Benny Chan’s ‘Meow’ Fantasy leads Emperor Pictures’ latest thrust
HONG KONG: Emperor Motion Pictures will release the bigbudget science-fiction fantasy Meow in July. The film headlines the Hong Kong studio’s 2017 slate unveiled at FilMart.
Meow belongs to a rare genre as far as Hong Kong cinema is concerned. “There are very few fantasy films in Hong Kong and that’s precisely why we made this one,” said director Benny Chan. It was produced on a budget of over US$14.5 million (RM65 million).
The protagonist of Meow is an adorable, oversized cat kept by a family as a pet, but which turns out to be an alien from a remote planet aiming to domesticate human beings. A significant part of the budget has gone into the special effects in scenes featuring the big cat.
The film stars Louis Koo and Mary Ma and will be distributed locally by Emperor.
Meow is one of 10 films to be released by Emperor this year.
Other titles include: Cold Detective, directed by awardwinning screenwriter Wai Ka-fai and starring Sean Lau Chingwan; and director Herman Yau’s thriller The Sleep Curse, which will play at both the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Festival of Far East Film in Udine.
Benny Chan is known for his meticulous research into movie scripts.
One example was how he had delved deeper into the backstory of his massive box-office hit, Call of Heroes.