Andy Lau's Enlightment: The SHAOLIN Singapore Press Tour
by Gabriel Chong | 20 January 2011

Andy Lau had not even seen the script of “Shaolin” when he signed on to play the lead role. It’s not something the 49-year-old actor does at this stage of his acting career, but he was convinced by director Benny Chan’s assuring words that this 2011 movie about the famed Shaolin Temple would be different from the earlier 1982 Jet Li original.

“Benny explained what the story would be and I knew that he wanted to approach this movie from a different point of view [compared to the earlier Shaolin],”Andy says. “It wouldn’t just be an action movie, and that there would be a fair bit of drama involved, so I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to be Jet Li in this movie and that I could just focus on my acting.”

A devout Buddhist for almost 20 years now, Andy says that filming this movie has been a learning experience for him. “Over the many years I was a Buddhist, I had spoken to many scholars and monks about the faith, but this was mostly confined to teachings or scriptures. This time, I had the chance to speak from those who practiced martial zen [or ‘chan wu’].”

“I couldn’t really understand this in the past because what I’d learnt preached compassion and benevolence and I thought this was contradictory to what martial arts were about,” he adds. “But I’ve come to realise martial zen was first and foremost about self-control, controlling your anger, your temper and your bad habits, and how to put aside your worldly preoccupations.”

In town to promote the movie with director Benny Chan, the youthful-looking actor who had just celebrated his 30th anniversary in showbiz with his “Unforgettable” series of concerts showed a much more mellow and circumspect side of himself, reflecting on his career as well as his past works.

“The first time I worked with Benny was in 1991 on ‘A Moment of Romance’, and we were enemies then,” he jokes. “During that time, I was taking on movie after movie, so filming was very rushed and we didn’t have much time to communicate with each other.” In a separate interview, Andy adds that he only really started enjoying his movie career in the past decade, where he had more liberty to choose the kind of movies that he wanted to star.

“I used to grab whatever came my way, so life in the past was just a rush of filming, singing, sleeping, and I didn’t have much time to enjoy what I was doing. Sometimes it felt as if I was a robot,” he says, though he acknowledges that it was an inevitable phase of his career. He only settled down to a more measured pace when he made the conscious decision not to film any more triad movies in the late 90s after- in his words- “he had repaid the debts he owed to movie producers”.

Indeed, compared to the two months he spent filming their earlier ‘A Moment of Romance’, Andy spent three months alone preparing for this role in “Shaolin”- learning the Shaolin martial arts and talking to Benny about his character. He also went the extra mile to shave his head bald for the role, a sacrifice that he says “isn’t a big deal”.

Andy even went as far as to offer Benny shooting tips on the set from a director’s point of view, which Benny said he greatly valued. “Because I’ve been in so many movies, I will often tell the director if this particular scene resembles one from a previous movie that audiences may recognise me in,” he explains.

The star of over 130-odd films spanning three decades, he is honest that not all of them have been good. “An artist will always will good and bad works, and I’m no different,” he says. “But I think audiences will see that for each one of my movies, I’ve tried my best.” He further affirms that he thinks that hard work has been a crucial ingredient to his success and enduring popularity over the years.

Besides devoting time to his own career, Andy has also been active in promoting and supporting young talented filmmakers through his own production company, Focus. He says the Hong Kong film industry now tends to approach any material from a “business perspective” and so he hopes that he can encourage promising filmmakers on their career path. As for his own ambitions, Andy makes it clear that he has always wanted to be a director, but he has yet to find the best opportunity.

“I was actually offered the chance to direct Shaolin,” he says. “But I thought it was too hefty a responsibility for me to take up as my first film so I declined.” He would like his first film to be about fire-fighters, inspired by his dad’s occupation as one at the old Hong Kong airport. The multi-talented star has also written a couple of scripts, one of which he hopes to get his “Shaolin” co-star Jackie Chan to act in- when quizzed, he wasn’t keen about divulging too much, just that it still needed more work and time.  

He is full of praise for Benny Chan’s work on “Shaolin”, especially the last scene which he calls extremely touching and meaningful for him. “I loved that feeling, that feeling of forgiveness, that as long as a person is willing to repent, to recognise his mistakes, he can be forgiven,” he says. “I feel that Benny did an extraordinary job bringing out that message, and the ending was a truly perfect one.”
Of course equally deserving of credit too is Andy himself. It’s no understatement that his performance in “Shaolin” is one of his career best, an apt reflection of how far he has come as an actor.

As for this movie, he says that through his character’s transformation in this movie, he wants to inspire those who intend to be a monk or nun to accept and understand what it means to do so.

“I hope they won’t just see Andy Lau onscreen, but really a person who takes up the calling and the challenge of practising the faith.”

Our Interview with Director Benny Chan

SHAOLIN opens 21 January 2011