words rachel mok

Listening in leads Felix Chong and Alan Mak into treacherous waters

When Felix Chong Man Keung and Alan Mak Siu Fai sat down in a Pacific Coffee one day towards the end of 2007, the Hang Seng index – the official index for measuring happiness in our city – had reached an historical high of 30,000 points. Around them ordinary people from all walks of life were enthusiastically talking about the stock market – in Mak’s words, as if each had an insider’s tip. In Chong’s philosophy that craze for investing – or, to be more precise, speculation – explains why we don’t get to eat good fishball noodles on the streets any more: ‘If the chef keeps taking out his Mango Combo to check the stock prices while cooking your noodles, how can they be good?’ he asks. Nevertheless, all that stock talk gave the two filmmakers the inspiration for their next collaboration. ‘I don’t know much about investing but Felix does, so when he overheard what they had to say, we started thinking about making a film on commercial crime,’ says Alan Mak.

And so Overheard, written and directed by the pair and produced by veteran filmmakers Derek Yee and Henry Fong, was born. It revolves around a trio of cops (Lau Ching Wan, Louis Koo and Daniel Wu) in a surveillance team who, eavesdropping on the secrets of a listed company, discover its stock price is about to rise. Koo and Wu, both in need of money, borrow from a loan shark in the hopes of a quick return – and put all three of them in a dangerous situation, without an exit. Greed is the motif of the film, although making quick money in the financial world could earn these cops more than what they’d get for years in the force. ‘It is very strange in Hong Kong. Your parents would think you are very dumb if you don’t invest. It is as if once you are born, you need to buy your own flat,’ Chong muses. In fact, if the two filmmakers happened to overhear some juicy tip in the office of, say, Li Ka Shing, they would act exactly as the characters in the movie do: ‘If [Li] says a certain stock price will rise, I will go to buy that immediately,’ Chong grins. ‘Or maybe just for a laugh – to see how the rich people name their grandchildren.’

In researching for the film, the Chong and Mak tried to find an official surveillance team to interview but were stymied by confidentiality issues with the Criminal Intelligence Bureau. Still, being the brains behind Infernal Affairs, they had a fair idea how to find their way around and managed to slip behind the scenes to talk to some of the people familiar with surveillance work, though they won’t name any names. (‘I didn’t interview these people I am quoting,’ says Chong, with an enigmatic smile.) ‘When they told me how they place the candid cameras I was amazed. We are filmmakers but we cannot position our cameras as precisely as they do theirs. It is really scary – a picture hanging on the wall or a tiny screw can be installed with a camera.’ Some peeping devices are so advanced Alan Mak refused to show them in the film because he worried audiences would not believe such things could exist.

Want to find a cheap device to tap into others’ phone-lines? Chong and Mak could tell you exactly where to go on the Mainland, but more important than such games, in their film they wanted to delve into their characters’ minds. ‘Surveillance is a boring yet intense job, because every moment you are peeping at others, yet you cannot tell your family or friends details of your work,’ says Chong. It is also stressful – a single operation usually involves investigating a few companies, each requiring teams working in shifts 24/7 for weeks or months – it works out to millions of dollars per operation. If anything goes wrong, all that effort flushes down the drain. ‘We have heard that someone [in the team] did get caught and got beaten,’ Chong says.

By the time pre-production was complete and cameras started rolling, the market had bottomed out at 10,000 points – one third of its worth when the creative pair took on the project. Now, as the film finally comes out, the stock market looks calm, though we all know hard times are ahead. Felix Chong hopes Overheard can bring some light relief to his audiences but he also has higher aspirations. He is unusually earnest as he says, ‘Of course we have something to express through our films – if you don’t have a message you cannot even start making a film. It is a bonus if an audience can get it. And if the film can change the way they think or behave, it is perfect.’ He hopes audiences will take time out to revalue what is right and wrong in their lives. ‘Everyone has a dream, but it’s just that [having to] pay all the bills we tend to forget about it. We don’t have to talk about it all the time, but even thinking about it should make one happy.’

Overheard opens on June 30.