Often, Christian filmmaking is viewed as an activity of the Western world, yet it has a foothold in countries worldwide. This interview with Adrian Kwan Shun-fai touches on faith and filmmaking from a Hong Kong director's perspective.
"I think a good movie, no matter comedy, action or thriller, usually contains implicit messages to enlighten the audience. Take some successful foreign films as example, apart from the entertainment value, there are always some messages for the audiences to grasp. In addition to entertain, I would love to add some bonuses to the movie. I believe that a movie should not be too didactic, it should rather be able to be interesting yet meaningful, or to combine the messages into the story skillfully. "Educational" (or propaganda) movie is probably too hard to attract the audience. In general, the first priority of doing any kind of (commercial) movie is to entertain, and the next thing is to enhance it with some meaningful messages. For instance, no matter what kind of message you want to carry out, a comedy is nevertheless a comedy. If it fails to generate laughter, it is not a successful comedy!"
"Christian film has been evolving from time to time, it has become more and more mainstream now. In the past when people heard about Christian film, they would think it must be very boring and didactic, but now things have been changing. In order to introduce Christian film to the public, we have to understand how to turn it into a mainstream product. While the film should be made with "heart", the quality of the movie is also very important. It is meaningless to make a movie with heart but without quality. "
Cinespot : An Exclusive Interview with Hong Kong Director Adrian Kwan Shun-fai
