Winners and Sinners
"Winners and Sinners" HKL Interview:
'I was watching this television series many years ago, and the characters all had different working backgrounds. It's about these
policemen working on their cases or running after criminals, sometimes too they'd be up in a police helicopter working on cases. I adopted and changed all these five characters. One of them would be working at a high altitude, he's cleaning the window. Another one is on the ground and is always chasing or running away from someone. If the background of these characters is funny then they'll be entertaining. That's how I got the idea. The group of The Five Lucky Stars was designed for comedy. The Seven Little Stars - Painted Faces - is a representation of something, something like folklore. In the past there used to be The Seven Kids and the name is a representation of that. The Five Lucky Stars are about these five characters who could bring laughter to people, so they are different. I've been working with Richard Ng for a very long time. I believe he is a talented actor and has a good sense of comedic timing. The way he looks is very suitable for the part of an idiot or someone stupid, someone who always tries to act cleverly but who ends up being a fool. The character he played in the film believes that he has superpowers. The truth is, he's lying to himself. In the film John Shum's character looks like he's very serious. The result in combination of his characteristics was hilarious. Because he is a serious guy and was always screaming around it was easy for the
rest of the characters to bounce off him. These sorts of exchanges always had a comedic result on the character. Stanley Fung is different, I wanted him to be like this self-appointed leader. He was the head of the group and controls everything. I fashioned his character after The Three Stooges. In the film he looks like the leader, the head guy that controls everyting. He would also do stupid things once in a while, that was the difference. Charlie Chin acted in a lot of romantic dramas in the past, love stories. In this film we used that and we recaptured his character. His character still thinks he's this matinee idol, he looks like a handsome boy, handsome guy. So, his character in the film is drawn from the past, from a bygone era. This character has a comedic effect on the film. Actually, in the film the character I played is like who I am in real life. I'm very obedient. The main difference is, in real life, I make a lot of decisions myself, but my character in the film always seems to be taken advantage of by the others. In fact, I'm very fond of my friends, and do whatever they ask me to do. My character is this kind-hearted and helpful fat guy, fat bloke, whatever. I've known Jackie Chan for many years and have collaborated on a lot of films with him. He understands me and how I work and delivers what I want naturally. We're very comfortable working with each other. We discussed a lot of things together, like how I wanted his character to be, and it all came naturally. I thought of all those stunts like the car chases and created them myself. I thought of them first then went and asked some professional stuntmen whether certain stunts were feasible. I conceptualised most of the stunts in my head then I hired people to help me realise them. I was just trying a new style to give the action a different feel. Using long shots and close-ups serves the fighting sequence differently. They also bring different kinds of visual satisfaction to the viewer. It helps the audience understand your point of view as they have different properties. I wanted to try doing some close-up shots, of how people fight and touch so that I could almost feel them myself. So I filmed them to see if I could get a different effect. I expected the result to be quite similar to what I had envisaged. Anyway, I feel it when it's right. In all my action films the stuntmen, or the special team, a lof of people got hurt. I'm always worried about injuring stuntmen and action directors work to limit that. I just take more safety precautions these days. It was different in the past. Before it was real, they did everything for real. Jump down, whatever, cut, punch, everything, you know. No protection. Now I think a lot of things you can do better, it's not so dangerous.
I like Charlie Chaplin. Buster Keaton, I like him too, but I love Charlie Chaplin more, because he had a heart. When you watch his movies you see he has a heart for everyone. Buster Keaton - you can see very good action, fantastic, you know. Unbelievabe what he could do how many years ago. Just like now, if I use a wire maybe I could do it, but he, you can see he didn't use anything, he just did it himself. Just great. But you can only see the performance, not inside the heart. But Charlie Chaplin, in his movies, the stories, he can tell you that people still have love. This is very important. At that time I was just concerned about giving the audince an alternative type of comedy. Different types of characters for the audience to enjoy and to make them laugh their heads off. I am still the same but it's getting more difficult to come up with fresh ideas. Maybe we walked too fast. I still love people to be happy, this is very important. But maybe we walked too fast. Now whatever you want thinking about the stories, the jokes, everything, it's real hard. I hope that people around the world have a very happy time. The Five Lucky Stars - like their namesake - are there to bring joy to people that see them.'