Flitting from CD to celluloid and back for Jay Chou

While a wide-spread recession in Taiwan's film industry has prodded Hong Kong producers to seek co-production costs in China, Hong Kong-based Teddy Chen (陳德森) takes the opposite approach.

With Jin Chuan Pictures (金川映畫) he plans to produce more films in Taiwan, or films with local content. The latest project, Hidden Track (尋找周杰倫), a movie including pop star Jay Chou (周杰倫), will be released next month in both Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Apart from Hidden Track, Jin Chuan has also recruited Taiwanese writer/director Su Chao-pin (蘇照彬) to direct a US$4 million sci-fi action film called Tunnelling (穿隧). Su is the scriptwriter of Double Vision (雙瞳), the best-selling Taiwanese film of last year, that grossed more than NT$80 million. Tunneling will be Jin Chuan's third Taiwan-related film.

"When my Hong Kong colleagues knew about my plan [to produce films in Taiwan], seven out of 10 said I was nuts, two wanted to see how I'd fail and one decided to wait and see," Chen said during the Pusan International Film Festival last week.

Set up at the end of 2001, Jin Chuan Pictures' first production in Taiwan was Twenty Something Taipei (台北晚九朝五), directed by Taiwanese director Leon Dai (戴立忍). The film was the second-best-selling film last year, grossing NT$5 million in Taiwan.

Chen, the director of movies starring Jackie Chan -- in Accidental Spy (2001) and action movie Purple Storm (1999) -- said the aim of Jin Chuan is to make good quality and entertaining films for the Chinese-language market.

Having spent his youth in this country, Chen said he had "special feelings about Taiwan."

Taiwanese audiences do like to watch movies, he added. "But they are seldom offered local films with more entertainment and less moral or political burden."

Hidden Track, whose Chinese title translates as "looking for Jay Chou," tells about a Chinese girl's fantastic journey looking for Mr. Right. Lamenting a failed romance, the girl, played by first-time Chinese actress Po Le-tung (蒲樂僮), keeps listening to a love song by Jay Chou, which reminds her of her ex-boyfriend.

After she finds a hidden track on Chou's album (which kicks in seven minutes after the "last" track) , she decides to go from her hometown Wuhan to Hong Kong, to look for Jay Chou.

It is the adventurous setting of Hong Kong that a string of romantic encounters begins to take place. Po's Mr. Right in the film will be played by Hong Kong actor Yu Wen-le (余文樂). Hong Kong heartthrob Daniel Wu (吳彥祖) also appears.

"We wanted the film to emanate a beautiful and delicate quality, sort of like Amelie (The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain, 2001). So we spent some more money on visual effects," Chen said.

The film's budget of HK$9 million (US$1 million) is slightly higher than most Chinese-language romance dramas.

The film is directed by Hong Kong-based Aubrey Lam (林愛華). Chou wrote two songs for the movie and also makes a cameo appearance.