Born in Hainan Province, Mainland China, 40 year-old Fruit Chan fell in love with movies after watching a Soviet film in his childhood. While in Middle School he worked part-time in a theater projection room. The first film he screened was a traditional Chinese opera directed by the famous Hollywood cracker John Woo. Fruit Chan joined the entertainment business in 1982 and directed his first film in 1991. Unfortunately the film was stocked for three years, which made him almost totally give up. In 1997, Fruit Chan raised 500,000 HKD to make his award-grabbing Made in Hong Kong, which became a myth in Hong Kong film history. Fruit Chan was honored with Best Director that year at the Hong Kong Film Golden Awards, mostly for his courage and sincerity. Fruit Chan challenged the stable model of filmmaking in Hong Kong and was dubbed the "Hope" of Hong Kong Cinema (by other Hong Kong filmmakers).

"The making of Made in Hong Kong made me realize why composers always write their masterpieces at a time when they are lovelorn," Fruit Chan said. On being asked if he would become less"independent" after making his trilogy, Fruit Chan said he wished to mix commercial films with his more personal "auteur" films. His next film in the works is There's a Hollywood in Hong Kong starring Zhou Xun, the actress who won the Best Actress Prize at the Paris Film Festival for her performance in Suzhou River. "I enjoyed her acting in that film," said Fruit Chan, "she's wild and energetic, but with a face rather traditional."

Unfortunately, Director Fruit Chan is more ambitious in the final chapter of his Reunification Trilogy than in the first two (Made in Hong Kong and The Longest Summer). Symbolically, the heroes of the first two films appear in the last scene of Little Cheung. Fruit pays tribute to the old Hong Kong as well as the new one, channeling his deeply-felt experience of working-class neighborhoods into a lively portrait of a modern city in transition. Through the bittersweet exploits of his young actor, Chan captures the political, economic and cultural upheavals of Hong Kong in 1997 in all its chaotic shadings. In turn, brilliant and incoherent, sentimental and vulgar, Little Cheung delivers.

Through Little Cheung's first person narration, Chan relates what had happened before the hand-over of Hong Kong in 1997, including the famous legacy scandal of the New Mark Si Cengs, children without residence permits and the hand-over itself. Little Cheung is successful in its social and environmental descriptions, true-born street culture, non-professional casting and strong characters. It is also excellent in documenting the common folk ignored in Hong Kong, such as the Philippino world, the illegal residents and the lives behind the stories.

Talking about why this film is balanced between children and the aged, Fruit explained that he had never tried this before, dealing more with teenagers and the middle-aged in Made in Hong Kong and The Longest Summer. Childhood and aging are subliminally connected in this film by mentioning the death of New Mark Si Ceng (a famous era-crossing artist and billionaire in Hong Kong) and the legacy scandal between his wife and his children. Fruit Chan says that to some extent, Mr. New Mark Si Ceng was the symbolization of the aged and a lack of respect, which have rest fixed in his mind. He finally put all these together, not afraid of creating confusion, for he felt that the whole era had already ended in 1997.

Fanfan KO