‘These days, anyone can call themselves actors’: why Chan Kin-long turned to directing with Hand Rolled Cigarette, Hong Kong Film Awards winner

Chan Kin-long started out wanting to be an actor, and played a variety of roles before making his directing and screenwriting debut with Hand Rolled Cigarette

He doesn’t accept that ‘models or influencers’ can now call themselves actors without basic film knowledge, and hopes to gain acceptance as a director

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Filmmaker Chan Kin-long, who won best new director for “Hand Rolled Cigarette” at the 2022 Hong Kong Film Awards after acting in a variety of films. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 11:15am, 8 May 2023Updated: 5:37pm, 8 May 2023

Among the actors in a trailer for the 41st Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony held on April 16 was Chan Kin-long, an increasingly familiar face in the city’s film industry.

Playing an obsessed fan, Chan, equipped with a camera, stalks the female lead, played by Louise Wong Dan-nei, who was a metaphor for film as an art form, Chan tells the Post.

The metaphor is apt for Chan, who has developed an unwavering obsession with film since he first discovered it.

“I used to be more into theatre and drama,” he says in an interview. “Then, at university, I discovered the works of Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan Gor and Johnnie To Kei-fung, alongside Japan’s Akira Kurosawa and Takeshi Kitano. I was heavily inspired by old-school Japanese cinema.”

In 2020, Chan’s directing and screenwriting debut, the neo-noir Hand Rolled Cigarette, featured established actor Lam Ka-tung, who reportedly took the job for no pay to support an emerging director as well as the Hong Kong film industry.