The melody of familiar classic Chinese music echoes through
the hall, bringing back childhood memory of watching Hong Kong films.
The vision on screen floats across the Chinese vessels, creating
a time travel back to ancient China.
The characters demonstrate light skill (qinggong 轻功 –
specific martial art methods and techniques that train the body to be light and
nimble) and martial arts, bringing us closer to the world of wuxia (武侠 - a broad genre of Chinese fiction
concerning the adventures of martial artists).
This is the scene that opens the curtain for Flying Swords
of Dragon Gate <龙门飞甲>, directed, produced and written by Tsui Hark (徐克), an
internationally acclaimed, prominent director and producer whose works centred around
wuxia world.
This is the scene that opens the curtain for Flying Swords
of Dragon Gate <龙门飞甲>, directed, produced and written by Tsui Hark (徐克), an
internationally acclaimed, prominent director and producer whose works centred around
wuxia world.
It was a great honour to be given the opportunity to attend
the exclusive preview of this 2011 movie with the students of the college I’m
currently attaching to. To add more spices to it, the itinerary of the day had
included an hour of “Movie Making Workshop with director Tsui Hark”, an up close
and personal experience where the director himself shared his knowledge and
experience in film-making with media students of 3 colleges in Klang Valley,
Malaysia.
Being graduated from Mass Communication with selected pathway
of Film & TV, this was my first encounter of such event. It was such an
inspiring and aspiring sharing that has triggered my inner desire to pursue
creative writing path to fulfil my curiosity and creative energy. Since I was a
little kid, I am attracted to Hong Kong films and dramas and enjoy improvising
the story (on mind) which I still do today.
Director Tsui Hark shared
that when constructing a scene, he will decide on the feeling to be brought out
of the scene first before working on its treatment. Shall this scene reflect
love, kindred spirit, revenge, hatred etc.? What is the level of the emotion –
light, average, strong – for this scene?
My mind started to wonder that this principle could be
applied to our daily life too. Shall we live our day and moment with love,
hatred, etc.? How strong and long shall we attach to that emotion? Many of
those self-empowerment books and write-ups I’ve read mention something like “Life
is like a big canvas where we write/direct/paint/draw on the blank piece of
white cloth.” It is up to us how we want to write the script of our own life.
Commenting on the trend
of remaking, the director felt that there is no meaning in remaking if there is
no reason and no new perspective added to it because it is equivalent to the
absence of breakthrough in innovation.
Thinking back, I’ve always wanted to create something new, something
that reflects my style yet at the same thing bringing out the common things
that the others can relate to – something different enough to create a
breakthrough.
From
the sharing session, I came to realization that the language used in
communicating ideas is very important, not only for a director but between
humans. “Language” here means having the same channel of thoughts when the
message is communicated. Sometimes, despite communicating in the same language
(i.e. English), the message is not fully understood due to the different
imagination and perception of the different individuals. How can we tune it to
the same language, same channel? Perhaps this is what we call the chemistry?
*The Italic words are those of the director while the others are
my understanding based on the sharing.
* Photo source: http://www.chinapress.com.my/node/278627
*Love & Hope for better tomorrow*
~Si3wLiNg~
20111226
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