American Cinematographer - November 1998 - 24

Hold You

Tight (China)
Stanley Kwan
Cinematographer:

feature debut of

Kwan

directors trust

Director:

The

Pun-Leung

lyrical plot of Hold You Tight

unfolds both before and after the death
of business executive Ah Moon (Chingmy
Yau), who perishes on an ill-fated flight
from Hong Kong to Taiwan. Helmed by
Chinese director Stanley Kwan (Love
Unto Waste, Rouge and Red Rose, White
Rose), the film examines the tumultuous
lives of those touched by Ah Moon's
aura.

Left in her wake is her workaholic

husband

Fung Wai (Sunny Chan), an
who

obsessive computer programmer

Though Hold You Tight signals the
cameraman

Kwan Pun-

Leung, he had already established the
during their collaboration
on the documentary A Personal Memoir
of Hong Kong: Still Love You After All,
Stanley Kwan's personal ruminations on
the city's changing state for Taiwanese
TV. Pun-Leung hails from a background in
still photography; after studying at Hong
Kong's School of Technical Arts, he went
to work for the publications City Maga¬
zine and Cross-Cultural Magazine,
winning Agfa's Young Photographer
Award in 1994. He has done still photog¬
raphy for theater, fashion, music videos
and motion pictures, the latter including

medium to express

Nowadays,

we are

topics of another.
living in an era of

visual mixtures."
Their prior relationship notwith¬
standing, the pair planned the film's visu¬

als in

a

relaxed, instinctive

manner.

The

director took Kwan
mal

the

Pun-Leung on infor¬
scouting trips, where he would ask
cameraman

which moods each

specific site evoked in him. Kwan PunLeung elaborates, "In preproduction,
Stanley brought me to gay bars, like Why
Not and Club Funky [which was used as
a location in the film], and we would talk
about the feelings of these places.
Before shooting scenes set in a pub, we
would meet there, have a couple of

Above: Business exec Ah Moon (Chingmy Yau) enjoys an erotic
elevator ride with lustful lifeguard Jie (Ko Yue-Lin) in Stanley
Kwan's Hold You Tight. Cameraman Kwan Pun-Leung favored a

greenish-yellow sheen for scenes indicating sexual desire. Above
right: Work-weary programmer Fung Wai (Sunny Chan) mourns
the absence of wife Ah Moon following her tragic death in a
plane crash. Right: Ah Moon demands attention from her remiss
notices her presence more now

Phot s

that
and Jie (Ko Yue-Lin), a lone¬
some lifeguard whose lustful affair with
Ah Moon lent a fleeting meaning to a
wayward existence - unaware of her

Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild. He
has also just completed directing a docu¬
mentary on the making of Happy
Together, which was also helmed by
Wong. "Every time I face a new medium

death, he merely thinks she has disap¬

or

she's gone,

peared until he surreptitiously overhears
Fung Wai lamenting his loss to Tong (Eric
Tsang), an openly gay entrepreneur. The
grief-stricken Jie later runs into Ah
Moon's friend Rosa Gao (Chingmy Yau,
again), who implores him to reveal his
romance with her to Fung Wai.
22 November 1998

subject matter I need to find a
completely new approach to express it
-

to

this becomes

drinks, and discuss the shots and

about himself and his lovers, which in

certain ways

reflected

on

the characters

in the film. Sometimes he would ask

if I had to be

a

self-training

process

which

cameraman,

who is

I think he

teaching photography in the School
of Creative Media of City University in
Hong Kong. "I sometimes find it interest¬
ing to use techniques I learned from one

camera

angles in the actual location. In the days
of scouting, Stanley would tell me stories

me," notes the

also

HGSaohrclvdueusrfnntte.,sy

CbyThaankg

spouse.

one

me

of the characters,
would I choose. By doing so,

was

one

directing

me to

feel for the

characters."

Hong Kong's strict location permit
regulations often dictated Kwan PunLeung's choices in equipment. The
American Cinematographer - November 1998

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