[2024.09.22] HONG KONG LUNAR NEW YEAR FILM SLATE MAY BE NEAR ZERO

Louis Cheung started working in Malaysia earlier and was praised by Tong Binyu as a good actor

Anita Yuen starred in a new film and played mother and daughter with the Malaysian goddess Miko Wong.
courtesy of on.cc

The Hong Kong film and television market has been deteriorating. The past rush of film companies to start shooting Lunar New Year films has become a thing of the past. This year only the Albert Mak Kai Kwong directed JUNG NUI SEH (MIDDLE AGED WOMEN DORMITORY) was in preparation. The film was not originally targeted for the Lunar New Year release; if the change was not made thought, next year Hong Kong would have zero Lunar New Year films. The situation was quite serious!

Every year Lunar New Year is a must battleground for film companies. In the early years, many Lunar New Year movies started filming in August and September. However, this year it has been surprisingly quiet. Even earlier the publicly announced Lunar New Year film with guy group MIRROR member Edan Lui Cheuk On will be postponed. So far only the One Cool Pictures and Entertaining Power invested JUNG NUI JEH (MIDDLE AGED WOMEN DORMITORY) has been in preparation. Mak Kai Kwong, the director of the 2024 Lunar New Year film ROB N ROLL (LUM SI GIP ONG), would direct. Director Mak recently admitted that he was preparing a new film, and bluntly said that this time he was asked to make a Lunar New Year film because of a critical situation: "This film of ours wasn't a Lunar New Year film originally, but next year will have no Hong Kong Lunar New Year films next year so the decision was made to make the switch. I hope it would be able to start production next month." He said that he only accepted the film in July this year. Because funding had to continue to be raised, he was unable to apply for the Hong Kong Film Development Fund in time and he applied elsewhere. In addition to filming in Hong Kong, the film will also shoot in Macau. Director Mak pointed out that the investment amount this time would not be as much as ROB last year, but he will do his best to make a film that would be rich in Hong Kong flavor.

The Hong Kong film industry has been as quiet as ever, and everyone on and off the stage is trying to find other ways. On the other hand, Malaysia has become more and more prosperous in recent years. Three New Year films were shot there earlier, including the Anita Yuen Wing Yee (Len Len) starred MOM'S BIG NEWS (OMG! AH MA YAU HEI), Louis Cheung Kai Chung's I WANT TO BE RICH (JO GOR YAU CHIN YUN) and Bobby Auyeung Chun Wa's MONEY GAMES (BOON GUNG BAK LEUNG). The boss of the production that invested in MOM's and RICH, Malaysian actor Tong Binyu spoke about so many Hong Kong teams coming to Malaysia to film movies recently. She said bluntly, "Malaysians really like to watch Hong Kong movies, so when Hong Kong artists come here they are very popular. In addition the government has launched many preferential measures for foreign investors, including any investment of more than 5 million would be eligible to receive more than 30% of the production fee. It is very attractive, but they should pay attention to the quota. Applications for each place can no longer be approved after a certain number each year. Hong Kong seems to have already reached its quota this year."

Two Lunar New Year films that Tong Binyu's company has invested in have also been scheduled to be released next year, basically turning into a competition against themselves. However she was still confident and praised both Yuen Wing Yee and Cheung Kai Chung as good actors. "Yuen Wing Yee is great. After reading the MOM'S script, she decided to turn down a TV series offer and came to Malaysia to start production. I remember the first day when she joined the crew, many of the staff were relatively young. They knew that Len Len was famous for being very demanding, so everyone was worried that she would be very mean and also mentally prepared to adjust the lines. In the end, we filmed for more than 20 days. She said that our script was great and knew exactly what effect it wanted, so she didn't change a line of dialogue from beginning to end."