Akademik

(né Chan Ho-sun; Chen Kexin)

b. 1962, Hong Kong

Film director/producer

The author of sophisticated comedies of manners, Chan is one of the most eloquent voices in Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s and 2000s. His characters, often floating between several cultures, struggle to decipher the mysteries of their own hearts as well as the enigmas of modernity.

Born in a displaced family of Thai Chinese intellectuals (his father is the filmmaker Chan Tung-man), Chan grew up both in Hong Kong and Bangkok, and later studied in the USA. Back in Hong Kong, he worked as an assistant director for Golden Harvest, then co-founded the United Filmmakers Organization (UFO), an independent production company for which he directed highly successful comedies: Alan and Eric: Between Hello and Goodbye (Shuangcheng gushi, 1991), He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (Jinzhe yuye, 1994) and others. Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Tian Mimi, 1996), a bittersweet comedy of love lost and regained in a post-colonial, pan-Chinese context, won many awards.

In 1999, Chan directed Love Letters, shot in New England for Dreamworks, and then started commuting between the US and Asia. In 2000, he co-founded Applause Pictures, a pan-Asian production company based in Hong Kong designed to foster emerging talent in East Asia. Having produced a series of internationally well-received films by directors from Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Korea, Singapore and Japan, Chan directed Coming Home (Huijia) for the omnibus horror film Three (Sangeng, 2002) which is considered by critics as the most successful of the three episodes.