Andrew Lau Wai-keung
Director Andrew Law, famed for the “Infernal Affairs” films, recently completed his first foray into Hollywood with the forthcoming movie, “The Flock,” starring Richard Gere. Locally, he’s currently filming “Confessions of Pain” with Tony Leung and Shu Qi. With “The Departed,” the Hollywood remake of “Infernal Affairs,” out this week, he talks to Scott Murphy.
I remember my childhood. It was spent in the New Territories in Yuen Long.
My father worked on Hong Kong Island in construction when I was a child. He would set up buildings, that kind of thing. Every summer holiday I would go there for about two weeks. It was the country boy going to the urban city. I would think “Wow! Good food!”
There was a lot of farmland in the New Territories. I would steal vegetables.
I’m lucky that my classmates’ father was a theater manager. I forget the name of the first film that I saw, but I remember it was a war story. It was Germany. There were aliens. Even now, I love that kind of movie.
When we were boys there were so many things that my parents said to me about the police. They said, “A good guy cannot be a policeman.” At that time, Hong Kong was very much a triad society. I think this inspired me with the idea that some triad members could go into the police force.
In high school, I didn’t want to study my books. At that time I was playing the guitar, singing. I was Catholic then, so I could go to church every week and learn guitar in church.