Super Trio mega-host Eric Tsang has been hosting the popular game show for over 10 years and during that time, has frequently spread ‘seeds of happiness’ to the audience and participants. As Chinese New Year 2010 draws near, Eric continues to take on the role of ‘Mr. Happiness’ -- in the film <<72 Tenants of Prosperity>> he is at the forefront leading a group of 179 artists in the quest to bring laughter to the audience. More importantly, he hopes that the film will bring forth the Hong Kong spirit of cooperation and collective strength.With Eric professing that he has used up all of his ‘friendship favors’ in order to make his comedic film, will it cause audiences to ‘fall to the floor’ in laughter?
Last year, Shaw Brothers Film regained some of its former glory by releasing the film "Laughinng Gor: Turning Point", which was a box office hit. Riding on the coattails of this success, the company almost immediately invited established host and actor Eric Tsang to take up the roles of producer, director, and actor for a remake of the classic Shaw Brothers film "72 Tenants" -- the result: this year’s Chinese New Year gala film "72 Tenants of Prosperity". With huge hopes for success, the production costs of this film were extremely high; in fact, the construction of the set itself that plays a role major in the film – HK’s famous Sai Yeung Choi Street – cost approximately HKD 6 million and took more than 1 month to build. Add to this the cost of the artists’ salaries and the amount is even more astronomical – luckily, except for Jacky Cheung and Anita Yuen, all the other major artists in the film (including Wong Cho Lam, Linda Chung, Raymond Lam, Joyce Cheng, Bosco Wong, Bernice Liu, Myolie Wu, etc.) are TVB contracted artists, so this helped to save a lot of the expense.
Jacky’s acting skills not rusty
Eric indicated that he has wanted to collaborate in a film with Jacky for a long time already, however due to his singing career being his primary focus, it is very hard to ‘move’ him to do a film. Eric says: “Jacky’s acting skills did not get ‘rusty’ at all; in ‘serious’ roles, he is able to bring out the solemnity of the characters and in comedic roles, he is able to be very funny – it’s really a waste for him not to further pursue his acting. During the initial casting for "72 Tenants of Prosperity", I was actually afraid to ask Jacky to participate in the film at first. A lot of business associates felt that Jacky has box office potential, which is true, however I didn’t know what the best way would be to approach him and invite him to do the film. Luckily, one time during an event, I bumped into Jacky – he mentioned that he was invited by director Peter Chan to do a martial arts film and wanted me to participate as well, however he didn’t want to go to Shenzhen (China) to film – he wanted to stay in Hong Kong so he could spend more time with his daughters. Therefore, I bravely (and conveniently) invited him to participate in "72 Tenants of Prosperity". After reading the script, Jacky felt that the character [he was supposed to play] was too ‘proper’ so he requested that the 2 of us exchange roles…perhaps he wanted to ‘be himself’ by portraying a ‘despicable and vile’ character in the film…hahaha! (just kidding)”
Eric greatly praised Jacky’s performance in the film – not only did he throw himself completely into the role, he also suggested a lot of good ideas for the script. During filming, Eric also took the opportunity to ‘play tricks’ (his specialty) on Jacky. Laughing, Eric said: “One time, Jacky remembered that there was a really funny scene in the initial script that hadn’t been filmed yet, so he suggested that I include it. I told him to go ahead and do the scene, but in actuality, the camera wasn’t rolling – afterwards, I felt that he did that scene really well and wanted to include it, so I tricked him by saying that we needed to re-do the scene, but in reality, it was the ‘first time’ we actually filmed the scene. Jacky definitely understands what he wants when it comes to acting; he truly does enjoy and love acting.”
Justin is funny, Stephy has potential
During filming, Eric discovered that in addition to Anita Yuen’s great acting, there were also quite a few ‘younger generation’ artists with a lot of potential. “The film industry is in a position where it’s very hard to find good younger artists to replace the older ones, so I hope that more new generation artists will emerge. I’ve always thought of Stephy Tang as a singer, but it turns out she is a good actress as well; she definitely has potential and should do more acting. As for Wong Cho Lam, I made him get rid of his ‘old method’ of acting and basically gave him an entirely different image. Justin Lo playing the ‘young me’ is truly very funny and Bosco Wong’s method of acting is very consistent – has a lot of potential. In terms of the artists who had the most ‘comedic rhythm’ – definitely Fama.” In response to rumors that Eric once felt that Linda Chung is ‘stupid’ so he would yell at her all the time during filming, he said: “It’s rare to be able to invite such a huge group of artists to help, so all throughout filming, I was always in a happy mood – my goal was to make sure everyone was happy. Linda is as pure as ‘a piece of blank paper’ however she is very hardworking – during her fighting scenes, she did them exactly according to expectation.”
Taking up directing again is very difficult
In order to promote Shaw Brothers film enterprise, Eric readily took on the role of director once again (the last film that he had directed was "The Tigers" back in 1991). Eric indicated that these past couple years, he has gotten used to spending his time ‘comfortably’ doing things such as charity work and playing sports, so this time around, having to dedicate his time entirely to the film was difficult. “The month prior to the start of filming was especially difficult – because I wasn’t satisfied with the initial script, I would stay up almost every night thinking up new ideas and rewriting parts of the script. Then, when filming actually started, I would be on location day and night…plus having to greet and mingle with friends, follow up on the construction of the set, coordinate the schedules of the various artists…sometimes, I would go home just to shower, then return almost immediately to the set. If I felt tired after certain scenes, I would just hide in a corner and sleep for a bit…luckily, there were also 2 other directors on the set to help me.”
Prior to the premiere of "72 Tenants of Prosperity" in theaters, a small ‘controversy’ occurred; it was rumored that due to the royalties dispute between TVB and the big 4 record companies, Jacky Cheung refused to attend the promotional events for the film, causing most of the burden [to promote the film] to fall on Eric’s shoulders. In response, Eric said: “Actually, I need to thank Jacky; he’s very careful with his movie contract and includes a lot of clearly defined criteria. It was already confirmed in his contract from the beginning that he would only attend 2 promotional events for the film, however he ended up doing a lot more than what was listed in his contract. Even if I have to carry majority of the promotional efforts, it’s not a problem at all; as long as the results are favorable and the audience is happy, I feel that it’s worth it.”
Source: MingpaoTranslation: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics
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