Winds of Asia [Voiceover] Kings and the Clowns (2006.10.26)

Blogfrog Exclusive Interview with HEAVENLY KINGS’ Daniel Wu and Andrew Lin

Like a typical boy band with good looks and ego overload – each member of ALIVE sports a unique character with his own foibles – Daniel the control freak, Terrence ‘Mr No Show’ and fart-on-demand, Andrew the narcissistic schemer and Conroy the lazy slacker and “husband of Macao heiress Josie Ho.” Are they just being themselves or are these personalities constructed?

Daniel Wu [DW]: Our characters are all constructed. I did a lot of research by watching many rockumentaries, and noticed that band members all have distinct personalities, and sometimes it was even the cause of the breakup. I felt it is a necessary element to add to the portrayal. I took ideas and played with the members’ image in the media.

The media often like to show Terence as a party animal, maybe they caught him up late once, but actually he’s not like that at all. So I made him play someone who’s not very responsible. Andrew often gets roles in movies as the cool, bad guy, so I flipped that image around and made him the passive-aggressive who is sensitive, shy yet calculating. I assumed the character of the control freak, opposite to the sunshine kid I was often asked to play in real life films.



Conroy’s personality was based on what people know about him already. He was a supermodel. He used to be fit, not fat. So I constructed the image of a house husband who never had to work, when in fact, he runs his own production company and is very busy. Also, I subverted his tough guy image by making him cute an soft, like a teddy bear – but then these are also his real traits. .

Did Daniel assign the roles, or did the members all contribute to the characterization?

Andrew Lin [AL]: We brainstormed together and came up with the individual characteristics first, then we improvised some of it while shooting. It’s like the episode when I talked about my father’s love for Frank Sinatra. The audience likes to see relationships, even when a band is about business.

DW: The reference to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the Rat Pack is deliberate because it’s a Fifties boy band that has similarities with ALIVE. They didn’t care about what others said, they were anti-pop but became popular.
What about all the swearing in the film, and on your blog? Do you do that in real life?

DW: On our blog we tell our fans not to swear. The version for screening in Hong Kong has the swear words bleeped out. That way of talking makes the band seems more human, because usually, with boy bands like SMAP you only see what they present to the audience.

AL: We want the audience to figure out what’s real and what’s fake. I don’t care what others think about my image. I just treat it as part of my character.

Did you enjoy the session when you tried on costumes?

DW: There were a couple more sets of clothes in the wardrobe that we didn’t try on. Just for the film we took out a photo session in Central. The idea of the poster came from the Beetles and Village People. It was a symbol of boy bands. The photo was quite embarrassing – Conroy’s stomach was hanging out.
AL: We caused a traffic jam.

Do you have a favorite costume?

AL: The one with the penis on the shorts. It was actually one of the more conservative pieces of clothing.
DW: My favorite is the cowboy costume. The first music album I ever bought was Village People. At the time, I didn’t know they were this camp act. I just thought cowboys and Indians were cool.

Are you really disbanding ALIVE?
DW: That’s right. We have completed what we set out to do, which is to convey the message that music, movies or art should not be commodified. I wish people could go back to the passion and the heart which is fading away in our globalized society. Especially in a place like Hong Kong, where 99 percent of the industry is profit driven. The film’s composer Jun Kong is a very talented musician, but he doesn’t have a chance because he gets tossed aside for not being mainstream.

Source: http://www.tiff-jp.net/