SINGAPORE – Taiwanese author-director Giddens Ko says that working with Gingle Wang for the primary time on his new film Until We Meet Once more reminded him of working with lead actor Kai Ko on his directorial debut, the coming-of-age romance You Are The Apple Of My Eye (2011).
The 43-year-old says in a video convention with native media: “Gingle is clearly a genius actress. If I had labored together with her on my first film, I might have mistaken myself for a genius director as a result of she will be able to so efficiently painting no matter feelings I need her to seize.
“That is how I felt with Kai engaged on my first film. I believed, ‘Man, I am superior.’ Now, I do know that it was as a result of he is a genius actor. I did not know learn how to cherish him then, however I do know to cherish Gingle.”
The director’s “genius actor” reunites with him for the third time in Until We Meet Once more, a romance with supernatural components.
Kai Ko, 30, says of working with Giddens Ko once more: “I feel he has extra issues he needs to say now by means of his works and he is additionally extra positive about what he needs to make. The remaining is sort of acquainted, his directing model has not likely modified. Individuals who perceive and consider in his imaginative and prescient can immerse themselves into his universe fairly simply.”
Except for You Are The Apple Of My Eye, Kai Ko additionally had a cameo in Giddens Ko’s Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017). He additionally starred in A Choo (2020), which was not directed by Giddens Ko however was written by him.
Until We Meet Once more opens on Thursday (Dec 2). In it, Kai Ko and Wang are A-Lun and Pinky, who each had traumatic deaths. Within the afterlife, they staff up as cupids who’re in a position to bind folks collectively in love. They run into Xiaomi (Vivian Sung), A-Lun’s girlfriend, and attempt to discover somebody new for her.
There are many scenes the place Sung and Kai Ko weep for his or her premature separation.
Sung, 29, says: “I really feel like I fell in love with A-Lun even earlier than we started filming, so all of the scenes of me lacking him and his cremation – all these feelings flowed very naturally.”
Ko provides: “It was additionally very simple for me to cry as a result of it is such a well-known staff that I am working with this time, who’ve seen me develop up over time. I let down my defences readily.”
Sung, Kai Ko and Giddens Ko have all beforehand labored collectively because the actress, too, had a cameo in Mon Mon Mon Monsters. She additionally starred in Cafe. Ready. Love (2014), one other Giddens Ko adaptation which was produced and written by him.
And Wang, 23, says that historical past was intimidating at first.
“I used to be very excited to do the film as a result of I had learn Giddens’ books rising up, however I used to be fairly nervous as a result of everybody else had labored collectively earlier than and I used to be apprehensive it’s going to be arduous to assimilate.”
She jokes: “I additionally heard that Kai will be fairly a diva.”
Kai Ko fires again: “I additionally heard that Gingle could be very arduous to work with, however she turned out to be form and honest.”
The film is predicated on one in every of Giddens Ko’s earlier books, revealed in 2002, and it’s his first romantic story.
Requested why it took so lengthy to adapt Until We Meet Once more, the author says: “The supernatural components of the story name for lots of pc graphics and Taiwan does not do quite a lot of movies on this style. However the Taiwanese movie trade has matured quite a bit over time and that is why it could possibly lastly be tailored. If somebody comes out of the cinema pondering the visible results are good, then I am very honoured.”
Simply days after the interview, the movie, which was nominated for 11 awards on the prestigious Golden Horse Awards held in Taipei, received three: for finest visible results, finest make-up and costume design, and finest sound results.
Giddens Ko had hoped to bag the very best visible results accolade.
“It will have an encouraging impact on different film-makers to be extra imaginative in the case of visible results as a result of there are nice groups behind the scenes who can realise these visions. We should not be avoiding scenes which would require large quantities of pc graphics from the scripting stage, pondering that they cannot be made, as a result of they will.”
- Until We Meet Once more opens on Dec 2.
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