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Exploring Brazil's underbelly

By Liu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-03 09:58

Hong Kong director Yu Lik-wai's Plastic City (Dang Kou), which tells the story of a Chinese counterfeiting gang in Brazil, is competing for the Golden Lion at the 65th Venice Film Festival, which ends this Saturday.

Chinese director Yu Lik-wai flanked by Chinese actress Huang Yi (left) and Brazilian actress Taina Mueller at the Venice Film Festival.

Chinese outlaw Yuda and his adopted son Kirin control the counterfeiting activities in the Liberdade neighborhood of Sao Paulo, Brazil. They take charge of the factories that produce fake goods, vendors who sell them, local nightclubs and gangs. As Yuda gains power, he and his son are drawn into a political conspiracy, which puts them in a disastrous dilemma. Hong Kong veteran Anthony Wong and Japanese actor Joe Odagiri play father and son, respectively.

Director Yu's inspiration for the movies came from a news story he read about a Chinese arrested by the Brazilian government in 2004. He then decided to make a film about the lives of Chinese living outside their home country.

"Brazil seemed like a remote country," he says. "The name Brazil evoked images of utopia in me. I wanted to explore the life of Chinese living in this utopia."

Yu went to San Paulo in 2004, and the city made a huge impact on him. He recalls feeling that it looked like Hong Kong, with a lot of skyscrapers and chaos, but was actually 10 times more complicated than his home city. "It is a cruel city," he says. "The foreign immigrants have to strive for an identity for themselves."

Living outside one's hometown, and the loss and search for identities is something Yu has himself experienced.

Born in Hong Kong in 1966, Yu often went to Guangzhou with his parents during the 70s. He was confused by the fact that Hong Kong was ruled by the British, but was, at the same time, so close to the Chinese mainland. He left Hong Kong for Belgium at 26 to learn photography and came back three years later, to start a career in filming.

"There is no 'pure Hong Konger'," Yu says. "In the course of its growth from a small village to a metropolis, Hong Kong has seen millions of immigrants. Every generation has its own myth of identities. Very complicated emotions are involved in their understanding of themselves."

Soon after he came back to Hong Kong, Yu met mainland independent director Jia Zhangke at a film festival. The two became good friends and partners. Their cooperative venture Still Life (Sanxia Haoren) won the Golden Lion in 2006.

Yu made his first feature Love Will Tear Us Apart (Tianshang Renjian) in 1999. The film was nominated for the Golden Palm that year.

Jia's short film Cry Me A River (Heshang Aiqing) premiered at the Venice festival. Perfect Life (Wanmei Shenghuo), a film produced by Jia and directed by rising Chinese star Emily Tang, has been included in the festival's Horizon section.

(China Daily 09/03/2008 page18