Nancy Kwan’s own film company

Press, 11 June 1977, Page 8

Nancy Kwan’s own film company

“Suzie Wong” is running her own film production company in Hong Kong. Nancy Kwan, who achieved instant international stardom in 1960 as the forceful bar girl in “The World of Suzie Wong,” has now moved behind the camera, writes Paul Majendie, NZPA-Reuter correspondent, from Hong Kong. Her newly-founded company, Nancy Kwan Films Limited, has pitched into the lucrative world of television commercials with Nancy first taking the director's] chair for a short film pro-] moting television sets. Commercials are the corn-1 pany’s bread and butter but] Nancy, whose other big act-] ing success was the holly-] wood musical “Flower Drum ] Song,” has plans to branch, out from there. Her company has just; completed a location survey] for an American television ■ action series to be called ] “Kweilo” (Foreign Devil). ] “That should be our first; break into movies,” she said. Nancy Kwan runs her. little empire from a plush beige executive’s office that is typical of the contrasts of Hong Kong. From her high-!

rise headquarters you can ( see a hillside scarred with [dilapidated and precariously; ’ I built squatters’ huts. ' I Aerials have sprouted i across the hillside and -(Nancy, her eye ever open J for a prospective market, j]noted “even they have got I television sets.” TRAINING SCHOOL ; The local girl-made-good has very strong views on • how to improve the Hong Kong film industry, highly : productive in quantity if not 1 always quality. Her sugges-l tion is a film training school ( inhere. I “I think the local industry! i is still guts, gore and sex. A (film school would be the] (first step to raise the quality] (and attract more producers (here,” she said. ] Nancy would like to see [ ;three-year training courses | started in such categories as] j script-writing, photography! and editing. Hong Kong undoubtedly I has its attractions for for|eign producers. Jane Fonda has just completed shooting in the colony — ahead of .schedule — on “Coming Home,” a tale of a Vietnam veteran on leave, which also stars Jon Voight and Bruce iDern.

| For Nancy, “Hong Kong is ] like Spain 10 years ago. [There are no union problems and producers can] keep costs down to a realistic level.” Working in Hong Kong also has great attractions for her after the slick professionalism of Hollywood. “In Los Angeles everybody has specific jobs. Out here everyone compromises and doubles up. It’s good as you get interested in every- ! thing. [ “I’ve been on one side of [the camera so long and I I missed having an over-all I !knowledge of the business,”! (she said. I But Nancy never bites the (hand that first fed her as a teen-ager, claiming that nowhere in the world could; (they make musicals like; (Hollywood. Talking about “Suzie] Wong,” after almost two] decades of interviews, has clearly become a tedious chore, but she readily admits: “I really started out at the top working with such professionals as William Holden.” Still, for her, celluloid’s attractions have never faded: “Once you get into it, you never get out,” she said.