[2024.04.02] THE LYRICIST WANNABE REACHES HK$ 4.5 MILLION AT THE BOX OFFICE

Chung Suet Ying is happy that she is nominated for the Hong Kong Film Awards Best Actress with her first lead role, but she feels her chances are slim

Director Norris Wong (right) praises the potential of Chung Suet Ying

THE LYRICIST WANNABE enters its fourth week and passes HK$ 4.5 million

Chung Suet Ying in THE LYRICIST WANNABE performs from the beginning to the end, from school days to keep chasing her dream as a professional lyricist
courtesy of mingpao.com

Chung Suet Ying with the film THE LYRICIST WANNBE (TIN CHI L) was nominated for the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards Best Actress. Her competition included IN BROAD DAYLIGHT (BAK YUT JI HA)'s Jennifer Yu Heung Ying, BAND FOUR (4 PAK 4 GA JOOK)'s Kay Tse On Kay, READY O/R ROT (BUT YUT SING FUN 2)'s Michelle Wai Sze Nga and A GUILTY CONSCIENCE (DUK SIT DAI JONG)'s Louise Wong Dan Nei; Chung Suet Ying was in also ran position. THE LYRICIST WANNABE director Norris Wong Yi Lam although strongly supported Chung Suet Ying to win, but admitted that the chance was very slim. "Someone said that the Hong Kong Film Awards had a deserve 'order', the older would have more advantage. I deliberately checked the date and see when the nominees' birthdays were. I realized Chung Suet Ying was the youngest." THE LYRICIST WANNABE also received Best Original Music and Best Original Film Song nominations. Wong Yi Lam already felt that she have fulfilled her duty. THE LYRICIST WANNABE began its fourth week in release, and its box office finally toughed past HK$ 4.5 million thanks to word of mouth. some online posted that they wanted to watch it a second time.

Actor and lyricist Chung Suet Ying too felt the chance of her winning Best Actress was very slim. She was already very happy to receive the Best Actress nomination with her first lead role. She said that if she would win, she would probably win because THE LYRICIST WANNABE was a woman film. The entire film revolved around her, as she carried the role from the beginning to the end. She revealed that at first when someone approached her about performing she thought it was a scam, because the producer after saying that they would make a movie about writing lyrics would send messages to her every two months. "THE LYRICIST WANNABE is in progress." Then nothing further came.

Until half a year ago when she was shown the director's work I REALLY WANT TO BE A ILLITERATE LYRICIST she finally realized that it was real. Chung Suet Ying said, "After reading the book I thought the director was very interesting. She actually used classic music to adapt lyrics for a competition. Actually someone would want to do something so badly, she wouldn't care even if she went about it all wrong. So I really looked forward to what the movie would look like once it was done."

THE LYRICIST WANNABE was based on Wong Yi Lam's work I REALLY WANT TO BECOME AN ILLITERATE LYRICIST, about her chasing the dream of becoming a professional lyricist. She made it into a movie because something Stephy Tang Lai Yan said inspired her. Wong Yi Lam said, "When Stephy recorded the theme song for MY PRINCE EDWARD (GUM DOH), she praised my lyrics for being very decent and asked if it was my first time writing lyrics. I was reminded that I liked to write lyrics before, I have written many demo, dreamt of becoming a lyricist but finally gave up. While looking at my work again, producer Wong Hoi thought this book was rather interesting and wanted to make it into a movie. So this whole thing happened."

Wong Yi Lam and the producer self funded the production of THE LYRICIST WANNABE. The budget was HK$ 2.8 million, each covered a half. Although many actors volunteered to help or charged a friendly rate to take part, but under a lack of financing we had to shoot a little and stop a little. We had to wait until she saved up enough money from work to resume production. In addition it was shot during pandemic, several scenes commuted between Hong Kong and Taiwan for location shoots. Quarantine took time, so 15 days of shoots took a full year. She admitted that shooting this way wasted even more money, but she could do nothing about that. If they kept dragging on they might have just left it. She insisted on continuing the shoot because the film would be the first story about Cantonese lyrics. She said, "At the time I never thought about total loss, I only know to be scared now."

Wong Yi Lam really likes Cantonese song lyrics, the coordination between pitch and harmony was very cute. Other languages would not be as interesting in a song as Cantonese. "My first lyrics adaptation was during secondary school, when I put HOME OF FIVE STARS and HALF A CATTY EIGHT TAEL into a stage performance. At the time I felt that I had a little knack for lyrics and a sense of achievement, so I started wanting to become a lyricist."

Wong Yi Lam's lyricist journey has not been smooth. Because it was too rough, she felt that it was not suitable for herself. In 2012 when she wrote I REALLY WANT TO BE AN ILLITERATE LYRICIST she decided to give up and changed her runway to become a screenwriter. "Earlier I signed a contract with a record company to be a lyricist, after writing this book I didn't renew my contract and switched to screenwriting. I put in so much energy and time into being a lyricist, but I remained where I started. Other people started later than I did but were already successful, some people were able to securely make money, get married, have kids and reached another level. I seemed to have fallen behind the general market, and the sense of loneliness was very strong like the story in the movie. The most upsetting was that a singer after seeing my lyrics seemed to have plagiarized and wrote another lyrics to sell to a record producer."

Wong Yi Lam chose Chung Suet Ying for THE LYRICIST WANNABE lead, mainly because she is also a lyricist and her age is also appropriate. "I have heard Chung Suet Ying's work, I feel that she is very amazing, very powerful, an action with a lot of potential."

Chung Suet Ying felt that she has been rather lucky as a lyricist because the era was already different, "The director's lyricist era was 2004, 2005, at the time she really relied on email and online forums to find some demos with instrumental performance. I came in contact with writing lyrics in 2015, 2016, I could already use a computer, use a program to pound some demo out. So many classmates used this method to become creative singers. In addition there is 'Make Music Work' (music creative and production talent cultivation project), as long as students have written lyrics they could apply. After successful interviews they would be matched with a music producer and a singer. There are a lot of free programs, making getting into the business easy."