Johnnie To’s Sidekick (2024)

Chow Yun-Fat approached him following his success as a TV writer: “After The Greed of Man, a film studio asked me if I was interested in making films. I hesitated. Later, Chow came and told me that he wanted me to direct the film. I knew he was about to leave for Hollywood and this could be my only chance to work with him. That was how I made up my mind.”

About John Woo “producing” the film on a hands-on capacity: “Not really. He was in Hollywood. They know each other very well. Chow would ask him to comment on our ideas. Whenever he was back from Hollywood, we would get together and talk about the film. He was very supportive of us. When I took up the job as producer at TVB, I always showed up at the set. Even when it took place abroad, I would be there the whole time. Of course it is not the same as those who start from the bottom and work their way up. The biggest headache for me was that they had a big plan and the shooting was supposed to take place outside of Hong Kong. But it was not easy - we needed a lot of horses to create the kind of Western film feeling.”

Shooting on location: “When the idea of Peace Hotel was first conceived, they meant the real one in Shanghai - the one that has a jazz band. In the end, we had to make the film in Hong Kong, and we spent a lot of money to build the inn in Yuen Long. I only came up with the Western idea because there was plenty of sand and rocks scattered on the site. From then on, it became a habit of mine to look into the availability of resources when I start a project. I adapt the film to the resources, not the other way round.”

At this juncture, I should point out that Sharon Stone originally wanted John Woo to direct her in a Western titled The Quick and the Dead (which was released in the same year). Anyway, Wai Ka-Fai went on to say: “Looking back, I could have done better. For example, gunfight sells and the distributors wanted Chow to use more guns. But I insisted on giving him a sword. As a new director, I was hoping to do something different with Chow, and I spent all my energy on these minute details. I just wanted the film to stand out from the crowd. On second thought, that was not quite right. Besides, I had technical problems to handle - for example, the leaking problem at the set, the lack of horses, and the geographical obstacle. In the overseas version, we did manage to add some gunfight scenes. It was true that Chow looked much better with a gun than with a sword, and the sword was not even necessary for the character. It was a bit silly.”

Too Many Ways To Be No. 1 (1997) was produced by Johnnie To unlike Wai Ka-Fai’s other standalone directing ventures, which explains why Wai’s best “independent” film is this as he explains: “Again, I wanted the film to stand out. There were plenty of gangster films at the time. Frankly, I was not that interested in gangsters and the Triads. I was actually a bit repulsed by them, but gangster films were very popular then and they were well-received. I know some gangsters myself. They are very different from what is portrayed in the films. They are really rather gaudy people - they respect those in power and loathe those who are not. Perhaps we should do something closer to real life. I opted for black humour over realism. I tried my hand at black humour in television and I loved it.”

Wai Ka-Fai is referring to Choi Tuk-Sang when talking about how Johnnie To’s film company was formed: “Milkyway was started by Johnnie To and me, but it was not a production company until later. Eventually we changed the title to Milkyway Image and started looking for investors. Before Peace Hotel, To asked me quite a few times about starting a business together. I was not ready then. When Chow came to talk to me about Peace Hotel, To said You have left television anyway. That was how we started the company. We brought a few film ideas to Peter Choi of Golden Harvest, and Too Many Ways to be No. 1 was made. Ever since I started working with To, we had been looking for investors. We did not have a plan. Things happened slowly. We found an investor back then and To suggested that we start a company, name it Milkyway Image and design a logo. That was how the company was born.”

Wai Ka-Fai would probably have been recruited by Hollywood had he been lucky enough to reinvent Jet Li as an actor for what would have been Jet’s final H.K. film in 1997. The film was called The Frightening Sky of Dragon City (a.k.a. Longcheng Jingtian in Mandarin) and the deadline was July 6, 1998. The reason why the film was cancelled: “It was simple - the financial crisis. The Kai Tak Airport was going to be torn down. I went to school in the neighborhood and I wanted to make a film about the airport. Before 9/11 happened, I had already thought about it - what would happen if an airplane comes crashing down? Charles Heung came to me and I started thinking about it. I wanted Jet Li because it was an action film - it was about some terrorists shooting down an airplane in Kowloon City. But when we finished the script and the story board, the financial crisis hit. When the economy got back in shaoe, the airport was relocated.”

Written By (2009): “Au Kin-Yee helped me with the script. We went through a dozen versions of the shooting script and several drafts of the screenplay. But as soon as you make a change, the whole thing will have to evolve with it. Things evolved as we shot the film. We went further and further. Old habits die hard. Actually we edited out a couple of layers from the present version, in which Mia Yam (the grown daughter) wrote the novel. But in an earlier version, which I personally preferred, it was the young girl (the young daughter). I still preferred the version with the young girl being left alone. But I had to step back and pick the current version. I was a little mad at myself not sticking to my own vision.”

He was free to make the choice but there were too many choices: “We had quite a few suggestions floating around. The little girl version would have expressed my vision the best. But I forgot whose comment it was, but it prevailed: it is better to use the grown daughter’s version because the girl is a child actress and Mia Yam is a professional actress. I should not have taken that suggestion. Sometimes it does not help when you have too much help around. It had gotten so complex that none of the actors and SFX guys knew who was real and who was not. I was the only one who knew. Like you said, it is easier to do one plus one. When becomes two to a hundred, it is really hard.”

The possibility of a director’s cut: “That does not seem right. As the director, you should have made all the decisions before you show the final product to the viewers. You are not supposed to tell them there is a better version after they have seen it. You have to be fair. The decisions were made and they will remain. You cannot turn them back. I enjoyed making it. It was a pleasure. I could do whatever I wanted and it was such an alternative film. I was not happy about one thing though - the investor lost money on it. I have always wanted to turn a profit for the investor.”

There is a second male screenwriter who went uncredited in the game of writing that Wai played with the aforementioned female co-writer: “I played it with Au Kin-Yee and Yau Nai-Hoi. We realized it could be more interactive when we were shooting. I found it somewhat inadequate if we focused only on the living. I wanted to look into memories in more depth. At first it was not complicated. I cannot remember how I started it - the father died and the daughter started writing about him, or the daughter died and the father wrote about her. But it did not become so complicated until much later.”

By the way, Johnnie To was interviewed for HKIFF’s book on Wai Ka-Fai. Hopefully, the book will be reprinted so that you can read it.