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• TEDDY CHEN TALKS "BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS", "PUNITIVE HOMICIDE" AND... JACKIE CHAN

  2009-07-24 7:43PM / 新聞 / Hong Kong Cinema / 會員可以看
  5個評論

  I interviewed director Teddy Chen 陳德森twice so far. The first time, it was in 2004, and I started with a “career interview” and asked him of course, to talk about about the great action movies that he made in the 90’s like “Downtown Torpedoes 神偷諜影” (A kind of Hong Kong version of “Mission: Impossible” starring Takeshi Kaneshiro) and “Purple Storm 紫雨風暴” (The first movie where I really noticed Daniel Wu’s potential). But actually, the purpose of this interview was to talk about  “Infernal Affairs II 無間道II”.

   

  

  Teddy Chen  (Hong Kong - 2004)

  
  

  At that time, I was actually preparing my short documentaries about the “Infernal Affairs” trilogy for the French distribution company Studio Canal. And since “Infernal Affairs II” was my favorite among the three movies, I wanted to interview as many people as I can who worked on it. Finally, I could have Andrew Lau 劉偉強, Alan Mak 麥兆輝, Felix Chong 莊文強, Anthony Wong 黃秋生, Edison Chen 陳冠希, Andrew Lin 連凱 and Teddy Chen. Unhopefully, Andrew Lin and Teddy Chen interviews had to be edited out for a length reason (the documentary had to do 15 minutes maximum).  

   

  

  Teddy Chen in "Infernal Affairs II"  (2003)

  
  

  Teddy Chen was not behind the camera for “Infernal Affairs II”. He worked on the movie as an actor for a small part where he played a gangster who got badly burned. He actually started in the film industry as an actor. “When I was 16 years old, I was playing bowling, and somebody came to me and asked me if I wanted to act for a TV drama. I said to him that I never acted before, but he answered that it was not a problem, and I was in the business. It was thirty years ago. ”  

  Teddy Chen spent 8 months acting for TV: “I’m too shy to work in front of a camera. But I liked the feeling when I’m was on a set. So I tried to work behind the camera. That’s how I started to work as a scriptwrite for TVr”. After two years, Jackie Chan’s manager came to him, because Jackie Chan needed an assistant : “He just finished “The Druken Master” at that time. He was looking for someone who could speak English and Mandarin. Jackie liked me and I became his first assistant in the late 70’s.”
  

  
  

          

  Jackie Chan's "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" (1979)
  

  
  

  Working for Jackie is maybe a dream for millions of people, but it wasn’t for Teddy: “I was the personnal assitant of Jackie. I was so exited to work with Jackie. I thought I’d have many chances to learn new things about movies and  big productions. But it wasn’t really the case. I helped Jackie to pick cars, to look out the new house, to take care of his fans from Japan or Taiwan, and  bring them to shopping, to see Jackie’s movies in the lab. I was under one people and over ten thousand people. A very powerful position! But I was not happy. One day, I talked to him, and I resigned. He was very surprided. He said to me : ‘Did I not treat you good? I buy three t-shirts, you have one t-shirt. I treat you as a brother.’ And  I said to him ‘I’m sorry Jackie, I want to be a director’. He stepped away but I saw his reaction in the mirror. He was smiling. I cried that night. I was 19. The next day I resigned and he told the manager to talk to me and asked what I wante to do. I said that I wanted to start from the lowest, and do script continuity. That’s what I did on the next jackie Chan movie.”

   

  During the years, Teddy Chen worked for several directors and not only Jackie Chan : “Usually, a assistant follows a director for 5 or 7 years. Then, if the director becomes a producer, the assistant has a chance to be a director himself. But I didn’t want to work for one director only. I worked for Tsui Hark, Kirk Wong, sometimes Teddy Robin. I wanted to know more about directing by working with many of them, to understand how they think too. I was the last assistant director at that time to become a director. And I directed my first movie in 1989. It’s a called Alien Wife.”

  
  

  
  

  Kirk Wong's "Gunmen" (1988) and Ching Siu-tung "Chinese Ghost Story II" (1990) Produced by Tsui Hark. Assitant director: Teddy Chen.
  

   

  After he became an established director, Teddy Chen had the opportunity to work with Jackie Chan again, by directing “Accidental Spy”: “I was very touched when Jackie Called me. We haven’t met for 20 years. One day, he called me for a dinner. That was strange.  At that time, I was writing a script for a 24-year old actor for Golden Harvest. Jackie Chan heard about it from his manager Willie Chan. He read it, liked it and asked me if I wanted to direct the movie and If I could change this 24 years old charcater to a 40 something because he wanted to play in the movie. I said  to Jackie : ‘Are you sure you want me to direct it? 20 years ago, I was your first assistant.’  And he anwsered : ‘During those 20 years, I followed your work discretely. You were working very hard and I appreciate the movies that you made. So, from this moment, I’m not Jackie Chan. I’m an actor, you’re the director. That’s it.’

   

  

  Jackie Chan in Teddy Chen's "Accidental Spy" (2001)

  
  

  Five years after our first interview, I had the chance to meet Teddy Chan a second time during the Hong Kong Filmart 2009 where he was presenting two projects. One at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum called “Punitive Homicide”, a horror thriller written by Su Chao-Pin (“Double Vision”, “Silk”) and the other one, “Bodyguards and Assassins”, had a big presse conference at the Filmart a few weeks before the beginning of the shooting. The whole interview about those two movies was published on Twitch two weeks ago. Check it out right here:

  “BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS” + “PUNITIVE HOMICIDE” – Teddy Chen interview - FILMART-HAF 2009

  
  
  Promo posters of Teddy Chen's "Bodyguards and Assassins" (2010)
  
  
  

  Frédéric Ambroisine (July 24th, 2009)