[2013.08.17] CHERRY NGAN AND BABYJOHN FULFILL DREAMS WITH SWEAT

courtesy of singtao.com

The Adam Wong Sau Ping directed film THE WAY WE DANCE (KONG MO PAI)'s subject is dance. It used new actors Cherry Ngan Cheuk Ling and BabyJojhn Choi Hong Yik and a group of top Hong Kong dancers, it even merged elements like street dance and Tai Chi to bring out the chase for your own dream in the dance scene.

Director Wong Sau Ping admitted that he made dance the subject because by chance he saw a phenomenon and was determined to write a dance script. He said, "My partner and I never have a stable place to talk about work. Later we found the Polytechnic Institute to be a good place. One night, we saw a group of dances dancing outside a 7 Eleven. Dancing there were not just Polytechnic students but also people on the streets. Later I found out that even some foreign dancers came to Hong Kong they would pay a pilgrimage there."

When he talked with a group of dancers, actually he discovered the school was oppressing the dance society. They could not apply for a regulation practice room to practice, so they chose a public place outside the school to dance. As they persisted, they rose to fame there. Wong Sau Ping said, "I felt this was great! It had a lot of Hong Kong spirit, a type of surviving in the extreme spirit. Even when not permitted to dance here, they found an empty space to dance. As they danced and danced they brought life and growth to this place, which made me feel this matter was very romantic, very passionate. Thus I felt I had to make a dance movie."

Cherry and BabyJohn played leads for the first time. The talented street dancing girl Cherry ran into Tai Chi guy BabyJohn and even received his unique Tai Chi skill to her, from which she was inspired to create new dance moves. In reality, Cherry studied Chinese dance, social dance, Latin dance since she was little, but she admitted that playing this character had certain difficulties. She said, "This film was about Hip Hop dance, in addition the choreographer and the director wanted me to dance some larger dance moves. Thus I studied Hip Hop from the beginning, which was different from what I have learned before. The hardest for me was to play dance, flinging the cap around like acrobats. Yet I didn't know how to at all. At the time during the dance practice I kept dropping the cap and I was very frustrated."

BabyJohn joked that when he was at the Performing Art Academy, he studied 12 lessons of Tai Chi class but only learned a little. However playing the Tai Chi guy character, he received the director's arrangement for a Tai Chi master to instruct him. He said, "During the two months of learning period, I explored how I could perform some Tai Chi moves to make people feel that this was a Tai Chi society president character. I relied on everyday observation of Master's movements and studied him."

As for the film THE WAY WE DANCE's dream chasing message, Cherry and BabyJohn agreed that chasing dream was very important. They both were inspired to continue to seek their dreams. BabyJohn said, "I have always pursued the film actor dream. This movie was only my start. I once wrote an article for a newspaper, I cited, people are very interesting. I feel like a door has been opened, which is similar to film. After completion I just stood there, but I didn't know when the next film will be. I also didn't if there was a next movie, but I wouldn't just wait. I would train myself, I wouldn't feel since the dream started it meant it has ended. I would continue to chase in this direction."

Cherry said, "At first the dancers and I were both suspicious about this film, feeling would talking about dreams make people feel it was too preachy? On the night THE WAY WE DANCE premiered at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, everyone was very excited and made me forget about all the worries before. The screams were nonstop during the screenings. This film made me realize something that I didn't dare to believe could actually come true."