Fruit Chan Gor is a Hong Kong Second Wave screenwriter, filmmaker and producer, who is best known for his style of film reflecting the everyday life of Hong Kong people. He is well known for using amateur actors in his films. He became a household name after the success of the 1997 filmMade in Hong Kong, which earned many local and international awards. Chan was deeply influenced by the era of sixties film in Japan, for the reason that they were not afraid to produce realistic movies that addressed society's problems. In particular, the Japanese director Nagisa Oshima was someone who Chan looked up to and thought of when directing Made in Hong Kong. Chan's credits include Durian Durian. Also, Stanley Kwan stated that he was talking with Lee's family to make a movie about the late action movie icon. Further, in April, Chinese state media announced that its national broadcaster started filming a 40-part TV series on Bruce Lee to promote Chinese culture for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
Life and career
Fruit Chan was born in China but in 1969 he immigrated with his parents to Hong Kong. As a child, Chan, watched a Soviet film that sparked his interest and love for movies. In middle school he held a part-time job that allowed him to work in a theatre projection room. His first film screening was of a traditional Chinese opera directed by none other than John Woo. He continued his interest in film later on at the Hong Kong Film Culture Centre, a small film club, where he studied script writing and directing. In 1982, after only one year of working at the Hong Kong Film Culture Centre he started his career in the film industry. He began his career as an assistant director to David Lai Dai-Wai in the film Mid-Night Girls. He later worked as an assistant director to mainstream directors Jackie Chan, Kirk Wong, Ronny Yu, and Shu Kei. His lucky break came in 1991 when a film he was working with stopped its production. Chan took this as an opportunity; he used the same studio to direct Finale in Blood starring Hong Kong film star Andy Lau. However, the outcome of the first of his own films was highly praised by the critics rather than the public. In 1994 he collected a total of 500,000 HKD and film-materials left over by other productions to begin directing his award winning Made in Hong Kong. After Made in Hong Kong came out he was thought of as the hope for Hong Kong cinema by fellow Hong Kong filmmakers for challenging the stable model of Hong Kong filmmaking. He had become the first filmmaker to, independently of the big studios, challenge the genre of Hong Kong films and make realistic films about the political and social situations going on in Hong Kong at the time. The film was the first part to a trilogy that included The Longest Summer and Little Cheung. In 2002 he was a member of the jury at the 24th Moscow International Film Festival.
