FEATUREST H U R S D A Y , D E C E M B E R 1 0 , 2 0 0 9

At the age of 17, Norwegian Taiwanese director Hakon Liu (劉漢威) left his home in the countryside of Pingtung County, where his missionary parents still

live, to begin a new life in Scandinavia. He studied fine arts for five years but decided the subject was “too lonely” for his personality. Liu found his calling in cinema at the age of 25 and has made dozens of short films and television programs since.

I met him for an interview one day before the release of his feature debut Miss Kicki (霓虹心), a Taiwanese-Swedish co-production shot mostly in Taiwan. The 34-year-old was laid-back, laughed frequently and at one point during the interview apologized for being slow on account of the karaoke party he partook in the night before.

Miss Kicki tells the story of a Swedish woman and her son who travel to Taiwan to heal their estranged relationship. The project was tailor-made for Cannes-winning Swedish actress Pernilla August, internationally known for her role in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander. The film also features local comedian Ken Lin (林暐恆), better known as A-ken (阿Ken), and young talent Huang He River (黃河), who plays the teenage boy who’s in love with Viktor, the Swedish son played by Ludwig Palmell.

Taipei Times: What is your most distinct childhood memory growing up in the countryside of Pingtung?

Hakon Liu: When I write stories, I go back to my childhood memories. I close my eyes and see paddy fields, small paths and me riding a bicycle. Pingtung is very rural and has lots of bell-fruit orchards and areca trees. Thinking of that gives me lots of inspiration, even when I am writing stuff in Sweden.

TT: Even when you write a Swedish story that takes place in Sweden?

HL: Yes. I need to ask a psychologist about it [laughs]. I know some directors feel the same way. It is like an inspiration bank. You know which door to open to be more creative, to be in contact with something.

TT: And you come back to Taiwan once or twice a year?

HL: Oh yes. There is no such thing as less than once a year. I wouldn’t survive otherwise.

I usually visit my family and friends in Pingtung. And of course it’s more fun in Taipei where I have another type of friends [laughs].

TT: Why did you decide to make your feature debut in Taiwan?

HL: I always have a strong connection with Taiwan and wanted to come back. When I wrote a story for Pernilla, I was stuck in a Swedish story. One day my film professor said “why don’t you send Pernilla to Taiwan,” which at the moment I thought was the worst idea ever. I can’t send Permilla to Taiwan. That’s a recipe for disaster.

But the story fell into place in just a few days. You got a certain mood, an abstract feeling about what road you were going down. It is strange how things fall into place.

So we thought: why make it easy when you can make it hard.

TT: Your previous shorts like Kar I Natten and Lucky Blue are about gay coming-of-age stories. Is this a constant theme in your works?

HL: I have always been interested in the coming-of-age theme combined with the road-movie genre. I’ve made many short films so even though the two you talked about do touch on gay issues, I’ve made a lot more non-gay films ... I lost the question [laughs].

TT: About the two shorts?HL: Yes. Let’s talk about Lucky Blue. It

is a minor breakthrough for me in the sense that I found a certain type of mood and air to my work which I develop further in Miss Kicki. People in Sweden think it is strange because the film is so Swedish but there is something not Swedish about it. “It’s almost like an Asian film,” someone said to me once, who didn’t know I was Asian. And I thought: This is a good sign.

(Liu believes karaoke is a great way to connect with people and loves it so much that he made an award-winning short film about it in Sweden, where the pastime isn’t well appreciated. Lucky Blue (2007) tells the story of a karaoke-loving boy who falls in love with another boy who thinks little of karaoke).

TT: What was working with August, one of Ingmar Bergman’s muses, like?

HL: I approached her very early in the project, and even though I was nervous, I was also confident about it. We first met a

few years back. We didn’t talk much, but I had the feeling that she liked me and I liked her. For me, it was love at first sight. When I saw her in person, her presence is fantastic. She has an aura to her. That captured me. I took it as a sign — she is the fist big actress I’ve met. It is love at first sight, and she is going to star in my film [laughs].

She was excited about the project but also knew I was a first-time director. So we agreed that we would meet regularly. We read the script together. It wasn’t like, “Oh, I don’t want to do this or that.” She put out thoughts in a general way. It is good, because I am a fan of rehearsals.

TT: What do you mean by that?HL: Rehearsing is not about how you

make a scene perfectly. What I rehearse is the backstory, the relations in the story and the way they communicate. When you rehearse, you know how to connect. With the boys, I would say “magic” [he snaps his fingers], and they take a few seconds and make magic between them. Those are the things we create during rehearsals.

TT: How did you communicate with August on the set?

HL: I did my homework with her a little better than others, because I was working with this big actress and I needed to be very much prepared. In the beginning, I was very specific when directing. But I discovered after a few days that [pauses] she is so intuitive. She looked at me between takes, and sometimes when I was just about to talk to her, she would look at me and say, “Yes, I know.”

So our communication became more and more quiet. Sometimes, it is just a glance, a nod or a pat on the shoulder.

TT: You have actors coming from different cultures and [different kinds of] training. Is it important to reach a balance among them?

HL: Yes. You have to find a way to balance the different styles of acting. Pernilla and Eric Tsang (曾志偉) are very professional, but my god, Swedish naturalistic acting and Hong Kong acting are extremely different. I use Pernilla as the starting point and adjust everyone else so that they feel like they are coming from the same world.

That’s also something you create during rehearsals, not on the set. In many films you see, the acting is so different. It’s not because

they are bad actors. They just had not had time to find adjustment. Fine-tuning, I think it’s what it is called in acting.

TT: How does Taipei look like through your lens/eyes?

HL: What I find so fascinating about Taipei is that it is so full of contrasts and has so many faces. For someone like me who tells stories about people, it’s so great because I can use different backgrounds to create different moods. Sometimes I need something loud, sometimes quiet and sometimes messy, and you get everything in Taipei.

I am a fan of contrasts. I like to jump from one thing to another. We are humans. We are messy, complicated and have many faces. That’s kind of the metaphor of Taipei City.

TT: Let’s talk about my favorite locations in the film. The hotel on Huaxi Street (華西街) …

HL: Yeah, that’s my favorite too!TT: And the UFO houses (飛碟屋). If memory

serves, the location has never before been captured on film.

HL: I consider the hotel [to be] the main location because it’s where Kicki lives when she is in Taipei. Every time she returns to the hotel, she is a bit different ... Oh now I’m talking like a film professor [laughs].

Anyway, I love that place. The atmosphere is so rich. Everything is so unique and at the same time very Taiwanese.

(“The UFO houses” was the nickname for a deserted hotel complex in Sanjhih (三芝), Taipei County, that was torn down shortly after shooting for Miss Kicki.)

TT: Did it take you a long time to find the hotel?

HL: Yes. We had seen so many hotels. It is one of the things I wasn’t very specific about. People think the director is supposed to know about everything, but sometimes he just doesn’t know what he wants. I feel sorry for the crew. Sometimes you just know it’s not right and say, “Go out and take photos of all the hotels [laughs].”

We discovered the UFO houses when looking for other locations. At that time, we really needed a hideaway for the boys. It was fantastic. I wished I had time to make another film at that place. They had to tear it down but were nice enough to let us

shoot there. We had only one day there. I am honored to film the UFO’s first and last story [laughs].

Back in Pingtung, you asked about my childhood memory. There were a few deserted houses that we loved to hang out in when we were teenagers. That’s where we [had] our first cigarettes and betel nuts. When I first saw the UFO houses, I thought if I were a teenager, I would certainly bring that special someone here. The sea is right in front of you. The window is so big. It’s all free, and nobody knows about it.

TT: What are the differences between the Swedish way of filmmaking and the Taiwanese way?

HL: When we decided it was going to be a Swedish-Taiwanese co-production, I knew there would be lots of differences. But what’s more important is that there are a lot more similarities than differences. Pernilla said it when she came to Taiwan and met the team. She said: “Oh my god, it is exactly the same in Sweden. I can see it right away. That’s the sound guy. That’s the make-up department.” There is the same kind of film-nerdy thing about everyone.

My training is from Sweden, but I also know Chinese culture. I knew there would be minor and bigger cultural clashes, and I would be the only link. Sometimes when conflicts arise, they come from cultural differences, and you don’t know how to explain them. That’s why we have wars in the world, I think.

Our motto when making the film was that you have to be more generous and patient. We wouldn’t have gone through the film otherwise.

The main difference is that Chinese people can work 14, 16 hours a day. In Sweden, we are trained to work for eight hours. It is way too expensive to work overtime. You somehow place your energy into eight hours and are not used to placing your energy into 12 hours. That was the biggest challenge. It was the same fine-tuning thing we talked about.

It is like we work together. I am almost done, and you are only halfway through [laughs]. It’s kind of dirty [laughs]. Oh, it was just me? Sorry, my fault.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Stars in his eyesNorwegian Taiwanese director Hakon Liu fell in love at first sight with actress

Pernilla August, the star of his recently released ‘Miss Kicki’

By Ho YiStaff RepoRteR

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