The Golden Era Of Gay Cinema | With Ray Yeung | The Pearl Lam Podcast
In episode sixteen of the Pearl Lam Podcast, gallerist and cultural commentator Pearl Lam sits down with award-winning film director, Ray Yeung. Pearl Lam learns all about the talented Ray Yeung’s career, as he shares his story with long-time friend, Pearl Lam.
Pearl Lam: Welcome to the Pearl Lam Podcast. I’m sitting here in Hong Kong with one of my favourite people, Ray Yeung. I’ve known Ray for many years, and I will let Ray to tell you who he is and why he’s a disruptor.
Ray Yeung: Thank you for inviting me. Yes, we’ve known each other for decades. I’m a filmmaker, mainly focused on doing LGBTQ movies. I also am the chairman of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. The recent movie that I’m launching now went to the Berlin International Film Festival, so we had our world premiere there and it’s now coming to Hong Kong. So now I’m doing my pitch here.
Pearl Lam: But you got an award. What did you tell people? You got an award, you got the Teddy Award from the Berlin Film Festival.
Ray Yeung: Yes, Yes, yes.
Pearl Lam: It should be a Hong Kong Pride.
Ray Yeung: Yes, it is. It is. I think it’s the first time in years.
Pearl Lam: Which film was the last one?
Ray Yeung: It was Stanley Kwan, the director.
Pearl Lam: Oh, I understand.
Ray Yeung: Yeah. So, uh, he made the movie and that won the Teddy Award. And I think that that was the only Hong Kong director has ever won. I’m the second Hong Kong director who won an award, and there’s another Taiwanese winner years ago. So it’s really only three Chinese language movies that ever won.
Pearl Lam: I’m so proud of you, Ray. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, I want everybody to know about Ray’s background. Ray is actually the only son out of four siblings, and he studied law and he’s supposed to become a lawyer. Yeah. So what, I mean, since when do you know that you want to change, I mean, law of course is your parents insistence. Since when do you want to change to become a director?
Ray Yeung: Well, I mean, Pearl, you know it better than anybody in this world, I think because we, we used to live in London together. We used to study together, and I used to complain and complain and complain and just say that, oh, mom, I can’t do something more interesting, something that I like, and why do you have to do this? So even from then on, I already knew that I wanted to do something else.
Pearl Lam: But why film?
Ray Yeung: Well, first of all, because I really love movies and I feel that film is something that someone can for a very short period of time, minutes or an hour, depending on the length of the movie, really step into another world and be someone else and can see their world from their perspective. I think it’s very, very, a good way for the world to actually embrace diversity and also to understand what is empathy. So I think filmmaking is a very, very important thing, and it’s something that we can actually use to show the world who we are. So I think one of the main reason was that I was living in London at the time, and the very first reason that I wanted to do movies was because that I felt there was a very lack of representation of Asian gay men in the West at that time. So therefore, I felt, well, I really ought to do something to represent us in the media. Not in a very kind of like stereotypical way.
Pearl Lam: My understanding is that we all have these very highly, I mean, all these very traditional families or our parents expect us to carry on with a certain career. So for you to go back to your parents and say, sorry, dad. Sorry, mother, I am not going to be a lawyer. I want to be a film director. What was the reaction, especially high hopes of you? The only son?
Ray Yeung: Well, I mean, for my parents, I mean, my kind of disappointments comes in, not just that, you know, a million other things as well, because I’m gay and of course, you know, I couldn’t carry on the family name. So that’s all that, that comes with it. So eventually when I decided that that is something that I wanted to pursue in my own career, I just decided to do it all in one go.
Pearl Lam: Explain to everybody what does that mean by do it all in one go?
Ray Yeung: So you might as well, right. If you’re going to disappoint them, you might as well tell them that I’m not going to be a lawyer and I’m gay, so at least they can choose which one is more disappointing.
Pearl Lam: So then you start studying in Kent, if I remember. And then you went to New York? Originally when you did the law degree,
Ray Yeung: Yes. I was in Canterbury, yes. And then I went to the College of Law, and then I did all that. And then I came back to Hong Kong, and by then I stopped doing law already at that time. And I started doing advertising, you know, TV advertising. And that was actually good in a sense because at least I got myself out of the legal field and it was still something that I really wanted to do and learning about filmmaking. But as it went on, I realised that advertising or promoting a product is not really something that I wanted to do. So therefore, I eventually decided to go to New York and enroll in Columbia University. And I did MFA in filmmaking.
Pearl Lam: And did you enjoy it?
Ray Yeung: Yeah, it was fantastic. Of course, it just took me so long to eventually get to that stage in my life. And then I just felt that I had a lot to catch up, ’cause finally I was studying something that I really liked. So the course was three to five years. You can finish in three years or five years, depending on how long it took you to do your project. So I actually finished my thesis in the third year, and then I could still stay on, you see, for another two years. And you just have to pay half of the school fees, and then you can use a lot of the school facilities. So after that, I actually made a feature film in New York.
Pearl Lam: Banana Skin?
Ray Yeung: No, no, it’s called Front Cover.
Pearl Lam: Oh, Front Cover, okay.
Ray Yeung: Yes, yes. So I made that film when I was actually in college.
Pearl Lam: Okay, so a Hong Kong boy, a gay Hong Kong boy going to become a film director. And he only wants to make films about gays. Your parents, were they digging a hole trying to hide themselves? Because no parents in Hong Kong want to want to accept their children to be gay, which is really a serious problem.
Ray Yeung: Yes, yes. But I also actually at the same time started the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
Pearl Lam: So it was really in their face. Right.
Ray Yeung: Well, you have to embrace it.
Pearl Lam: Many of our friends, we all know that. They wouldn’t even go up to tell their parents they’re gay. I mean, it’s just like the parents know, but they wouldn’t confirm. The issue is, we’re sat in this era, we are still like this.
Ray Yeung: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: There’s for you to do that, and especially your family is a very established family. Then they want to dig a hole.
Ray Yeung: And Well, the thing is that if you’re going to do something, there’s no point doing it halfway. You know, there’s no point if I’m going to do it and I’m gonna hide, like try to make movies, but I cannot make movies about LGBT lives and I’m making something in order to halfway please them. I mean, what’s the point of that? I have already gone that far that I really need to truly live who I want to be and embrace myself. Because by then, when I did it, I was already not that young. So I already felt that I really, really should be who I am for the rest of my life. So at that point, I just have to tell them who I am. This is what I’m going to do, and then I just went on and do what I believe. That is something that is important to me.
Pearl Lam: But luckily your sisters are all very supportive.
Ray Yeung: Yes, yes, yes, yes as well.
Pearl Lam: First movie you did, uh, where was it being released?
Ray Yeung: Well, the very first movie, I did it when I was in London before I actually went to Columbia. It was like a very, very low budget.
Pearl Lam: I remember I watched one of yours, is it called Banana Skin?
Ray Yeung: Banana Skin was a play. A stage play. So at that time I was still involved in law, but I just really wanted to do something different, you know, to see whether I have got the passion and the talent. So at first I did a stage play called Banana Skin, so funny way back, funny, basically about people that we know. So about that circle and that society. And then after that, the film that I did is called Cut Sleep Boys, which is a very, very, a low budget film, which I really wanted to explore and see whether I wanted to be a filmmaker at that point. So I basically got a bunch of friends, some of the actors that I knew from the play. And then I met up with a couple of really, really great people, a producer who works for the BBC. And she just came on board to help me, because she just felt that, well, you know, there’s this person who is trying to make a low budget independent movie about gay Asian guys in the UK, which is such a interesting topic. So she came on board and her husband is a DP, so she brought her husband on board and shot the movie for us. And it was very low budget. We just shot in different people’s friends houses and things like that, but it was the beginning. So I did, that movie was my first movie.
Pearl Lam: Where do you release it?
R In the uk I think it also went to In Cinema Club. Or, no, it went to the Out Fest Film Festival in, in LA and I won Best Feature.
Pearl Lam: Wow.
Ray Yeung: I know, I know. It was my very first film. I won Best feature at the Out Fest Fusion Festival. So I was thinking, okay, well maybe I can do this. Maybe I can do this. So that is how it started. So obviously I didn’t have this dream. I didn’t think that I can do it, but it’s something that maybe I can try. So from there on, I started doing it, start writing a little bit more.
Pearl Lam: I know you write, you direct, and you produce. You do everything yourself.
Ray Yeung: Apart From acting.
Pearl Lam: Apart from acting. Yes. So how many films have you made so far?
Ray Yeung: This is only my fourth,
Pearl Lam: Because your third film, which is an English name, Twilight Kiss, right?
Ray Yeung: America. Yeah.
Pearl Lam: In America’s, That’s right. In America, it’s Twilight Kiss. And it was really well received in France as well. Yeah, I love that movie. I saw two times or three times, because I always considered your movies feel full of humour, are a really good laugh. But Twilight Kiss was moving. I didn’t know that you can draw tears.
Ray Yeung: The first impressive movies that I did was very much like I said before, very much about representation of gay Asians in the West. So I moved back to Hong Kong and I wanted to make a Cantonese movie because I’ve never really done anything that’s in Cantonese before. Everything that I’ve done before that was in English. But I can’t write Chinese. So that was always a hurdle that I had to go through. So eventually, I just felt that, look, you really, really need to do a Cantonese movie. So I actually wrote it in English, and then I actually got someone to translate it in Cantonese.
Pearl Lam: Oh, really?
Ray Yeung: Yes, but I can’t speak fluent Cantonese. So what happened was that the dialogue I recorded on my phone and sent it to the translator to write it. I know it’s a very, very, involved process because I can’t write in Chinese. But that’s the only way I could do it.
Pearl Lam: Like all of us, our Chinese are bad.
Ray Yeung: So we have to find out easier ways of doing it.
Pearl Lam: So you tape and then you voicemail him and then the dialogue.
Ray Yeung: Yeah, the dialogue. Oh my God.
Pearl Lam: So why did you change from real comedies to an actually really sad movie?
Ray Yeung: Because when I came back, I really wanted to look for something to write that is not about myself. By then, I’ve already learned two films that is kind of like with around people I know. I came across a book called The Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong written by a Hong Kong University professor called Travis Law
Pearl Lam: in English, or in Chinese?
Ray Yeung: It’s in Chinese. It took me a whole Christmas vacation to read it. ’cause because it was an oral documentation. So everything was written in Cantonese, the way you speak, which makes it even harder to read.
Pearl Lam: Very hard to read.
Ray Yeung: Yes. Because I think if people who don’t know about Hong Kong cultures, like when we were growing up, we studied Chinese as in written Chinese.
Pearl Lam: The Chinese is like Mandarin. Yeah. But you don’t speak Mandarin, but you read literally Chinese. Yes. Anyway, very confusing.
Ray Yeung: So it took me a long time to read that book, but it was very interesting. It’s about this bunch of old gay men who are in their sixties or seventies already and most of their lives spent in the closet. They are all from a very blue collar sort of like background. So I asked Trevor whether I could meet some of these people. So he said yeah, okay. Some of them,
Pearl Lam: Trevor is the professor who wrote it,
Ray Yeung: The professor who wrote it. So he said some of them passed away already. So I thought, well, there’s a real urgency to do this story. So I met up with some of them and became friends, went to their house and they have a chat, look at their photographs and everything. So I basically gather their stories and the way they think, what they think about being gay and all that, and rearranged and recreated the script. So I reimagined what it would be like if two of them met each other and fall in love. Now both of them are grandfathers. So that’s how that story came about.
Pearl Lam: But that was a very touching story, uh, because the ending is really not what I want. I want happily ever after, right?
Ray Yeung: Yes.
Pearl Lam: Right. And there’s nothing called Happily Ever After. So actually when I watched that movie, I said, oh my God, Ray can actually make people cry, not just laughing their head off. How was that movie being received in Hong Kong?
Ray Yeung: It was interesting because it was released during Covid. So it was good and bad at the same time. I think, of course it’s bad because during Covid everything closed, but at the same time, because of Covid, a lot of the Hollywood movies, like Marvel, they didn’t want to release it around that time. So suddenly a lot of the cinemas have a lot of open slots. So the movie was able to open in cinemas across Hong Kong. And because there were not a lot of movies being shown, suddenly we were being highlighted everywhere. So in that sense, it was very high profile for that period of time. But of course, you know, in terms of Box office, I think it was good. But it could have been better because at the end of the day, COVID, a lot of people would not dare to go to the cinema. And Hong Kong to a certain extent is still very homophobic, of course. So a lot of heterosexual men wouldn’t go and see the movie. A lot of wives who would want to see it, and they tried to drag their husbands to go into it and they wouldn’t. I spoke to a lot of people. It’s still very much, you know, in Hong Kong. Where can you watch that movie? Well, it’s on Amazon, I think, and in the US you can watch it, I think, on Netflix sometimes
Pearl Lam: Please watch Ray Movie. It is spectacular. This movie. Thank you. Thank you.
Ray Yeung: This Movie in America is called Twilight’s Kiss.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, Twilight’s Kiss I really love it.
Ray Yeung: In Spain, they have a different title, in Brazil, we were also there and had a different title than Spain. In Thailand, a different title.
Pearl Lam: I thought that movie should earn you some awards.
Ray Yeung: We won al lot of awards, yeah.
Pearl Lam: Which awards did you earn for that movie?
Ray Yeung: I think, for the Hong Kong Fame awards, I think we had nine nominations and then we won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress. And then we also were nominated for Five Golden Horses.
Pearl Lam: Wow. How about internationally?
Ray Yeung: A bunch. But they were all a lot of different stuff like film Festivals.
Pearl Lam: I thought you were so, I thought you were talented. I thought, my God, I’m so honour that he’s my dear, dear friend after all these years.
Ray Yeung: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. You, Because Pearl, you meet so many important people in your life. Well, it’s so funny, right? It’s great talking, talking about all those years back, we were sitting there thinking, oh, what we want to do with our lives and things like that. And look at us now, right? Its quite wonderful that you are doing something that you love and I’m doing something that I’m passionate about and good at, which is important.
Pearl Lam: Let’s talk about this new movie of yours, shall we? Now you are not talking old gay men. You are talking old lesbians now.
Ray Yeung: Yes. But I didn’t do it on purpose because people ask me, they said, well, do you purposely do something that’s about older generation of a woman? Is that your thing? It’s not actually, it’s because around that time I went to a talk about the LGBTQ rights for inheritance rights in Hong Kong. ’cause as you know, in Hong Kong, there’s no same sex marriage. And if a couple has been living together for a long time, and if they didn’t make a will, then they’d really not protected in any way legally. So during the talk, the speaker was saying that there are a few couples that he knew that basically one partner passed away and the surviving partner lost everything. So I said, oh, do you mind introducing me to some of these people? So he was very kind and introduced them to me. So I spoke to them and, and eventually I find that there’s one thing that is very common among these people is that before they pass away, her family member and the surviving partner relationship used to be very good before they passed away. They even went on holidays together. They have dinners, Chinese New Year, they spend together and everything until the day that the partner pass away. Everything changes overnight.
Pearl Lam: You mean every single case like that?
Ray Yeung: Those three cases.
Pearl Lam: So similar.
Ray Yeung: Yes. Yes. So that is what inspired me to write the story. And therefore, it has to be about a couple that has been together for a long time. So therefore is sort of in their twilight years. And the reason I chose a woman couple, a female couple, is because a lot of the female couples, they were able to be accepted in by the society on the surface.
Pearl Lam: Yes, absolutely.
Ray Yeung: You know, in Hong, Hong Kong, two women together in their sixties, everybody think they’re sisters. Yeah. And they pretend that, that they’re not lesbians. They just close one eye.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Ray Yeung: You see, but two men in their sixties, you couldn’t even do that because the society, the family members will not embrace two old men going to a wedding together.
Pearl Lam: Right. No,
Ray Yeung: But two women, they would kind of turn the blind eye to it. So therefore it has to be a lesbian couple. That’s why the story is based on two women.
Pearl Lam: But, but you are actually bringing a problem which exists in Hong Kong and bring, right, I mean, bring to the screen so people can recognise that
Ray Yeung: Yes.
Pearl Lam: What is happening.
Ray Yeung: Yes.
Pearl Lam: And you know what, how was the reception in Berlin? Isn’t that for Berlin for the European country, it’s quite a passing problem. It’s no longer their problem at all.
Ray Yeung: No, that’s not true. Actually, I was quite surprised too, because like I thought, you know a lot of countries have same sex marriage always protected. But actually that is not the case. No, no. Because when I was there, when during the Q&A there will be people in the audience, they actually said that “I’m not gay, but I’m in a long term relationship with my girlfriend”. But actually, if one of us pass away without a will and we are not married, the same thing would happen. So actually a Northern country, this person is from Sweden.
Pearl Lam: Sweden is very liberal.
Ray Yeung: That’s what you think. Because actually a lot of the times the law doesn’t have enough protection for all these people or these different types of relationship. We are always being forced into this marriage kind of model. And only that will provide you a lot of the protections. So I was very surprised. But of course my movie was not just about the legal status and the rights, but really it’s about human relationship.
Pearl Lam: Yeah. Human relationship.
Ray Yeung: How that affect people.
Pearl Lam: Money affects people.
Ray Yeung: Yes. But it’s also like these people, they have this long history together. They used to be like a family. But because with all these things that happened then suddenly everything overnight it changes. In one case, a woman, her partner passed away. The next day, the family member said to her, oh, where are all the watches? Because we want to have a nice watch for her in the funeral. Can you bring back all her Rolexes, all her watches for us to select? So then they just take all her watches and all her jewelry. That happens overnight, you know, that’s what one of the interviewers told me. Yeah. Quite shocking.
Pearl Lam: Very shocking. But I still believe that we humans do have some ethics.
Ray Yeung: Yes, but in one case also the partner passed away, the family members start going to the apartment where they’re staying and actually stay there. And while she was out, they changed the lock.
Pearl Lam: Ha.
Ray Yeung: Yes. Yes. When you hear stories like that, they really make you think, wow, my goodness. People can do that.
Pearl Lam: Wow.
Ray Yeung: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: I mean, whenever you make movies like this, don’t you feel heartbroken? Because you were saying that you want to bring empathy, but there’s no empathy when you behave in a certain way.
Ray Yeung: Well, you see that it’s the real life situations that I interviewed. But in my movie, it is different. I actually didn’t make that family members to be so cruel because I felt that if you do that in a movie, the audience are going to watch it. And they say, well, I won’t identify with that family member. Those people are nasty and mean. I’m not like that. So actually in my movie, I actually make the family members quite sympathetic. They all have their reasons to want to get hold of the apartment. So I wanted the audience to question themself. It’s like, okay, if I am in that situation, if I also need that apartment, would I let this woman live in there who legally have no protection? So I want the audience to question themselves to see how homophobic they are, because we can all be very nice and generous when we have plenty. But if you also have that need, will you be able to entertain your moral obligation? So that is the question that I want to ask the audience.
Pearl Lam: Beautiful. I liked it. Okay. Let’s talk about you. You being an independent filmmaker, I think the last few times when we talked to you, we talked about how difficult it is and how little money the government subsidised. Especially in Hong Kong being a filmmaker, the golden period of the film industry has completely disappeared. I just read about how in the eighties, nineties, the number one exporter of film was Hong Kong. I just read about it. And so now we are in a really low time because there’s not many people who once had Hong Kong film and therefore Hong Kong production, the money investing in in Hong Kong film is very low, and even though the government wanted to support you it is very little. So how do you control and how do you finance and tell us about your process of being an independent? Is it tough?
Ray Yeung: It’s very, very tough. I mean, first of all, I want to say that the Hong Kong film industry cannot really look back to those days because in the eighties and the nineties, not a lot of countries in Asia were actually making a lot of films or really had a film industry. Like Korea didn’t have a film industry in the eighties and nineties and Taiwan was at a very low place. Thailand didn’t really make a lot of movies at that time, and China movies wasn’t really exporting. So Hong Kong became like a very important and significant place. But the world has changed so much in Asia. So many countries have their own movies and big film industry. So that’s part of the reason as well. But for me, individually, because of the subject matter that I like to approach, which are LGBTQ, and so it’s always been seen as a niche.
Pearl Lam: You do self Financing.
Ray Yeung: Well, friends like you, people like that who I know and who will help. And, but I tried to apply for government funding, and at that time, because I first moved back to Hong Kong, and like I said, my script was translated. So one of the reasons they said no, I think that was the reason. Because I think they didn’t know who I was at that time. And so they look at the script and they just said that this looks like a translated script. It’s written in English, translated into Chinese. So that was part of the reason they said that they didn’t give it to me. But I think one of the reason is mainly because it’s also LGBTQ subject matter. Right. And also about old people. And the Hong Kong film fund is very funny because like most firm public funding, what they do is they give you the money because your project is interesting. It might advance the industry or the reputation of that country. Right. It’s not supposed to be financial gain, but the Hong Kong film fund is different. It’s actually a co financing system. So they will only invest in your project because they think that there’s profit that comes out of it.
Pearl Lam: Ah, okay.
Ray Yeung: Which is very, very weird because my project is that commercially viable, I could just go to any project sector.
Pearl Lam: Yeah. Right
Ray Yeung: So it actually doesn’t really make a lot of sense. It should be catered for projects that are about social issues.
Pearl Lam: Yes, exactly.
Ray Yeung: It may not be commercial, maybe slightly, you know, surreal or something that’s interesting. But it’s not like that, I’ve already complained to them many times, but you know, they didn’t really want to listen to me. So they rejected me for silk. So now this time when I applied for it I thought it would be easier. Just as difficult really, if not harder.
Pearl Lam: Why? You already have a history, a track record. Why?
Ray Yeung: Well, when I’m make a gay movie, they said lesbians is more commercial viable now that I make a lesbian movie, they said more people like to watch gaming movies. Already contradicting. But I submitted the application in 2020 and I never heard from them. I apply and then I asked what’s going on, and no one answered me. And then eventually I got enough money from people that I know, investors, private investors, and I make the movie myself. And then earlier last year, I finished the film already. We were submitting it to Berlin. Eventually they came to me and said that, okay, you got the funding. This is after two years. I’ve already made the film. So I said, well, okay, alright, well why not, right? If you’re going to give me the money anyway. But then they came with all this regulations, crazy, crazy regulations that is so straight that by that I couldn’t, I couldn’t accept those regulations anymore because by then I had resigned with the international sales agent. I already have signed contracts with the actors. They want me to go back to the actors and resign and, no.
Pearl Lam: You cannot. It’s too late.
Ray Yeung: They have already shot the movie and paid and left and do another project. I cannot go back to ask them to resign another contract to give out all their rights. So all these regulations make it very, very difficult. I would not be able to take the funding. So eventually I have to withdraw.
Pearl Lam: So now, as an independent filmmaker here, I mean, you know about us, you know the UK is more difficult than the US.
Ray Yeung: In terms of making, yeah.
Pearl Lam: As an independent filmmaker making films, it must be cheaper than the UK and the US right?
Ray Yeung: Uh, not necessarily. Not necessarily.
Pearl Lam: Not necessarily.
Ray Yeung: Yeah. Because in, in Hong Kong, the film industry also don’t forget because for a long period of time, a lot of the Hong Kong workers, they went up to work in China.
Pearl Lam: Yes. A lot of them go to China.
Ray Yeung: And then the pay in China was very high, Much higher than here. So that’s why when they came back to Hong Kong, they didn’t want to work in Hong Kong movies because the pay is so different. So for my project, I actually get a lot of younger filmmakers, you know, camera crew or the art department. They’re much younger and not the old practitioners. But working around, I guess it’s always difficult, you know, it’s never easy making a film. But is it more difficult in Hong Kong? The casting certainly is more difficult.
Pearl Lam: Yeah. Because you want lesbian and gay casting here in the right age group Particularly, really difficult, tough.
Ray Yeung: Yes. Because when I was casting for this, it took me a year. Yes. It took me a year.
Pearl Lam: But both of them are not gay.
Ray Yeung: Right.
Pearl Lam: Both men are straight.
Ray Yeung: Yeah. Yeah. It took me a year. I mean, at that time I didn’t really know a lot of actors, so I was like watching a lot of like TV BOTV series. And then I realized, oh, this seems quite interesting. So I called them, I cold call them and of course they said, “who are you, what makes you think that I want to play a gay man? What makes you think that I look like gay? No.” And put the phone down on me. Very shocking. And so eventually, one of the actors that I found, I actually found him in Taiwan. I actually had to fly to Taiwan to meet him. The main guy. He was living in Taiwan at the time. So I actually went to Taiwan to meet him because I couldn’t find anyone in Hong Kong to do it. And then the other actor band was not a film actor, he was a stage actor. So I actually had to meet up with him through watching him on stage.
Pearl Lam: Wow. Yeah. And how about censorship then? How’s the censorship in Hong Kong?
Ray Yeung: Funny enough for LGBTQ its okay, because I also run the Lesbian Gay Film Festival. And every year we have a lot of different types of movies and some of them are raunchy, very, very raunchy. And it’s okay. They pass everything. So that is the one thing that actually has been OK.
Pearl Lam: So that means that the censorship, when we talk about the national security law, is only about politics more than anything.
Ray Yeung: Well, so far I can’t say about other people, but as long as, as far as I know for the LGBTQ community it is no problem.
Pearl Lam: Interesting, huh? How do you see in the future of this, of being a Hong Kong independent film, a filmmaker, do you think that you have enough opportunities or not?
Ray Yeung: I think we are in an interesting time but if you look at the local productions recently they have been very good and the box offices are not bad because I think what happened in the last decade was that a lot of the filmmakers are still kind of holding onto the eighties, nineties genre movies that dream, where they do a lot of kung fu movie and stuff like slapstick comedies and make a lot of money. And they’re thinking of that. But Hong Kong audience have actually moved on.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Ray Yeung: They don’t want to watch that type of movies. They are sick and tired of gangster movies. But the movies that are being produced now by the younger filmmakers are quite interesting about social issues, about Hong Kong, about how the society mistreated certain groups of people. And those are doing well. Because I actually met people who came to different screenings and they say, “oh, this is the first Cantonese movie that I brought my kids to see”.
Pearl Lam: Oh wow.
Ray Yeung: Yes. They said, because I didn’t want them to watch all those fighting action movies. I didn’t want them to watch gangster movies. But your movie is actually about issues that are important and it’s about Hong Kong. That’s why I bring my kids to watch it.
Pearl Lam: Wow.
Ray Yeung: And I think there’s a new type of audience.
Pearl Lam: I like that. So they’re more sophisticated, much more sophisticated,
Ray Yeung: And therefore they want their kids and themselves to watch that type of movies. Because if you want entertainment, you can never fight with Hollywood. You can never compete with Marvel. Right. So there’s no point. There’s no point trying to recreate this action sci fi. You do what you are good at, and that is talking about something unique about Hong Kong.
Pearl Lam: If someone new is coming in, a young person, they want to be a director. What will you advise them? How will you advise them?
Ray Yeung: Make sure if you enough money in your bank accounts first so that you can survive a little bit. Now that there are opportunities, first of all, because there are a lot of younger filmmakers who are making these low budget productions. So you can try to get yourself on set, learn it that way. And people are quite friendly and very, very, embracing for people who want to work in this industry because everybody knows that is difficult and it’s not a lot of money around. So if you want to do this, you have to be very passionate. If you have enough passion and you don’t mind working hard, I think there’s a chance
Pearl Lam: You started this Hong Kong gay and lesbian film committee, right?
Ray Yeung: The festival committee.
Pearl Lam: When you started, were there a lot of participants?
Ray Yeung: Well the festival actually started in 1989 by Edward Lamb. And then it stopped and then I came back to Hong Kong. I felt that, well, okay, what happened? So I restarted the film festival in 2000, just wanting to make sure that the world can see that we can still have an LGBTQ Film Festival. So that’s how it started in 2000. And we, up until now, we are the longest running lesbian gay film festival.
Pearl Lam: And now, and now how many films are in the festivals?
Ray Yeung: Well, it depends around 70 to a hundred. We run for two weeks.
Pearl Lam: Not bad. Yeah. Wow. I’m impressed.
Ray Yeung: Yes. You should come and watch
Pearl Lam: I would love to.
Pearl Lam: Ray, in the next few years, do you think that your films will be more accepted from a wider base and what happens if Hollywood knock your door and ask you to direct a non LGBT film?
Ray Yeung: Well, my films actually got distribution all around the world because I’m an international sales agent, so I’m quite lucky in that way. Butt you know, it’s still seen very much like an art house movie.
Pearl Lam: Yes, it is, it is.
Ray Yeung: So I think it is never really going to be, you know, in that kind of very mainstream, but the world is changing. You know, the line is blurring as you see at the Oscars, no one would have thought that Parasite would have won.
Pearl Lam: Oh, and all of Michelle’s movie. Yes. Yes. Everywhere Everything.
Ray Yeung: So it is changing now. The line is blurring. In the old days, it used to be that epic movies will win and become mainstream. And now even you see the nominations for the 10 best film, a lot of them are very independent, that movie I think was about people who are deaf, you know, that won few years ago. Things are changing and I’m very much feel that there’s a possibility, you know, for me, and if there’s Hollywood coming and ask me to do a movie, and I’m certainly interested it it.
Pearl Lam: Not in LGBTQ?
Ray Yeung: Yes, that’s fine, but I can do something that has an LGBTQ sentiment. I think it doesn’t have to be all about just gay, but it’s still about sentiment, you know, like a character emotions you, right? Like Pearl, why are you so interested in LGBT? I think you also have a lot of the soft life sentiment about it, right? It’s that kind of feel that it doesn’t have to be about gay people, but it can still about that kind of subject matter.
Pearl Lam: Okay, Ray. The past two stories that you are looking at is the social issues of Hong Kong. So are there any other issues that you want to address for your next few movies? It doesn’t need to limit to Hong Kong it can be a worldwide issues as well. What are you thinking?
Ray Yeung: Ah, so many every day. I think have so many topics, and different genres as well. You know, when thinking you sort of like expose or engage in the different stories and you think, oh wow, this could be a good story. That could be a good story. And I’m also sort of like exploring different movies overseas as well. One in the UK and one in the US. So there are plenty of different ideas,
Pearl Lam: But nowadays your movie is all about emotions, about sentiments, emotions much more than what your first two movies.
Ray Yeung: I think the first two movies were also about that as well, but it was just done in a different kind of style. So these two are much more serious, I think you can say. I like to explore something different, so let’s see what’s next. I haven’t really have a very clear idea yet, but I do have a script.
Pearl Lam: You do have a script? You’ve written a script already?
Ray Yeung: Two.
Pearl Lam: Two!
Ray Yeung: One is actually about an experience in a boarding school. So see I’m going back to retrospective. Retrospective, but it’s not about me. It’s not about me, but it’s about my experience, inspired by my own experience in boarding school. So tie in with the hangover sort, set in the period. Another one is about the film industry in Hong Kong. So that one is based in Hong Kong and that one is actually not gay.
Pearl Lam: Wow.
Ray Yeung: Yes, it’s not gay, but it’s camp.
Pearl Lam: I love camp.
Ray Yeung: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: Okay. Thank you Ray for coming today and having a talk with me.
Ray Yeung: And watch my movie,
Pearl Lam: watch Ray’s movie.
Written by: The Producer, The Pearl Lam Podcast
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