Director Herman Yau
Director Herman Yau may be best known for the cult classic “The Untold Story”—whose plot involves a family that is killed and made into barbecue buns—but he has tackled every genre from comedy to socially conscious feature films. The prolific director and producer talks to June Ng about his latest work, “True Women For Sale,” the story of a local prostitute and a mainland woman who marries a Hongkonger to obtain citizenship.
I can’t really explain why I wanted to make this movie. It’s more like an impulse, like a sudden craving for a steak.
New immigrants are those who have successfully immigrated to Hong Kong and have the right to stay. But we’re still unfair to them. We tend to think they live off welfare, something we never think about of people from foreign countries. That’s discrimination.
Prostitution should be decriminalized better if it’s not outright legalized. Most people just see prostitutes as cheap and greedy for money. But that’s a prejudice.
When the same prejudice occurs in the majority of people’s minds, it is no longer prejudice, but the dominating opinion.
As a city, we’ve put too much emphasis on developing old districts. That’s because everything is driven by economics. It’s not about preserving the history and culture. It’s about making money; people can be sacrificed.
Development projects use a lot of names to repackage themselves—Cyberport is a great example of a way to disguise Bel-Air. And the West Kowloon Cultural District is likely to be another one.