Legendary Director Peter Chan Slams AI, Declares Feature Films Will Conquer Vertical Dramas!

Acclaimed Asian filmmaker Peter Chan Ho-sun recently shared profound insights into the evolving landscape of cinema at an In Conversation event during the Singapore International Film Festival. He expressed his firm belief in the enduring power of two-hour feature films, asserting that they will maintain their ground against the surge of short-form and vertical dramas, at least within his lifetime. Chan highlighted the paradoxical coexistence of shrinking audience attention spans, which draw people to short videos, and the rise of multi-hour podcasts, demonstrating a bifurcated audience spectrum where both extremes thrive simultaneously. He offered a pragmatic yet encouraging message to aspiring filmmakers, acknowledging that while it is "probably the toughest time for film," he does not believe the medium will be lost to short-form entertainment.

A central tenet of Chan's discussion was his nuanced perspective on the role of artificial intelligence in filmmaking. While he welcomes the use of AI as a technical tool, drawing parallels to how CGI and special effects have long incorporated AI principles without explicit labeling, he draws a clear distinction: he will "definitely not AIGC," or AI-generated content. For Chan, AI serves as a means to enhance the craft, not to supplant human artistry. He emphatically stated, "Anything that helps me make movies, I welcome. But they won’t know art. Movies are still made by people," underscoring his conviction that the soul of cinema remains inherently human and irreplaceable.

Chan also delved into his latest film, "The Road Not Taken," which recently premiered in Toronto. The film, he explained, uses Alzheimer’s as a backdrop to explore the multifaceted complexities of a broken family grappling with a range of personal problems. The narrative centers on a couple in the midst of divorce proceedings when the wife, afflicted with early-onset Alzheimer’s, no longer remembers the divorce and emotionally drifts back to the time they fell in love in their twenties. This poignant dynamic, interwoven with the presence of a harsh grandfather and the couple's intricate relationship with their Gen Z daughter, completes a comprehensive family portrait. The English title, a direct reference to Robert Frost’s iconic poem, serves as Chan’s personal life motto, symbolizing his belief that "there’s really no right path... Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s all about how you walk it. You make it right." The Chinese title, "Ming Tian Hui Geng Hao," translates to "Tomorrow Will Be Better."

Reflecting on his illustrious career, Chan shared an eight-word Mandarin phrase he picked up while researching at an Alzheimer’s care institution in Chengdu, China: "go with the flow, and know when to stop." This philosophy has seemingly guided his diverse journey, from making romantic comedies at United Filmmakers Organization (UFO), the company he co-founded in the '90s amidst a dominant wave of gangster pictures and wuxia films, to directing the epic "The Warlords" with Jet Li. He candidly admitted that making a historical epic battle movie was "never, ever in my agenda for my entire life," yet the flow carried him there.

A significant milestone discussed was the 30th anniversary of "Comrades: Almost a Love Story," a film he made at 34 as his seventh feature, which vividly captures Hong Kong between 1985 and 1995. Despite modest financial returns, the film profoundly impacted filmmakers across mainland China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, granting him a "lease of movie life for the next 30 years, until now." Though it remains the film most people remember him for, which he called a "blessing but also a spell" he wishes to break, he views the '90s not as Hong Kong cinema's golden age, but rather the beginning of its decline.

His challenging foray into Hollywood with DreamWorks' film "The Love Letter" was described as a "difficult experience." While comfortable working across cultures due to his Thai-Chinese upbringing and feeling like an outsider even in Hong Kong, he found the corporate system challenging. He cited the ambiguity of who called the shots and a heavy reliance on test screenings, which he likened to today's algorithms. He believes that with his current knowledge of film, marketing, and corporate dynamics, he would have fared better in Hollywood, acknowledging his youth and naivety at the time. When asked later about navigating censorship in mainland China, he paralleled it with surviving corporate structures, suggesting that such limitations—be they budget, stars, studios, or censorship—often push filmmakers towards greater creativity.

After his Hollywood experience, Chan established Applause Pictures, a pan-Asian venture that rapidly produced 10 films in two and a half years, predominantly horror. Its output included "The Eye" franchise and the "Three" horror omnibus films, which brought together esteemed directors such as Park Chan-wook, Miike Takashi, Kim Jee-woon, and Fruit Chan. However, to avoid being "stuck with making horror films my whole life," he shifted his focus to mainland China, beginning with the 2005 musical "Perhaps Love."

Addressing an aspiring screenwriter in the audience, Chan revealed his rigorous approach to script development: "I don’t usually fix it for them. I make them fix it over and over and over and over again." He is known for being extremely demanding, stating, "I milk the writer to death, and then I milk another writer." This method, he admitted, has led to screenwriters joking that his films' writers would not fit in a minibus, and he acknowledged, "the writers’ community really don’t like me very much. But making movies is not about being well-liked." Despite being perceived as a genre-hopper, Chan revealed a consistent thematic thread throughout his diverse body of work: "Making every movie is answering some sort of life questions that I have at that stage, in point of my life." He cited recurring love triangles in films from his debut "Alan & Eric: Between Hello and Goodbye" to "Comrades," "Perhaps Love," and even "The Warlords" (which he described as a love triangle between three brothers). He concluded, "So in a way, I’ve been making the same movie in my mind in the last 36 years," a profound insight that encapsulates his enduring artistic journey, driven by a continuous exploration of human relationships and existential questions.