Selling Points
Often time in films, someone is hired not so much based of their unique talent but because of the number of credits they’ve amassed or because of who they have worked with. Especially the latter. When you’re making any movie, what you’re selling is not so much the quality of the product as the reputation of those involved with it…even if it is something as tenuous as the “same producers” behind a previous movie that you saw. It’s why I have a preference on wanting a Hong Kong fight choreographer or director to adapt my novels or screenplays. Even if you could find me a U.S. choreographer who is just as good, I would still opt for the H.K. choice because it’s a way for me to advertise H.K. cinema.
Take, for instance, Wong Jing’s Holy Weapon. This stars Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung, both of whom were in Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio (also 1993). Both productions were choreographed by Tony Ching Siu-Tung. So many H.K. film fans want Jing’s film to be remastered on Blu-ray because the VCD had shoddy quality, and the DVD wasn’t that much of an upgrade. Despite Michelle’s mainstream success with Everything Everywhere All At Once, the Holy Weapon Blu-ray will only happen if Tony Ching or Wong Jing do something that becomes successful enough to warrant dusting it off the shelf. The need to remake films (including legacy sequels) or reboot TV shows is just a way to make sure that the original production gets restored and re-released with fancy new extras, including rare footage or photos. In the case of Holy Weapon, we will have to settle for things like interviews and audio commentaries.
Years ago, I was rather keen on getting Clarence Fok to do a low-key remake of his 1992 movie written and produced by Wong Jing. Both men’s movie was called Naked Killer. Having Clarence direct a remake of his Naked Killer would be more beneficial than Michael Mann remaking his Miami Vice. In December of 2015, I rewrote my fashion industry remake so that Clarence wouldn’t have to go through the torture of filming lesbian sex scenes. On the Hong Kong Legends DVD of Naked Killer, he described such scenes as boring. He also stated that Naked Killer had to be rewritten back in 1992 when a much respected actress (i.e. Josephine Siao) refused to play Cindy despite signing the contract. Cindy was meant to be more feminine in that she liked going shopping and receiving facials (this is because Wong Jing prefers making relatable action movies).
As a result of casting a new actress, the film’s accessibility was tarnished in the same way that Chinese fireworks would be highly dampened by rain. Naturally, I reverted the dehumanization process with my remake. Clarence claimed that he was only able to film 30% of his ideas, so I decided that my structure should encompass them (whatever those ideas may be). By 2016, I no longer had the intention of it being my first published novel. This was because of Zoolander 2 coming out in 2015. Because the first movie was a flop, it was wise to presume that the sequel would. It did. Thus there would be limited chances of making a splash with a first novel about assassins in the fashion industry. Even if it was published before the movie came out, people would have been making wrong comparisons.
For a long time, I wanted Warner Brothers to be the production company of my Naked Killer remake since they own the copyrights to nearly 200 H.K. movies. Ten of these involved Wong Jing in varying occupations - Pantyhose Hero (ghost writer/director), The Big Score (d/w), Money Maker (ditto), Mean Street Story (w/producer), I’m Your Birthday Cake (ditto), Blind Romance (likewise), Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Star (d/w/p), War of the Under World (w/p), Till Death Do Us Laugh (same) and Sex & Zen III (again). The logic behind choosing W.B. was that re-releasing or remaking these movies would pave the way for Jing to make his own Hollywood début.
I felt confident because there is a pattern, if not a trend, that I detected - a H.K. movie gets remade to the extent that the H.K. director is guaranteed to have a career in Hollywood. John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow being loosely remade as Next of Kin (starring Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson) paved the way for John to make Hard Target (starring Jean-Claude Van Damme). Ringo Lam’s City on Fire being loosely remade as Reservoir Dogs paved the way for Ringo to make Maximum Risk (starring JCVD). Infernal Affairs being remade as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed paved the way for Andrew Lau to make The Flock (starring Richard Gere and Claire Danes).
Thanks to producer Joel Silver, Warner Brothers were behind movies which had H.K. fight choreographers working on them e.g. Yuen Woo-Ping working on The Matrix and Dion Lam working on Exit Wounds. Not to mention that some of Warner’s movies featured Jet Li (i.e. Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 the Grave). It probably won’t happen now, but Wong Jing (who speaks good English) would have done an outstanding job in Hollywood because the best directors are actors. On Saturday, April 26 in 2014, British actor Martin Kemp was advertising his last directorial feature (Top Dog) on a Channel 4 breakfast show when he said: “Being an actor definitely makes you a better director.”
Hopefully, Wong Jing will not be like Andrew Lau if he sets out to do an English language film. The latter sabotaged his Hollywood career by going against the producing team’s wish for The Flock to have a hardcore finale (the subject matter called for it). Additionally, one of the crew members failed to elaborate why U.S.$ 60,000 needed to be spent in post-production because of a mistake made in production which cost U.S.$ 4,000. Then again, this is why you hire script supervisors whose job is to check the dailies, but this shouldn’t be necessary when you have monitors. Also, you have to wonder whether it’s cheap to reshoot something or to use CGI to “fix it in post” as they say.
