[2024.12.23] DANNY PANG LEARNS TO SHARE HIS BURDEN WITH OTHERS

Danny Pang says that grasping audience's preference has become harder, operating film productions have been more and more difficult

Danny Pang has accepted Lin Minchen's apology for "missing" the premiere an praises her performance in the new film as pleasantly surprising

Jessica Chan plays a female ghost for the first time. In the film her classmates bully her. Danny Pang for realism has Jessica Chan beaten up and her hair cut for real

Danny Pang says that Kiki Tam (left) and Yvette Chen (right) both play bullies. When they hit for real following his command, Danny Pang grinds his teeth from watching
courtesy of mingpao.com

"Malaysian Goddess" Lin Minchen was absent from the premiere of her movie HAUNTING CALL (SAU GEI GEIN GWAI) on the grounds that her passport was "missing". Director Danny Pang Fat expressed his displeasure and ridiculed the incident for being stranger than making ghost movies. Lin Minchen urgently "mended the wok", contacted the director to explain and apologize in order to calm his anger. Already accepted the apology, Pang Fat laughed and talked about helping Lin Minchen do the impossible during filming and made her clogged tear ducts shed tears. Both Lin Minchen and Jessica Chan Yee Chun's performance pleasantly surprised him, as he praised them for their willingness to contribute to the work. Owing debts for his beloved wife's medical treatment, Pang Fat said that he has solved his financial difficulties, and was grateful to the people around him for helping him through the hardship. The incident drastically changed his view on life. He has learned to share his worries with others, already arranging how to spend the rest of his life.

The Pang Fat directed HAUNTING CALL told the story of revenge due to school bullying and death. He found a group of young actors Lin Minchen, Jessica Chan Yee Chun, Kiki Tam Kei Kei and Yvette Chan Shing Yu to perform, revealing that they had different personalities. During filming, some needed to be scolded, some had to be guided slowly, and some had the freedom to improvise; but all in all, the girls were young and energetic enough, willing to take risks, and their performance was surprising. "I specifically want to praise Jessica who was bullied. In order to achieve the effect, she was really abused, including being beaten, set on fire and had her hair cut. I explained it clearly to Jessica beforehand so that she was mentally prepared. During the shoot, she was in so much pain that she kept shedding tears; but she still held them in. I also asked Jessica's bullies Tam Kei Kei and Chan Shing Yu to really hit, and the two of them were really brave enough to do it. I gritted my teeth and was reluctant to cut. I just watched how they hit. Thanks to the cooperation of several actors, I saw them open up for the role and had a lot of fire."

Playing the role of Internet celebrity "Lily", Lin Minchen also pleasantly surprised Pang Fat. "The biggest surprise was that after she finished filming a crying scene, she boasted to me, 'Everyone who have shot my crying scenes only shed tears in one eye. The other eye had no way to shed tears.' She made me sound like I helped her do the impossible. Since I saw her boasting like that, I kept shooting both of her eyes in tears; sometimes even her nose was running before I accepted the take. She did not get mad and instead came over to praise me, 'Director, you really are amazing.'" He said that the future of movies will rely on this new generation of actors. Regardless of their acting skills, at least they are willing to contribute to their works.

In order to coordinate with the mobile phone driven story of HAUNTING CALL, Pang Fat abandoned large-scale film shooting equipment and shot the whole film with a mobile phone. It seemed simple, but it was not easy at all. Just in pre production testing different phone models, different functions to shoot the different results, he already took a long time. "Day scene and night scene, sped up and slow motion, the visual quality and effects that different phones made were different. HAUNTING CALL is a theatrical movie, so after deciding which phone to use and what features to shoot each shot, I still have to rent a cinema and put the clips on the big screen to see if they meet the requirements before making the final decision." He denied that mobile phone production was more cost-effective, and that the manpower required was no different from that of a large camera. He said with a smile, "Cinematographer costs are just as expensive, they aren't cheaper."

Known as the "ghost king director", the last time Pang Fat directed a Hong Kong-made ghost film was IN LOVE WITH THE DEAD (CHUNG OI) in 2007 with stars Stephy Tang Lai Yan and Shawn Yue Man Lok. Making Hong Kong style ghost films again after so many years, would he worry about the box office results? Pang Fat said that he has been rolling in the film industry for many years, and knew the rules of the game very well. The most important thing was to shoot the subject he wanted to shoot. As long as he did not "take advantage" during the production and had no guilty conscience then he was fine. The box office was very hard to predict. "Nowadays just the film scheduling, one more or one less it is beyond the director's control."

Pang Fat admitted that nowadays the audience's preference was very hard to grasp, making film operations more and more difficult. The problem was not limited to Hong Kong but around the world. "The whole film industry is facing a great problem, because the viewing mode of the audience has completely changed. You have to set a certain time to go to a certain place to watch a movie, and you have to pay too. Ask yourself honestly, how many movie have you paid out of your own pocket to watch in a year? Actually the number of people watching movies has not decreased, but there are more online platforms. The audience watches over the Internet instead of going to the theaters."

Pang Fat said that a movie has a life; like with THE LAST DANCE (POR. DEI YUK), no one dared to say that it would definitely break the HK$ 115 million box office record of A GUILTY CONSCIENCE (DUK SIT DAI JONG) to become the box office champion of Hong Kong Chinese films. This is the fate of THE LAST DANCE, "The audience happens to want to watch it at this time, then they have good results; if they don't want to watch it then they wouldn't! Remember that a movie from creation, preparation, production to release could easily be a matter of a year or two. If someone told you the movie would definitely be a hit two years later, he wouldn't believe it. How could anything so magical happen, even fortune tellers aren't that good."

Pang Fat said that he has never encountered any supernatural incident since he started making ghost movies. He joked that he was the most afraid of having no money. Speaking of last year when he spent all his wealth for the cancer treatment of his wife, he was unable to pay back the HK$ 2 million debt and filed for bankruptcy. Fortunately he received help from all walks of life to solve his difficulties. He said, "I already paid off my debts, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here today. This incident has changed my outlook on life a lot, and it is enough to be healthy every day. How to live each day for the rest of the days has also already been arranged and managed."

Has he learned to share your worries with others and not carry them all alone? Pang Fat said, "My brother (Oxide Pang Shun) has always helped me to share the burden, but how much can he share? Everyone has their own families and burdens. My personality has always disliked finding people to share the burden with, but now I have learned to speak up."