[2023.02.10] HO CHEUK TIN BELIEVES HONG KONG FILM WOULD BE BACK FROM THE DEAD

Ho Cheuk Tin feels lucky, before his first film is even edited, he already has a chance to direct his second film.  The production budget is even higher than the first.

Ho Cheuk Tin says comedy has its difficulties, luckily he has helped from two comedy actors Teresa Mo and Ronald Cheng.  He even hopes through OVER MY DEAD BODY more young people would get to know Yeung Wai Lun

Bonnie Wong and Lau Kong work together for the first time, set off a lot of spark and are a pleasant surprise for the audience

The producer says Lee Sheung Ching is the only choice to play the building security
courtesy of mingpao.com

New director Ho Cheuk Tin felt very lucky. After completing THE SPARRING PARTNER (JING YI WUI LONG) and before its release, he immediately had the opportunity to direct his second film OVER MY DEAD BODY (SEI SI SEI SI SEI SUP SEI). The two films were drastically different, but Ho Cheuk Tin said that OVER basically was a tragedy. Related to death, both were ensemble films. From many characters many panorama could be see, which actually was a little similar to SPARRING. Only the methods of expression and genres were different. "If everyone watched OVER MY DEAD BODY in detail, they would see a lot of metaphors. After 3 years of the pandemic, I hope everyone are like the film's ending. After being stuck inside a building for the whole night, we finally made it and could breathe a sigh of relief."

Ho Cheuk Tin praised Wyman Wong, who wrote the lyrics for the OVER MY DEAD BODY film theme song SALTED FISH GAME, for using "salted fish" to teach everyone how to face adversity. "The term salted fish would give people infinite imagination, how would salted fish come back to life? As the lyrics said as long as you are willing to persist, one day better days would come." He agreed that happy days would be here again. For years Hong Kong films have been declared dead, but it still is around. A GUILTY CONSCIENCE passed HK$ 100 million at the box office, and his THE SPARRING PARTNER also became the category III film champion. Perhaps the most difficult time has already passed and the light at the end of the tunnel could be seen. It might not necessarily be absolute, it was still a good start. "We may not be able to change the reality, but a positive attitude would make thing happen toward good. Since whether good or not it would still be a day, you might as well be a little more positive."

Ho Cheuk Tin admitted that making a comedy and making people laugh were very hard. Fortunately he had outstanding comedy actors Teresa Mo Shun Kwan and Ronald Cheng Chung Kei to help. After watching OVER MY DEAD BODY, viewers praised the Lau Kong and Bonnie Wong Man Wai played retired silver haired couple Mr. and Mrs. Chan as quite the pleasant surprise.

Ho Cheuk Tin said that the pair was perfect. Mr. Lau rarely played comedy, but his foundation was great. His action skills were beyond anyone's imagination. Originally thinking that he came for the comedy, but in the end the touching spot fell on Mr. Lau. "It might have been Mr. Lau and Sister Bonnie's first time working together, but they were very compatible and very funny. I really like Sister Bonnie's look. She brought to life the middle class, husband domineering Betty. I hope after viewers watched the film, they wouldn't just remember her as the mother in law from FAT CHOI SPIRIT (LEK GOO LEK GOO SUN NIN CHOI) 20 years ago. They would also remember this character Betty."

Playing the building security "Security guard Lee", Lee Seung Ching was also a bright spot. Actually he was producer Chin Siu Wai's only choice, feeling that Lee Seung Ching could not be more suitable for this tongue twisting part. The producer even said to Ho Cheuk Tin, if he did not know Lee Seung Ching and had any reservation, he could watch Stephen Chow Sing Chi's MERMAID again. Ho Cheuk Tin said, "Lee Seung Ching held his own even opposite a strong actor like Wen Zhang, instead he stood out very much. Security guard Lee is a minor character with special abilities. His memory was very strong and he has given a lot of pressure, the part in which he blew up after being ignored was great. Their performance was even better than imagined. Mr. Lau got more and more into the world of the film, had an understanding of his role, and gave a lot of suggestions. His open to discussion professionalism is well worth younger generations to learn from."

OVER MY DEAD BODY followed up the HK$ 43 million success of THE SPARRING PARTNER, thus Ho Cheuk Tin had confidence in the former and felt that it would be able to surpass the latter at the box office. "This time is a category IIB family movie, with many more young viewers. I hope it would do better than THE SPARRING PARTNER. I hope 18 year old viewers would get to know me and Yeung Wai Lun through this film." Would he have any pressure? He said, "I have done all I could, I hope it was good. I think positively, this year has been a minor rebound. However A GUILTY CONSCIENCE set an over HK$ 100 million box office record, OVER MY DEAD BODY might not make as much. GUILTY had the timing, the location and the people, but I felt it was a good thing. When a movie gave such a good start, I hope we can keep it going and have even more viewer support."

Ho Cheuk Tin is a new director, his first film THE SPARRING PARTNER (JING YI WUI LONG) was a commercial and critical hit. It made HK$ 43 million at the box office. When the second film OVER MY DEAD BODY opened, the audience response has also been decent. Would he feel very lucky? He admitted, "Having the chance before the first film was edited I am already very lucky. The production budget was even bigger than the first, the last time was around HK$ 10 million. This film was HK$ 15 million. The stars were bigger, and I got to try and learn many things. OVER MY DEAD BODY for me was a whole new world. I have never built so many sets for a shoot, it felt like I experienced several movies."

Ho Cheuk Tin never would have guessed that his director journey would be so smooth. He hoped that it would only keep getting smoother, and would have the chance to try different genres. "I am very envious of directors of the 1980s and the 1990s, directing many movies a year. Like To Kei Fung, he made any and all the genres, comedy, action, romance, had different attempts and explorations. From the process he continued to gain experience. Although his THROWDOWN (YAU DOH LUNG FU BONG) only had average performance, just like its dialogue 'when you are thrown you have to get back up' it is very inspirational. So as long as it's not a very upsetting subject, I would want to give it a try."

Ho Cheuk Tin saw To Kei Fung as his goal, overseas he liked Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. "Scorsese would shoot any genre and subject, even children's movie; Spielberg too, making politics, children and science fiction. He truly is a powerful director, actually with any genre or subject he would want to make it the best." For his next movie he would like to make a sports movie, because his graduation film was a short film about basketball. After 10 years and 2 movies, he felt that he would have the ability and the experience to be able to make the basketball movie even better, to make the short film into a feature film; in addition he also would like to make a movie similar to Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi's, with one background and two actors for the entire film and absolutely no gimmick.