2004
I watched a 1994 film for the first time. I regard it as a guilty pleasure but only because it foreshadowed a real event that happened later on in 2004. In Wong Jing’s God of Gamblers Returns, the titular character returns to his French home to find that his wife had her foetus removed. On December 16, a pregnant American named Bobbie Jo Stinnett died after her unborn child was removed from her womb. The similarities are eerie. She was murdered on a Thursday. The movie was released on a Thursday. Her death was a day after the 10th anniversary of the film’s release. To provide you respite, God of Gamblers Returns reminds me of what has been said in many American TV shows and movies: “She’s everything that I ever wanted in a woman. She’s nice, she’s funny, she’s clever, she’s pretty, she’s sexy and she’s cool.”
Back to the eeriness. The movie unsettled me because it took on a greater significance. The last time that I had left England was in 1992 when my father took me to France. December 2004 was when I went to Hong Kong, but more about that trip in my memoir. Throughout the majority of 2004, I was Hell-bent on the dream of acting in a movie written and directed by Wong Jing. It’s because of him being such a big fan of Bruce Lee that I decided to revisit Bruce’s work and life. During breaks at college, I would read Bruce’s The Tao of Jeet Kune Do - a truly unauthorized book if there ever was one since not only did Bruce not set out to write such a book but it contained a lot of material derived from other philosophers. Once I finished reading it, I would borrow film-making books from the college library.
One book revealed that a director doesn’t tell everyone about everything that he wants during the filming. This is because everything is planned in pre-production to the extent that the production is carried out by a team of assistant directors who are essentially a group of messengers. This explained why Wong Jing was known as a director who never directed in the traditional sense. With everything being properly planned, a director on the set is not so much a commander as a supervisor. With that said, there are photos where Jing is actually shown to be on the set. He can’t be accused of being lazy. The original Hong Kong DVD release of Royal Tramp had a photo of him being behind the camera. Likewise regarding the footage that can be seen in the closing credit sequence of Dances with the Dragon as a way to silence the critics. His 2011 memoir contains more photos of himself directing than Google does.
In 2004, I had read a 1997 German interview with Jing. The most noteworthy thing about it is that he claimed to have conversations with Steven Spielberg in the early `80s. One of the things which Spielberg told him is that there came a point during Raiders of the Lost Ark when the action scenes were organized, if not conceived, by the second unit director. Jing realized there was no point in staying on the set during the making of action sequences (especially those involving martial arts or miscellaneous fighting). This is a logic which he extended to directing in general. Once it’s all planned, the assistants carry out the orders. Jing’s equivalent to Spielberg directing Poltergeist is Pantyhose Hero.
Back to talking about college, another library book that I had read was Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions. This made bus rides less tedious. As a reader in general, 2004 was revolutionary for me in that I learned there is such a thing as an unofficial autobiography. In Hong Kong, I purchased a book which was a compilation of seemingly everything that Bruce Lee said about his life. The compilation was organized by John Little (America’s #1 Bruce Lee historian). The title was The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon. Unofficial autobiographies are better than biographies (even authorized ones) because biographers tend to let their opinions get in the way.
An English college student, Damian, said that I somewhat resembled Bruce because of a production photo of him that was on the cover of a biography called Fighting Spirit (written by Bruce Thomas). The photo was shot during the making of his first martial arts movie - The Big Boss. As a novelist, another Bruce book would be an influence in learning the characteristics which define a hero’s journey. The book was A Warrior’s Journey by John Little. It was about Lee’s incomplete Game of Death (which influenced Uma Thurman’s iconic costume in Kill Bill: Vol. 1). The book would’ve made Joseph Campbell so proud.
Given how my career would go in a completely opposite direction from being an actor, Media was still useful because a male tutor mentioned that parodies only happen when a trend is enjoying its apex or has finished. This came in handy for me as a writer. All in all, studying Media was beneficial because it was relevant to my hobbies and a quicker way of entering the entertainment industry i.e. there are more people who work behind the camera than in front of it. Through Wong Jing, I realized that being a producer can allow you to achieve your acting ambitions more than being a working actor can. When Wong Jing earned enough credentials to become a producer, he co-starred alongside Danny Lee (The Big Score) and Ng Man-Tat (Money Maker). If casting your girlfriend counts as a casting couch then casting yourself is autofellatio.
There were only seven students in my BTEC First Diploma class (a one year course). The college wasn’t that Northern, there were many well-spoken students. Also, Media is hardly a boring course. It’s fun, and it’s not exactly lacking room for intellectual growth. While there are not that many vacancies for Media in North Yorkshire outside of news outlets, there is always the prospect of working for ITV in West Yorkshire like the Emmerdale soap opera which is filmed in Leeds. In general, most students in college end up moving far and wide to study at a university, so a student could theoretically study Media in North Yorkshire with the prospect of taking their dreams South.
As the months went by, it became apparent that there was indeed a middle-class class. The realization dawned upon me when different students would pop up in the radio room or some other room to ask for something. These were not simply photography students who were on an art course or drama students looking to visualize their acting talents. I felt kind of ripped off, and disappointed that class segregation was still a thing after what I went through in a religious secondary school. Given that photography was my favourite aspect of Media, I should probably have done Art instead (which ironically has less prospects than Media but had more attractive girls studying it).
