A Small Miracle Kenneth Bi (Director)

Kenneth Bi has been a part of the Hong Kong film world for eight years now. Active as an actor, a director, a screenplay writer, a producer and a music supervisor, Bi continued his studies of the magic created by drama, action and music until he was ready to make his own film. Audiences in Japan might remember his light touch with the music in Fruit Chan's The Longest Summer (1999), Now, Bi's first work as a director, A Small Miracle, is showing in the FILMeX video program. The Daily News took advantage of Bi and his producer (and wife) Rosa Lee's visit to Japan to ask about this youthful, honest and engaging work. "I bought a digital video camera. I thought I'd finally be able to make works of my own. With this camera, I've cleared the biggest problem with filming: budget. I wanted to make my own world into a film. And I didn't want anyone to tell me how to do it. For obvious reasons, this film had to become something different than the Hong Kong movies I've spent the last seven or so years watching. The rule of Hong Kong film is that first of all, you have to entertain the audience. I wanted to make a film with which audiences would be able to empathize, to paint an ordinary world populated by ordinary people. I'd been wanting to make this story for several years. The direction ended up following the budget. I had to use amateur actors, which meant the film has ended up with a lot of quick cuts to camouflage their acting, and also used dim lighting, shooting on location and ready-made props. But I think this little camera turned that all to my advantage." Bi used almost all amateur actors, but also cast professional actor Sam Lee. When the Daily News asked Bi about this, he answered "Sam Lee is a friend of mine. He's the only actor in Hong Kong that doesn't act. And he rises to the occasion with acting that's perfect for the scene. He's a really valuable actor. Unfortunately, he was only free for a few days, so we arranged the shoot around his schedule. The other people rehearsed carefully. In the end, I planned how I would direct the film after discussions with the actors, and it was the same with their lines. Sometimes we had lines that no one could get right after fifteen rehearsals, so we cut them." Bi must have faced various difficulties as a first-time director, but most impressively, you would never know that from the finished work. Rather, this light-hearted work conveys the feeling that the director truly enjoyed making the work. Bi also did the editing and the music for the work, and the editing in particular is impressive. �@ "I finished editing in my head even before we shot the film. Sometimes I'd be editing and wanting an image exactly like the one in my head, and so we'd shoot the scene again. That's a special right of digital video. But you know, when I finished making it there are more places that I'm not pleased with than I can count. The drug scene that's the climax of the film is especially so. I wanted to give it a more colorful atmosphere. But the actors were amateurs, and of course I've never done drugs, so it just ended up looking like something had gone kind of funny. Really, I wanted to include cuts of other people's reactions to his state, and to make it so that he looked bigger than everyone else. In the final product, you can't tell whether he's hallucinating or it's real life, which is a kind of strange effect, so I just left it like that." Bi wants to start shooting his next work, Hainan Chicken Rice, just after the Chinese New Year next year. Apparently this one is also an ordinary story about ordinary people, but Bi says he'll use professional actors for the new work. Rosa Lee is the producer again, but this time they're also looking for co-producers to help cover the costs of working making a full-length feature in 35 mm. The screenplay has already won awards from the Taiwan Government Information Office and the Pusan Promotion Plan 2000 at the Pusan International Film Festival. Bi also hopes to continue working on the music and screenplays for films by other directors. Why? Because there's a limit to what you can learn about directing just from watching movies. Director's Profile: Graduated with an Honors Degree in Theater/Film from Brock University in Canada. After his big debut as an actor, a writer and an editor with Teddy Robin's Hong Kong Graffiti, started his scriptwriting carrier for TV and Film and directhlg Carrier for music videos. His line-produced film, Slow Fade was selected in Berlin Film Festival in 1999 as weII as Fruit Chan's The Longest Summer which he wrote the music. A Small Miracle is Kenneth's fl'rst feature film.