Nearly two years ago, Johnny To and Wai Ka-fei (韋家輝) from To's Milky Way Films went to Jimmy for adaptation rights. Jimmy said the talks went very smoothly, and added:"I trust them to make a good film, because To's films are popular with the critics as well as successful at the box office." Even if the film comes out as pure comedy, "That's okay with me," he added.
To and Wai chose the book for a good reason. The book, published by Grimm Press in Taiwan, is Jimmy's best-selling work among his 13 illustration books, selling 200,000 copies in Taiwan. It has also proved popular in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore.
The book has been translated into English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Greek. Another book, Sound of Colors (地下鐵), is ready to be translated into English.
Jimmy said he got the story for Turn Left, Turn Right from thinking about his next door neighbor who he has never met. "Basically this book comes from imagination, not anyone's experience," he said.
Regarding having his book turned into a film, the author said he was most surprised that it will became a US$3 million film chosen by Warner Brothers for their first foray into the Chinese-language market. "It is so much larger than I expected. And as for the cast, the only word I can say -- `wow!'"
Johnny To, who won awards for his gangland action drama The Mission (鎗火), made in 2000, chose a romance story to be his first internationally invested film. The reason, To said, is that "gun films are more risky films to make."
Wai Ka-fei, the film's co-director, said the team will try to make every scene look like the pictures in the book. But in order to make the film more believable, more characters and plot elements were added.
Among the new roles are a pizza deliver girl and a doctor, both trying to piece together clues for the leading man and woman to find each other. They even hire a private detective to help, but later this only makes things worse.
Frustrated and sad, the girl and the boy each decided to go travelling alone for a while. And then the unexpected -- or perhaps the totally expected -- happens.
In fact, Turn Left, Turn Right is not the only project putting Jimmy's work onto celluloid. Last year, the official Golden Horse Film Festival trailer, an animation short, was based on Jimmy's illustrations. And now there are several animation production houses negotiating with Jimmy for animation adaptation rights.
"But my main focus is still on illustration. I will not suddenly jump into film production and forget about who I am," Jimmy said.
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