One of the first female directors in Hong Kong mainstream cinema, Mabel Cheung has led a successful 40-year career as a filmmaker and an educator. For this conversation, Cheung talks about being a female filmmaker in Hong Kong, her creative partnership with her late partner Alex Law, the price of making films on her own terms, why she spent ten years making her documentary To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self, and her forthcoming projects.
— In the Hong Kong film industry, do you think it’s harder to be a female director or a director of dramas?
Actually, it’s not hard to be a female director these days. There’s Norris Wong, Oliver Chan... The directors of Gamer Girls are female, too. It was harder in my day, though. It was basically just Ann Hui and I. I think it’s because the equipment was too heavy back then. The cameras, the lights, were so heavy. A director, regardless of gender, had to climb high and low to look at the viewfinder or the monitor. It was physical labour that not many women could handle. And people back then expected women instead of men to take care of the family. However, it’s not hard to be a female director now.
It’s always been hard to make non-mainstream films. That’s why I haven’t made that many films over the years. Genre films like action, martial arts, comedies and ghost films are considered mainstream, whereas no company in Hong Kong would invest in An Autumn’s Tale because no matter how I explained it, they didn’t understand what the film was about or why I used that title. It’s always hard to sell a drama to an investor.
— Is that the case even now?
Yes. My new film The Butterfly Case is a drama. It’s an expensive film because it’s set in 1887. There’s hope of getting a drama made if you shoot it on the cheap. But if it’s expensive, or if it’s a period film, those are hard to get made.
It’s hard to change that because of the math. It’s much cheaper to make The Butterfly Case now with A.I. I wouldn’t have been able to make this film without it. Even now, the film cost HK$40 million (US$5.1 million), I need to gross three times the budget to break even. That’s HK$120 million. How can this movie make that much money?
— You were working at the BBC when you were out of university. How did filmmaking come to you?
I studied creative media in the U.K. I didn’t dream of being a director when I was young, but I chose to study in Bristol because of the Bristol Old Vic [theatre]. I wanted to see actors like Peter O’Toole and Anthony Hopkins there, but they’d gone to Hollywood by the time I got there. I studied in the drama department, and I worked part-time for the BBC. That’s when I realised that filmmakers were professional and educated, and that they didn’t have to work 9 to 5. I hated working a 9 to 5, and filmmaking was how I could apply everything I learned. So, it was during my time in England that I thought of filmmaking as an option.
— If you hadn’t become a filmmaker, what would you have done?
I’d be in music. I was in a girl band called Jumping Beans. I named the band in Beijing Rocks after my band. My favorite part of filmmaking is when the film is locked and I’m figuring out what music to put in. I think music elevates my films.
— Would you make another film about music?
I’ve done a musical in Beijing before. I may work on a musical next year, too. I love musicals because they have singing and dancing.
— The Illegal Immigrants, An Autumn’s Tale, City of Glass and Beijing Rocks are all about Hongkongers living abroad. Do you have themes or topics that you like to go back to?
I tend to make films about issues that I am concerned about that moment. For example, The Illegal Immigrants was written while I was studying film in the U.S., when everyone was concerned about that issue because the Sino-British Joint Declaration had just been signed. The second and third film of the migration trilogy were also about those kinds of illegal immigrants.
Looking back, I didn’t make those films with the intention of linking them thematically as a series – the migration trilogy was a title given by someone else – I just made three films because I felt strongly about those immigrant stories. Over the years, I only made films based on issues I was most concerned with. So, my films unintentionally ended up reflecting their respective eras. For example, I made City of Glass so I could capture my old dormitory in the University of Hong Kong before they were torn down. These memories happened to become documents of Hong Kong’s history, too. They may have been lost, but at least I captured them on film.
— But you’ve made so many films about Hongkongers who have left home. Have you ever thought of living abroad?
I didn’t realise I made so many of those. Well, Hongkongers do tend to branch out. When I made The Illegal Immigrants, a lot of people wanted to emigrate. But later, those people ended up returning to Hong Kong. Then after the handover, people went to mainland China for opportunities, like in Beijing Rocks. When co-productions failed, they all came back. And now, people are suddenly up and leaving again. Our lives have always been about running off somewhere. Even in the 19th century, scores of Chinese went to the U.S. to build the railways or dig for gold. So, the Chinese have this long history of migration.
— You had a long partnership with screenwriter Alex Law, from your first film until his death in 2022. Can you talk more about your working relationship?
We were classmates at New York University so we were used to having a partnership. In film school, even though we were always open to discussions in a team, the director makes the final decision. That was our training in school, and that’s how Alex and I worked together. When we made films, whoever was the director had the final say. So, we never argued on set. He would say his piece, and that was it. A film’s style is determined by the director, after all, so there’s no point in bickering. Still, it was good to have someone like him by my side for advice because it’s hard for a director to be objective sometimes. I ended up directing more often because I felt everything could be a film. He liked to write more.
Creatively, we wrote together. He was great at writing details, while I looked at the structure and pacing. I think we made a good match. Whoever came up with the idea would direct, then we worked out the synopsis and scene breakdown together. Whoever is assigned as the screenwriter would then write the script.
— You’ve worked with some of the biggest Hong Kong stars (though some of them weren’t stars when you worked with them). Is there a difference between working with stars and working with actors?
Not at all, I just treat them as actors. They’re just stars because they have a lot of fans, but they’re just like any other actor. Besides, stars don’t think they’re stars on the set because their role is an actor. Whether it’s a new actor or a star, I communicate with them the same way. I think all actors have a lot of insecurities within. Their faces have to be blown up on a big screen, so they really care about how to show their best side to the audience. As a director, my biggest responsibility is to give them confidence and convince them that I will always do my best to use the best part of every take. Once they knew that, they were very cooperative and were willing to do as many takes as needed.
— Some directors tend to be more technical, while others like to work with actors. Do you lean towards one of the two?
No, I think a director has to be good at every aspect. Communicating with actors is important because performance is the only thing you can’t change in post-production, but our film school training required us to know everything. Film is not only an art. Remember, it’s called the Academy of Arts and Sciences. That means science is also important. You have to be well-read and know the art of acting to communicate with actors, but filmmaking also takes science. We had to learn how to shoot on celluloid, we had to learn how to use lighting like a paintbrush, and we had to learn framing, too. We even had to learn how to develop film. If you don’t know the science, you’ll just keep hearing “no” from the cinematographer.
In An Autumn’s Tale, there is a shot of Chow Yun-fat running with everything blurred out around him, like he’s barely moving forward. I shot that with a telephoto lens, and I got the idea from a shot of Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia. When I was directing something for Education Television before I went to film school, I wanted to do that shot, but the cameraman tossed the camera away and refused because it required a telephoto lens, which the station couldn’t afford. I realised I wasn’t skilled enough yet, so I went to study film in New York. Knowing the science really help you elevate a film.
— Working in the commercial film system means you have to make a lot of compromises. How long did it take for you to be able to make films on your own terms?
I’ve been making films on my own terms since the very beginning. The higher the budget, the less power you have. But I basically started on a student film with my classmates. [Shaw Brothers producer] Mona Fong gave me HK$1 million [for The Illegal Immigrants], which was a lot for a student film. But my classmates didn’t care about time. We could sit around and wait for the right light. We didn’t have money for a snow machine, so we waited for snowfall. We filmed for a year because we didn’t have a big star nor did we have much of a budget, which meant no one worried about us. We had a lot of freedom.
We also had a lot of freedom on An Autumn’s Tale because we were all the way out in New York, so they couldn’t control us from Hong Kong. I got to make the films I wanted early on – I even stood firm on using Chow Yun-fat, who was box office poison at the time. But if I hadn’t stood my ground, I’d be forced to use whoever they recommended. Since I stood my ground, and I made films cheaply, I got to call the shots. The investors could spare the money since the budget was so low.
Besides, I write my own scripts. That also gives me more power because investors who are willing to invest in my script tend to give me more freedom. Commercial prospects were never a problem for me since people didn’t expect my films to be commercial. They were just aiming to lose less money.
For example, Echoes of the Rainbow was invested by John Sham, who was really our saviour. He said, “Your film is about a shoe repairman in the 1960s. Not a lot of people are going to see it. Can you at least make it for less money so I’d lose less?” He invented knowing he wouldn’t make his money back.
Some directors specialise in making commercial films, and they are hired to make exciting films like action films. Directors like Andrew Lau and Dante Lam are so good at these type of films that they have a lot of freedom. But in commercial films, you are only as good as your last film.
My next film, The Butterfly Case, was basically crowdfunded. It cost about HK$40 million (US$5.1 million). No one invested, because that budget didn’t make financial sense. I ended up selling 13 shares for $20 million, plus HK$10 million from the government, and I funded the rest with sponsorship. Since there is no majority shareholder, I got to call the shots again.
Honestly, if I don’t get to call the shots, it’s no fun to make movies. Investors never hand me scripts, because they know I’d only shoot my own scripts. However, it leads to a tougher path, because it might take forever to find someone to invest in my script.
— How did To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self come about?
Ying Wa College (Cheung’s alma mater) was going to be rebuilt. The headmistress wanted to make a documentary to document the rebuilding and the school’s transformation, which was supposed to take six years. But they didn’t need me to film a construction project. Instead, they wanted me to film that year’s Form One students, who would have to move to a temporary campus in Sham Shui Po for their second year until they return to the renovated campus for their final year. The headmistress felt documenting the transformation of the girls in those formative years in parallel with the growth of the school would be meaningful. My idea was to also capture the girls’ growth and how society, education and family affected them.
— How was shooting a documentary different from a dramatic film?
Each comes with a set of challenges. On a documentary, it was so hard to edit because we just kept filming and filming. We didn’t have to write a script because the subjects are the scriptwriters, so we shot everything without a road map. We had planned to shoot for six years, but the construction was delayed, and the girls never got to return to the renovated campus. In the end, we shot for 10 years and edited for two years because we had far too much material. For shooting, we had to split up into four units, each with its own unit director. By the end, we started with over 30 candidates, and we followed nine of them all the way to the end of the project. Then, we edited out a few more girls during editing because the film ran too long.
— Tell us about your next project, The Butterfly Bone.
It’s about Hong Kong in 1887, when the University of Hong Kong was only the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. The film is about the school’s first year, which only consisted of 10 students. Hong Kong didn’t have Western medicine then; there was only Chinese medicine. The teachers were missionaries from London who came to convince the skeptical Chinese to believe in Western medicine by treating patients in a glass house that everyone could see. So, the film is a love story and a coming-of-age story about these students.
The shooting is finished, but since it’s a period film, we could only build parts of the sets, and we finished the rest using A.I. For the scenes at the University of Hong Kong, the school lent the campus to us, so we were able to shoot over half the film on location.
I think it might be ready at the end of this year, but A.I. special effects take a long time.
— You’re also producing Norris Wong’s next film, Good Trip. What are you like as a producer?
Norris was my student at Baptist University, so we have an easygoing relationship. I gave some advice on the script, but I give her a lot of freedom unless there’s something really problematic. Since I’m a director, I respect other directors. There’s no problem with her script, and she’s probably fine with directing actors as well. But on her past films, she didn’t have the budget to elevate them with more proper technical things like cinematography, music and sound mixing. With a bigger budget this time, I told her not to shoot cheaply anymore and elevate her film with those technical things. It’s all right for a new director to shoot films on the cheap, but you have to make breakthroughs with each film.
This interview has been edited for length.
Kevin Ma