There had to be so much whirling around in Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s mind as the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) was drawing to a close.
Important decisions were pending in his role as the jury head for the event’s main Golden Goblet competition, and there was a masterclass full of hungry young minds, ready to hang on his every word, scheduled for that very afternoon.
Then there was the effect of the constant and inescapable noise being generated in and around the festival all week long about factors affecting the very future of the film industry — chief among them the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and falling global box-office returns.
But what the Hong Kong star does when he sits down to chat is exactly what he’s been doing across a career that now spans over four decades. Leung delivers.
First, and unprompted, Leung sound-checks the recording equipment for the video crew who’ve joined us to make sure everything is running smoothly, and then he eases back into a conversation that covers all those issues, and more.
So let’s start with the industry-focused aspects of the discussion, because at this year’s SIFF there has been a stream of AI-focused seminars dissecting the pros and cons of these technological advances — and their impact on the film industry.
“I think AI is a double-edged sword,” he says. “It saves us a lot of time on pre-production and post-production. It saves a lot of money but this will go to mainstream movies, the popcorn ones — because [AI filmmaking] is easier and saves money. But at the same time, a lot of people have lost their jobs. You don’t need to think. There’s no creativity. It’s just calculations … there’s no soul.”
These are issues — and challenges — the industry will continue to face, says Leung, along with how to attract a rising generation for whom film is not the only entertainment option, as it was for him growing up in the Hong Kong of the 1970s, when there seemed to be a cinema down every street.
“When I was a kid, I enjoyed that kind of theatrical experiences. That, to me, is movies,” says Leung. “You have to watch it in a big screen. If not, you will miss a lot of film language, a lot of details. So when I was a kid, I used to watch a movie in a big cinema with a big screen, and this was just good.”
Leung has so far resisted the temptations of content offered on smaller devices — “I don’t even watch movies at home,” he says — and saw his masterclass as an opportunity to reach a younger audience in Shanghai, with a sold-out screening of his latest feature — the distinctly arthouse musing of Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend — set to precede the session.
“We need to educate them on how to enjoy different types of movies, not just one template,” he says. “It’s not just enjoyment, but sometimes [movies] don’t have an answer for you and you have to try to figure it out yourself. That’s why we need different kinds of movies. I think smaller-scale productions will dominate the market because of so many challenges — the short-form videos, the streaming, the gaming, and all other entertainment. The new generation, they have never had a theatrical experience so you have to find a way to invite these young kids to go to cinema.”
For the past week, Leung has led a jury of directors Guan Hu, Aktan Arym Kubat, Déa Kulumbegashvili and Fernanda Valadez, producer Dora Bouchoucha and actress Xin Zhilei.
They have watched, and discussed, and judged the relative merits of 12 films from a combined 15 countries and territories.
“It’s been a very interesting experience,” says Leung. “To me it’s a learning process because I can hear [the jurors’] opinions, and it’s very subjective. There are a lot of different perspectives, so it’s fun. I think you need surprises from movies and of course the film can resonate across our whole team, but all of us agree we can enjoy a movie in a different way.”
In terms of his own career — one that started with Hong Kong’s domestic TVB channel and has since moved through action classics (Infernal Affairs) and a brilliant spell under the gaze of auteur Wong Kar-wai (Happy Together, In the Mood for Love) and on to Hollywood (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) — Leung seems genuinely thrilled and inspired by the move into European arthouse circles with Enyedi.
“It was chaos,” he laughs, of his experience making a movie about the life of a ginkgo tree and the people who come into contact with it. “I really enjoyed working with such a mini crew. We found a harmony, like dancing together. You don’t know what we are going to do next. It’s really, really interesting and inspiring.”
Ahead awaits a previously announced project with fellow Hong Kong veteran Johnnie To, a return to his roots (of sorts) in a Hong Kong series made for a streamer, and more work with Enyedi, he says. There’s even the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye when offering a “maybe,” and a pause, to a question about the possibilities of a reunion with Wong.
“I choose the director first,” says Leung. “What kind of story, what genre, is not important to me. I need to have some feelings for this person or love their movies or I love this person but I never plan because I don’t want to control something that I can’t control because that’s life — it won’t happen as you wish.”