I think Hong Kong should have its own film industry apart from co-productions with China, because even a province would like to have its local color and see its way of life in the films, hong Kong has a tradition of local films and has very distinct particulars about certain people and about certain subjects that are banned in China -- triads, horror stories, horror mixed with kung fu, kung fu mixed with comedy, that kind of genre in China right now is censored.

Ann Hui

Categorized in : Entertainment

To be honest, I am not especially pleased to be slotted primarily as a 'woman filmmaker', but it's okay with me. Plus, I see the relevance and the strength of having a distinctive subject and drift for promotional purposes

okay honest purpose

When I first started making films 30 years ago, people would comment that I was a woman. But strangely, when I was in television, no one ever mentioned that I was a woman. Maybe it was because television and film were different. There were more women working in television than men. There was no split in terms of work - everyone was considered equal

different men people

In Hong Kong, in our generation that started out in the 1970s, being a director wasn't a big deal. We didn't even have director's chairs. We weren't particularly well paid. The social standing of a film director wasn't that high. It was a sort of a plebeian job, a second or third grade one. And the studio heads are always practical, there's never any fawning because someone is a director. There's very little snobbery about one's position as a director. The only ones people treated differently were those that were also stars; or the directors who also owned their companies.

film people