouts,” Yonfan says, more with curiosity than bitterness, of the reaction to No. 7 Cherry Lane – his first film in a decade – at the Venice Film Festival, where it is in competition.
Dressed in a yellow baseball cap, a blue scarf wrapped around his neck, the veteran Hong Kong filmmaker is talking to the Post in the Lido’s Club 76 space at the heart of the festival. No. 7 Cherry Lane has bemused and beguiled audiences there in equal measure.
Given he was stung by criticism of his previous film, 2009’s Prince of Tears – a reaction that inspired him to turn away from filmmaking and towards writing criticism, travelogues and fiction – his interest in the critical response to his new film is understandable.
“After Prince of Tears, I felt I needed to clear myself, to redefine myself,” he says.
It was his extended foray into writing that brought him back to film; three of his short stories form the backbone of No. 7 Cherry Lane, a wild, lush love letter to romance, literature and the Hong Kong of 1967, a time of demonstrations against British colonial rule.
Not unlike Quentin Tarantino, who looks back to 1969 Los Angeles in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood , Yonfan sees 1967 as having been a formative time. “That was the best year of my life,” he says.