Ho Ka Cheng

Supervisor of Audio-Visual CUT Association. One of the directors of Macau Stories 1, also involved in Macau Stories 2─Love in the City and Macau Stories 3City Maze. Macau Stories 2Love in the City received a special mention at Portugal’s Avanca Film Festival, and was shown at film festivals in Tokyo and Osaka.


Locally-made films and films with local elements

02 2016 | Issue 13

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The creative industry in Macao has been growing in recent years. There are a lot of young entrepreneurs now, and at the same time we started asking questions like: what is the character of Macao? What are considered “local elements of Macao”? And “[w]ith regard to this point, many experts have raised all kinds of interesting suggestions for Macao: Since we are not able to find a position for Macao, why not call for proposals from the world on ‘What is Macao?’” * Some may think that if local artists can sell products with local features to the market outside, it could be considered the best state of creativity. If local artists cannot do this, then let foreign artists to do so, and let them dig out the character of Macao and sell it overseas. It could be considered the “second best” state. However, in the world of commerce, whether a product has character is not important. The utmost importance is whether a product is profitable, how profitable, and is sold to whom.


If everything is relative, “outside” or “foreign” is needed when it comes to understanding what is “local” or “native”. Last year, three films about Macao were screening in the city. One is Timing, a local production, while Guia in Love and Return of the Cuckoo are Macao-themed Hong Kong productions. All of them were filmed in Macao and the stories are also about Macao. They are all romance films. But to Macao people, there is a subtle difference among these films: Timing is a locally-made film; the other two aren’t but they possess local elements. The highlight of Timing is the protagonist’s feelings towards the rapid change of the city, which is shared by most of the people in Macao. Particularly, the film raises the question of “should I stay or should I go?”, which is also a realistic question faced by a lot of young people in the city. Compare to the rest of the two films, Timing obviously is more local. The film is good box office and gained word-of-mouth recommendations.


Timing was also screened in cinemas in the mainland and Hong Kong, which is invaluable for local filmmakers. As mentioned earlier, local elements aren’t really important in the world of commerce. Return of the Cuckoo is the sequel to the eponymous TV series in Hong Kong 15 years ago. It already has some loyal followers and captured audience’s attention. And the actor and actress of this film are the most well-known among the three. The film has also featured some Macao character and the filming locations aren’t just limited to the historic centre or UNESCO sites. But the core of the film is not about “Macao elements”. It’s all about the romance between the protagonists. “Macao” is just an “accessory” in the film and its exposure is just about right.


At the inception stage of developing the creative industry in Macao, most people believed that this is the “best state of creativity”: so long as Macao people find out Macao’s positioning and character, and then create a product or film/TV production accordingly, the next step is to put effort to market it and make adjustment according to the reaction of the market. However, now people have started thinking otherwise. They started to realise that solely relying on the “character of Macao” doesn’t really sell. It’s not even a gimmick or selling point when it comes to marketing. Perhaps Paris is a successful case that Macao should learn from. Paris has successfully marketed itself as a romantic destination (even now people may associate it with terrorism). Even in reality there is an influx of tourists in Paris and it’s not as romantic as it is portrayed, the main point is the “imaginary romance” it has created. If we want to change how people see Macao, we perhaps need to look somewhere else other than just looking for the character of Macao. “Local features” have no role to play in business. What it needs is a local feature that is gimmicky and fits the market.


*Remark: See “Heads Together: Forum on Cultural Industries (Macao) 2015” http://www.c2magazine.mo/en/reports-en/events-en/3905/