Tony Leung Ka-Fai & Juno Mak Talk ‘Sons Of The Neon Night’, Calls On Audiences To Treasure Cinemas — Cannes Film Festival

After a marathon 10-year manufacturing adventure, Hong Kong dystopian mystery Sons of the Neon Night in the end hit the crimson carpet the day prior to this, premiering within the Midnight Screenings phase of the Cannes Film Festival.

Starring veteran actors Takeshi Kaneshiro (Chungking Express), Sean Lau (Papa), Tony Leung Ka-fai (Double Vision), Louis Koo (Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In), and Gao Yuanyuan (Blind Detective), Sons of the Neon Night is written and directed through Juno Mak, who could also be a file manufacturer and musician.

Leung and Mak sat down with Deadline to speak about taking pictures in a “wintry” Hong Kong, a “magical” six-hour track consultation with the past due Ryuichi Sakamoto — and so they additionally name on audiences to stay coming again to cinemas.

Sons of the Neon Night is ready in an alternate, snow-covered Hong Kong. The demise of a pharmaceutical corporate chairman unleashes a wave of chaos and gear struggles within the underworld, whilst his youngest son makes an attempt to break free from his circle of relatives’s prison legacy.

Yesterday’s glitzy Cannes premiere introduced again many reminiscences of the manufacturing — which wrapped in 2017 — for veteran Hong Kong big name Leung.

“Last night gave me a deeper kind of feeling about what I did seven years ago,” Leung tells Deadline. “This is the second one time I’ve watched the movie, and I’ve a unique approach to peer the movie and my personality.

“The background seems like Hong Kong, and we can tell that it is a very modern city,” provides Leung. “The film is all about humanity, where this kind of story happens all over the world, in big cities every day. Everybody’s rushing and they don’t have time to notice what’s going on, the battles around us, killings and sufferings.”

Mak sheds some mild why it has taken see you later to deliver Sons of the Neon Night to the massive display screen — with the movie marking his sophomore function after 2013 horror movie Rigor Mortis.

“We finished principal shooting in 2017 but as we were working on post-production, the pandemic hit and there was a delay,” says Mak. “Especially because Sons of The Neon Night revolves around heavy CGI, it has taken quite some time.”

Mak additionally says that navigating the movie financing adventure was once additionally an eye-opening revel in.

“When I was putting together Sons, I felt that most of the investors were really interested in a sequel or prequel for Rigor Mortis,” says Mak. “It would have been easier if I had made that choice, but I felt that as a filmmaker, it’s more important to find your truth, so back then, I didn’t want to cage myself working on the same genre.”

Mak additionally knew that to understand his imaginative and prescient for Sons totally, the movie will require a hefty price range.

“Presenting this script to the investors, they knew just by reading the script that it was going to be a rather big-budget type of film, but the genre has commercial elements in it, I believe, because the crime genre is quite popular in Hong Kong,” provides Mak. “Being able to inject new elements and angles to it — that’s what got the investors’ curiosity and that’s how the whole thing came together, piece by piece.”

Bringing audiences again to the theaters

Looking again at his decades-long profession, Leung stocks what nonetheless helps to keep him desirous about filmmaking and cinema.

“I’m very lucky to have 40-something years of experience, I’ve been in around 150 movies, and I didn’t repeat any of my characters,” says Leung. “I’m so lucky that nearly all the characters are so different with my real-life self. I’ve got the chance to go through 150 different lives and that makes me so full and satisfied. Every movie and every character give me a new life.”

Leung has weathered the ebbs and flows of Hong Kong cinema — over time of masses and years of demanding situations. He stocks his issues concerning the state of theater-going as of late, and issues out the significance of cinemas for other folks to assemble and feature a shared revel in.

“I want the audience to go to the cinema because cinemas are quiet and make you slow down for two hours to find your own humanity through the story,” says Leung. “All over the arena, cinemas are having a difficult time. We’ve all spotted that audiences have modified their platforms from the cinema to the iPad and even cellphones.

“Cinema is very important because you can gather hundreds of people in an area to watch a dream — no matter if it is a nightmare or sweet dream — you are in one dream, the director’s dreamscape,” provides Leung. “When the film starts, you breathe together, you smile, laugh and cry together… So, please come back to the cinema.”

Challenges with climate in ‘Sons of the Neon Night’

Early within the movie, snow falls upon the town of Hong Kong — an extraordinary sight, for the reason that Hong Kong does no longer revel in blizzard in actual lifestyles. This jarring symbol pushes audiences to believe and inhabit a unique roughly fact.

Sharing his concept procedure in the back of surroundings Sons of the Neon Night in such an atmosphere, Mak says: “There was a time where I was very interested in cold places. I traveled to a lot of cold places and felt that weather definitely affects how a person thinks.”

Mak says that round 80 p.c of the snow observed within the movie had been bodily produced on set, with the rest 20 p.c created by means of visible results. He brings up a shot from Rigor Mortis, the place the primary personality is imagining an international this is snowing — and says that he sees the arena of Sons of the Neon Night as one of those continuation from that creativeness in his earlier movie.

“I used to be touring the competition circuit for Rigor Mortis. We began off in Venice, after which we went to Toronto and when I used to be in Toronto, jet-lagged once more, I began writing the primary scene for Sons.

“I’ve always been attracted to having a sense of alienation,” says Mak. “I have a curiosity for it. Rigor Mortis was a re-imagination of the Mr. Vampire genre, while Sons is a sort of re-imagination of the crime drama genre.”

Production for Sons was once a story of 2 polar reverse weathers.

At the beginning of the manufacturing, operating round in coats and thick jackets within the 85-degree Fahrenheit Hong Kong summer season proved difficult for the actors. By the top, the shoot moved out of the country to South Korea and the actors had been filming within the nation’s sub-zero iciness.

Leung says: “The director was very patient, although we were always having a hard time, as we went from over 30 degrees [Celsius] to many degrees below zero. We had to wear those wardrobes, and we had to have that makeup.”

Collaborating with the past due Ryuichi Sakamoto

The theme track for Sons was once composed through the past due Japanese legend Ryuichi Sakamoto, with English composer Nate Connelly additionally on board for the movie’s track.

Mak says that he was once no longer in my view hooked up to Sakamoto, previous to Sons.

“Halfway during the shoot, when I was prepping for the Korea scene, I thought of Ryuichi Sakamoto, but I didn’t personally know him,” says Mak. “But I used to paintings in track and I did some collaborations in Japan, so I began talking with musicians in Japan, and that’s how we were given hooked up. It was once an overly magical revel in, as a result of at the moment, Sakamoto was once dwelling in New York, and I used to be operating in Hong Kong, however was once additionally about to fly to Korea.

“We started talking, and I presented all the concept art, music references, the vibe for the film, and Mr. Sakamoto has this passion for cold weather as well,” provides Mak. “I think that’s how it got him interested in the first place. Since we are quite far apart, we chose Tokyo as a middle point. That session was very magical. We sat there for six hours, he started playing the music, and we were finding the direction for the film’s theme.”