“I’m not really a good director and I want to try to be one before I die. But I’m not a good director yet. As for the 40-year shooting career, sometimes it was just a matter of living and making money. Because I didn’t know how to do anything else and I wasn’t qualified to be a dancer, so I kept making movies. Some of them are for practical reasons, some are for self-respect. I want to get something back. As Ma said in A Better Tomorrow, What I have lost must be brought back by myself. Others are for my own interests, though I like it very much, I may not do well. I would have sworn myself, I would have taken the job, I would have been a director, and I would not quit.”
— Ann Hui
Ann Hui, 73, was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival, becoming the first female director in the world to receive the award. To put it in perspective, Ann Hui has had a career of 45 years since arriving in Hong Kong as an assistant to King Hu in 1975 after studying in The UK. In 1979, Ann Hui had just cut a figure with CRAZY DISASTER, and became one of the pioneers of the new wave of Hong Kong’s film industry along with Hark Tsui, Patrick Tam, Ho Yim and others of the same period. However, compared with the respective glory of later directors such as Peter Chan, Hark Tsui and Dante Lam, Ann Hui seems to have a lower profile. Early in 1982, BOAT PEOPLE had been finished. When she went to the mainland to make films, she was already a pioneer of co-productions with the mainland, and she could always found the expression of her passion in the wave. She had endowed OUR TIME WILL COME, a film which theme is the Anti-Japanese War a unique and human artistic temperament, while the Golden Era uses the narrative of “separation” to provoke debate. Even though she is no longer young, Ann Hui’s creation is always challenging and practicing her “pioneer” consciousness as the standard-bearer of the new wave of Hong Kong’s film industry.
“Female” is a label that Ann Hui cannot avoid. She is over seventy and has never been married. She never shouted “women’s rights” slogan, but she really achieved the state of easy and comfortable that an independent woman should be. It is such a Ann Hui like this, has become an unique presence in the Chinese film industry.
Uniqueness of not being regarded as a woman
It has to be admitted that in the still male-dominated global film industry, female directors are indeed a group worthy of attention. As for Ann Hui, she has won the best director award of Hong Kong Film Awards for six times (the only one so far) and the best director award of Golden Horse Awards for three times, which is not to be ignored in the Chinese film industry. The aspect of Ann Hui’s for being a woman is actually reflected more in her work.
So far in the history of Hong Kong film awards, there were two films which had won the “grand slam” (which means to get the best movie, director, screenwriter, hero and the heroine award), one is SUMMER SNOW, and the other is SISTER PEACH, which are all directed by Ann Hui, and from then on, the characters in the films also became classic images of women on the big screen.
In addition, other films directed by Ann Hui, such as THE WAY WE ARE, ALL ABOUT LOVE, JADE GODDESS OF MERCY, THE AUNT’S POSTMODERN LIFE, GOLDEN ERA and so on, all of the leading roles in these films are female. It can be said that in Ann Hui’s works, women are the key to carry the theme. They may be ordinary housewives or unspeakable homosexuals, but in Hui’s eyes, they all have a unique value for existence.
In 2017, when OUR TIME WILL COME was released, this film, which also focuses on women as the protagonist, was very different from the previous hot-blooded Anti-Japanese War theme, so the market feedback is not so high. “It’s a story worth making,” Ann Hui said in a media interview. “Whether the result is good or bad, I should do it. One reason is that no one will ever invest in it again, and the other is that historically these people, no one wrote for them. But they should be written and remembered.” This passage can also represent the original intention of her film creation. No matter what kind of characters and subjects she deals with, she does not overtly sensationalize or shout slogans, but narrates them in a plain way. As she said, “My films never deliberately depict the themes of ‘women’s equality’ or ‘women’s rights’. Maybe because I am a woman myself, it is easier for me to touch the real life experience of women, and what I want to make is the experience of women from a different perspective from that of male directors.”
In ordinary life, or in her way of doing things, there was nothing feminine about it. On the set, she was one of those quick-tempered people. “I don’t like to think slowly and think clearly before I do it. I don’t like to have everything ready and prepared. I like to do it fast and do it on the fly.” When shooting her first film CRAZY DISASTER, in order to make a scene of autopsy well, on the third day of the New Year, she took a minibus and went to the autopsy room to see the autopsy alone. Though she felt indifferent at that time, after coming back, she couldn’t even eat for two or three days; while filming THE AUNT’S POSTMODERN LIFE, she lost her temper when the scene went wrong. Chow Yun Fat saw how out of control she was, and privately asked her if she wanted a sedative. She is comfortable that “no one treats her like a woman” at work. Of course, for the most part, she is gentle, especially accommodating of the feelings of many people, and this personality sometimes even affects the quality of the work. Film critic Lee Chack-taw once said that in many cases, Ann Hui “has ‘ non-artistic’ considerations such as taking care of the investment of her boss, the welfare of her staff and her personal relationships, and is prone to artistic compromises that affect her work’s performance”.
In interviews, Ann Hui often describes her personal life as a blank, “not having the experience that a lot of people have”. Probably because of this, many years ago, she had already known her destiny, “I have no constraints in life. I do not belong to any religious group, and I have no family. My age, gender and other aspects are all marginalized, but I can make films, this identity is very good for me, so why should I give up? “
Northbound tide: easy to be ignored and cling to self-creation
Of course, as a member of Hong Kong directors, what have to be mentioned is the trend of “northbound”. Compared with other industry colleagues such as Hark Tsui, Peter Chan and Dante Lam, Ann Hui is the one who is relatively easier to be ignored in this wave. This may also be one of her paradoxes. It is probably because her works, comparatively speaking, did not achieve relatively bright box office performances, and some films failed to get popular due to the limitations of the subject, so the influence of them in the mass level is also slightly weaker.
And Ann Hui was arguably the early pioneer of Hong Kong directors coming to the mainland to make films. As early as 1982, her film BOAT PEOPLE was successfully filmed on Hainan Island with Hsia Meng’s support. In 1987, Ann Hui directed her only swordplay film, THE ROMANCE OF BOOK & SWORD, which lasted three years due to her insistence on shooting scenes in the Yellow River and West Lake, as well as her working style with the mainland team, language communication and other problems. Since then, her MY AMERICAN GRANDSON and EIGHTEEN SPRINGS have also been shot in the mainland.
In other words, before returning to China, Ann Hui already had a lot of experience working with mainland teams. The trend of Hong Kong directors “heading north”, as we often call it today, actually originated from the mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) signed by the central government and the Hong Kong government in 2003. After the relaxation of policy restrictions, a large number of Hong Kong filmmakers have found hope. At that time, the production of Hong Kong film market was in a sharp decline, coupled with the impact of SARS, Hong Kong film was at a very serious historical moment. That year, Ann Hui also made the first film of her career, JADE GODDESS OF MERCY, which was actually funded entirely by a mainland company, but the film didn’t do well at the box office for many reasons. THE AUNT’S POSTMODERN LIFE is also faced with a certain awkward situation.
It is a widely held fact that Ann Hui’s films have always been relatively harder to find financing. It’s often tougher, especially when a few films don’t do well at the box office. After all, from an investor’s point of view, her films do carry more risk than other blockbusters. As a result, Ann Hui had turned to being a teacher several times during the filming years, both to apologize to her friends for investing in her films and to help support the family. Therefore, for her, “For those films that can’t be shot, then do not shoot it temporarily, until there is an investment.” She was lucky, of course, for always having people willing to support her through the years to make the movies she wanted to make. For example, after THE AUNT’S POSTMODERN LIFE, it was Wang Jing’s investment that helped her shoot the two acclaimed films, THE WAY WE ARE and NIGHT AND FOG. And it was Andy Lau who helped her finished SISTER PEACH.
Since then, the investment in the GOLDEN ERA and OUR TIME WILL COME had become higher and higher, but she was still able to balance commercial considerations and her own artistic expression, shooting a film that belongs to her own style.
She also has a clear understanding of this, “As a director, I will shoot the films which I know how to shoot. There is no need to stick to anything, as long as I stick to the principle of making a good film.”
On May 22, 2019, the film adaptation of Eileen Chang’s novel, LOVE AFTER LOVE starts filming, which is another challenge for Ann Hui. Both the casting and the adaptation have made the film controversial from the start. In fact, this is not the first time she has adapted Eileen Chang’s work. In the past, both her LOVE IN A FALLEN CITY and EIGHTEEN SPRINGS were all adaptations of Eileen Chang’s novels, although they weren’t very successful in her own account. But as she says, “Whether you’re writing or filming, what’s the point of not doing new things and taking risks, but doing what’s already worked?”
For so many years, she has been sticking to her own belief and retaining the enthusiasm of creation at the same time. Such a director must have been very precious for the Chinese film industry.
(This article is adapted from the article “MARGINAL PERSON” ANN HUI, SEVENTY THREE from “Yiqipaidianying” of May 23. Original Reference: WHAT ANN HUI SAYS ABOUT HERSELF wroted and edited by Kuang Baowei)
Edited by Guan Yu