[2021.09.22] LARINE TANG WAS TOO IN CHARACTER TO GET OUT OF IT

courtesy of singtao.com

The new director Terry Cheng Fung Lan directed, Chiu Sin Hang, Larine Tang Yueping starred film PTGF (CHO JO NUI YAU) was based on a real life story. In the film Chiu Sin Hang's heart has been broken numerous times. By chance he came in contact with PTGF and hence became the king of PTGF. When he discovered that his crush, female student Tang Yueping, was also PTGF his feelings became complicated. Although they became a couple, due to Tang Yueping's profession they had many problems. Hang Jai finally could handle the pressure no longer, posted over 3,000 PTGF photos online and led to storm after storm. Director Cheng Fung Lan said that PTGF was an interesting subject. He pointed out that in each era in Hong Kong girls would work jobs that "stepped on the line" for a living. PTGF was one of them. "Many people have a misconception about PTGF. I hope through the film to change the view of the audience. PTGF aren't sex workers. They provide their clients with more love than sex. The emotion journey is more complicated. I want to examine this profession from multiple angles. This script took three years to write, with over 50 drafts. Originally it was a very heavy story, but seeing that Hong Kong in recent years had less happy events I didn't want to make a story that was too heavy. Thus now this is a more entertaining version."

Leads Chiu Sin Hang and Tang Yueping both said that before the shoot they indeed had misconceptions bout PTGF. Hang Jai even said that from the start he worried that he would not be able to handle the role. Later he felt that this was an opportunity to hone himself so he accepted the challenge. He said, "Everyone really had misconceived notions about intimate scenes. The focus of this type of scenes was how to show the emotions within. They absolutely weren't enjoyable. Tang Yueping and I had bed scenes, but on the day of the shoot we had several dozen onlookers. The set was hot, because the team had to record sound no air conditioning could be used. We even had many emotional scenes, we had too much to handle. I really couldn't say I got lucky." Tang Yueping said that she was upset on the day of the shoot because she was too in character. She needed time to leave the role, but she also mentioned that one scene was so "out of character" that she could not focus. "In one scene I was very moved from hearing him talk about his broken heart. When he embraced me and cried, his tear got into my eyes. At the time I thought it was very gross and immediately got out of character. However it wasn't a bad take, I was able to persevere."