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Herman Yau holding onto hope for the film industry

9 Feb – Although the Hong Kong film industry is in a dire situation, filmmaker Herman Yau is optimistic that it will turn around sooner or later.

In an interview with Mingpao recently, the "Shock Wave 2" director admitted that making movies have been quite hard for the past few years, what with the Hong Kong protests halting a lot of productions, followed by the pandemic that had restricted filming of new movies, and cinemas from making money.

"But although people said that the current situation is even harder than before, the same could be said of the past. We didn't know what the future would bring back then too, but we still made it through," he said.

"I don't want to be pessimistic. I am always holding onto hope. Whenever I got a job, I work at it. I hope for the best and expect the worst."

Herman wore a mask whilst promoting 'Shock Wave 2'
Herman wore a mask whilst promoting 'Shock Wave 2'

The Hong Kong movie, which stars Andy Lau as a former bomb disposal expert, also stars one of Hong Kong's best actors Sean Lau, and Chinese actress Ni Ni.

When mentioned that his movie's own producer Daneil Lam had said that the Hong Kong film industry will never return to its golden age, Herman said that Lam was speaking from the point of view of a producer who would focus on the big projects.

Using the analogy of a big restaurant and a cafe, the director said, "With a big market like mainland China, the bosses will want to focus on the restaurants, which is understandable. But when everybody went to the big restaurants, the cafes suffered and the new generation can't be cultivated. Before this big market existed, everybody can still take risks in the domestic market. Directors in the 1980s like us were raised like this. But big bosses are not interested in taking risk on these small cafes anymore."

(Photo Source: Mingpao, Asian Film Instagram)