RAIN DOGS (TAIYANG YU) Opens On Homeground: Interview With Ho Yuhang

It has finally come home!

Ho Yuhang's Rain Dogs (Taiyang Yu) opens today in Malaysia. The film has been highly anticipated after it made its rounds at the festivals, competing in the Horizons section of the Venice International Film Festival recently. After Venice, Pusan and Vancouver, this week Rain Dogs plays at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

The film tells the story of 19-year-old Tung who travels to the city in search of his brother but finds violence and loss instead.

Why did you choose a title like Rain Dogs, which already has associations with an album by Tom Waits (Rain Dogs) and a film by Takashi Miike (Rainy Dog)?
It’s a catchy title. I’m aware of the Tom Waits album but the film has nothing to do with it. The title also suggests the feeling of defeat, like a drenched dog sniffing about in the street.

The characters in your films always find their way back home for one reason or another. It's like that George Moore quote: "A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it." Or in the case of Sanctuary (Ho's second feature), doesn't find anyone home. Does the intrigue with this theme come from personal experience?
I used to work late and returned home to find a bowl of soup and rice on the dining table. My mom had prepared that. And by that hour everyone’s already asleep. so I guess it has something to do with that feeling of solitude and quietness in the wee hour when I could take time to reflect upon things for the day that had past. It is minimally personal.

In Min (Ho's first feature), the camera was static with long shots. In Sanctuary, it was handheld with a lot of close-ups. In Rain Dogs there seems to be some amount of tracking. It's obvious that you're trying out new things with each film. But is it also because you're still looking for your own individual affinity with the "eye", or are you just doing what's required for each story?
I would like every story told differently.

Do you get bored easily?
Not when I’m reading. I’m bored with most people. I can usually makan (have a meal) with those whom I’m not bored with. If I can makan with them, they are fine.

Andrei Tarkovsky has been, and still is, a huge influence on a lot of filmmakers today, from Bela Tarr to Tsai Ming-liang. There seems to be some amount of his influence on your style as well. Which of Tarkovsky's ideas and approaches to art and film do you like most?
His idea of time. I’m always thinking about the expression of time, which determines the rhythm of how I say something in a film. Rhythm is important, like a song and dance, it will and can stir you unexpectedly. You organize a story with it.

You've been touring the international film festival circuit the last couple of years. Any new realisations or discoveries about the international scene as a result of this?
I learned how to get a free lunch.

What do you really get up to when you go to a festival? Watch films? Hang out with friends? Close deals? Get drunk?
I watch lesser films at film festivals now, and it’s usually only the directors I’m interested in. Mostly I hang out with friends, eat, and sight-see. My producer deals while I play. And I’m also fascinated by hotels. I like hotels, they cocoon me.

Like Yasmin Ahmad, you've been telling everyone about all the 100 film ideas (I'm exaggerating) you have, and every one of them seems to be the next one you're going to shoot. Which one really is the next one? Trouble With Daylight?
Possibly The Trouble With Daylight but we’re still looking for funding. I also have one that I’d like to shoot before this one as it’s smaller scale and manageable within my realm for now. It’s a crime story that’s inspired by an actual case that I followed and researched. But then I also have another one that I’ve been writing for a while and lost inspiration along the way, and now, however, I’m able to pick it up again to give it a facelift.

You may not make mainstream, popular type of films, and you've said you don't care what other people think. But surely even you must admit that a filmmaker cannot make films without an audience in mind?
“I don’t care what other people think” and “without audience in mind” are two separate things. A film has to have a strong, singular vision before you can communicate it to an audience, get it? Let’s get this straight, I don’t mind your popular-type of films as long as they’re good, but they’re quite rare nowadays.

When are you going to shoot on film? Would you ever?
The Trouble With Daylight is planned for 35mm.

You love to play football. But your films have featured snooker, and no football. Is it because you think football is not a tough guy's game (despite international incidents of headbutting)?
Simply because the people I portrayed in my films hang out in snooker centers. And these people usually don’t have the breath to run the length of a football field. But I do have some kind of a football thing for the inspired-by-actual-case crime story; there’s a football coach character.

More and more Malaysian Chinese films are being made and going to international festivals, so much so it even prompted Rotterdam programmer Gertjan Zuilhoff to title his recent write-up, "The Rise Of Malaysian Chinese Cinema." But everyone knows that Malaysian cinema today is far more ethnically diverse than it was, say, six years ago. What's your opinion on this?
The more the merrier, in other languages too. Yasmin doesn’t make your so-called Chinese cinema but surely she’s some kind of a rise. Different voices are important. I can’t judge for myself and others who are making Chinese-language films as we’re not outsiders and we don’t know what constitutes that assessment. But something is happening. More than before, we are talking and we are not ashamed to express our thoughts and feelings in our own language that we’re most familiar with.