3 - Hong Kong Dreams in Mainland China: The Leap of Peter Chan

Summary

‘I don't put on acts. I am what I act.’

— Peter Chan, Leap

Introduction

Peter Chan is arguably the Hong Kong director who is the most sensitive to the diasporic experience. Born in Hong Kong, where his father, Tung-Man Chan, was a director and producer, he moved to Thailand with his family at the age of twelve, and then went to Los Angeles where he studied film. While spending six years of his adolescence in Thailand, he watched many European films – not Hollywood productions because Thailand was anti-America at that time – which deeply influenced him later in his film career. In 1983, when he was still studying in Los Angeles, he went back to Hong Kong for the summer and was recruited as an interpreter for John Woo's film Heroes Shed No Tears (1986). (The film was completed in 1983 but did not premier until 1986, owing to contract issues between John Woo and the producer, Golden Harvest.) Because the film was shot in Thailand, they needed an interpreter who could speak Cantonese, Thai and English. He was supposed to return to college after that summer job, but this was destined to be ‘a trip of no return’:

The film production got postponed and last [sic] until Christmas. So I decided to work on another picture for a year. It was a movie in Barcelona with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Then I went to Yugoslavia to work on another Jackie Chan's [sic] movie. So one picture became two pictures, became three pictures.

Having accumulated filmmaking experience in diff erent capacities from the films he had worked on, including, among others, Jackie Chan's Wheels on Meals (1984), The Protector (1985), Armour of God (1987) and News Attack (1989), Peter Chan soon had the chance to make his directorial debut, Alan and Eric: Between Hello and Goodbye (1991; hereafter abbreviated as Alan and Eric), thanks to the support of Eric Tsang, friend, collaborator and Bo Le (a person who is able to discover talents and understand their worth). His debut was well received by boThHong Kong audiences and critics (it won the Best Film award at the Hong Kong Film Directors’ Guild Awards), acquiring the momentum needed to further pursue his career in the film industry.