When Lunch with Charles was released in Hong Kong a couple of months ago, one film reviewer accused the Canadian director and writer of being a fraud.
"Come on, Michael Parker," the critic wrote. "We know you're really an expat filmmaker from Hong Kong and that's your pseudonym. You can come out of the closet."
Parker was pleased. "I guess they felt we really captured the essence of Hong Kong and this reality very well," he says, slowly downing a cup of Yeun Yeung, a bitterly vile East-meets-West Hong Kong specialty of coffee mixed with tea and canned milk.
The cultural divide he speaks of is one that will be familiar to many couples on both sides of the Pacific. Lunch with Charles is a romantic comedy that tells the story of a young Hong Kong woman (Theresa Lee) working in Vancouver, who is having a hard time persuading her musician husband (Sean Lau) to come join her. On a road trip that takes them from Hong Kong to Banff, Alta., they meet up with another couple (Nicholas Lea and Bif Naked) who are struggling with the same conflicts over love, dreams and career.
After a smashing debut on the festival circuit (The Shanghai Daily touted Lunch as one of the nine must-see films of last year's Shanghai International Film Festival) and winning three British Columbia Leo awards for direction, screenwriting and music score last spring, the film opened Friday in Toronto.
It wasn't difficult for Parker to capture that authenticity, given that the story draws heavily on his own life. The 40-year-old Edmonton native, who now makes his home in Vancouver, is married to Shan Tam, 38, from Hong Kong.
They met in the early nineties when Tam was in Vancouver line-producing a Hong Kong action film, which essentially means she was overseeing the budget and managing the production without any creative control. In 1992, they formed their own production company, Holiday Pictures, and began wooing many Hong Kong feature films to Vancouver, including the Jackie Chan blockbuster Rumble in the Bronx.
"Shan is sometimes still torn," Parker says about their decision to live and raise their two children in Canada. Her parents came to live here for a while, but have since moved back to Hong Kong. "They had a big house in Coquitlam, with a huge garden that was so gorgeous they had people come to take wedding pictures in their front yard. They would never have that opportunity in Hong Kong. But, ultimately, the cultural and language differences were too much."
Parker says it was important for him to explore the conflicted emotions of Tong, the character played by Lau. "A lot of people don't realize that not everyone wants to come to Canada. It's not the ultimate dream for some."
Tam is currently working on a film in Hong Kong and the couple hopes to do more work there in the future now that the open Chinese market has provided unprecedented opportunities for investment, cheaper production costs and a huge array of locations.
Still, Parker continues to see himself as the character Tong in reverse. "How can I write and direct there? There are lots of line producers in Hong Kong. But our contacts in Asia give us unique opportunities here."
Lunch with Charles was produced under a 1991 film-production treaty between Hong Kong and Canada. Parker is surprised more Canadians aren't taking advantage of the treaty, which provides filmmakers with access to foreign actors and helps secure better distribution deals, while still treating the production as an indigenous film, including access to funding.
Lunch with Charles was funded by Telefilm Canada and has licensing deals with the Movie Network, Superchannel, Super Ecran and CHUM Television.
The first co-production under the treaty was written by Parker and produced by Holiday Pictures. The 1993 dramatic feature, Young Offenders,was lauded by the Vancouver police department and Vancouver school board for its deft portrayal of Hong Kong children left alone in Canada and vulnerable to criminal activity.
"I guess we kind of cornered the market," says Parker, a lanky, affable bloke of Irish descent, who wears khakis and sandals with socks, and still looks very much like the idealistic hippie who lived on a communal farm in Nova Scotia.
"There are so many stories to be told," he says, but adds that it's not always easy to find ones that will translate in both cultures without feeling forced. Last year, he and Tam made a documentary called Made in China,about young orphan girls who are adopted by Canadians. They are now working on a film about Mah Bing Kee, one of the rare early Chinese migrants to Canada who worked his way up from gold panning to being a wealthy landowner in Nanaimo, B.C.
Tam's input on casting Lunch with Charles,Parker says, was another crucial reason they were successful at nailing the cross-cultural specifics.
It was she who decided that Nicholas Lea, the Vancouver-based actor who starred in Vertical Limits and has a recurring role on The X-Files as the one-armed Agent Krycek, had a certain non-threatening look that would attract a Chinese woman. This, despite the fact that a few days before filming began, USA Today came out with a huge story on Lea, pegging him as the next big movie action hero.
"I thought: 'No way. Now he's out of here,' " says Parker, still wearing a permanent grin of exhaustion, having just returned from the Cambridge International Film Festival the night before. "But he showed up. I think he really wanted to do a comic role. He's never had that challenge before."
Parker was able to round up an impressive cast with such a tiny ($1.9-million) budget. Bif Naked, the multipierced and tattooed Vancouver punk-rock singer who has toured with Kid Rock and Lilith Fair, has said she was riveted by the script and cried like a baby the day the film wrapped.
Although Naked studied acting at the University of Winnipeg theatre program and has made cameo appearances on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Global TV series Big Sound,this was her first feature film and her first lead role.
Parker says he was a bit terrified when he heard she wanted to read for the part. As were members of the Vancouver roots band the Paperboys, who couldn't help but wonder how she planned to interpret their Celtic soundtrack.
As it turned out, Parker says the singer was a pleasure to work with. "She's such a card. We would all really look forward to Bif days because she was so warm and funny and energetic, but at the same time very focussed and open to direction."
Naked will certainly be a draw at the Canadian box office, but landing Lau for his North American debut was probably Parker's greatest coup. The Hong Kong action star with the sensitive, furrowed brow has a résumé that boasts nearly 70 feature films, including Black Mask (with Jet Li) and Police Story Part 2 (with Jackie Chan).
"When we were filming inside the apartment," says Parker, recalling their brief shoot with Lau in Hong Kong, "all of a sudden somebody opened a door and the paparazzi just swarmed in. There were people from Taiwan and all over Asia. They just descended and took over."
Lau, whose English is really as stilted as it sounds in the film, told Parker he had plenty of reservations about taking the part. "He often says he doesn't know why he did it. There was the problem with language. He can't sing, by his own admission. And he doesn't play any musical instrument."
Which isn't to say that Lau has any regrets. "He said something really sweet in an interview in Hong Kong," Parker explains. "He said when his time is up and he looks back on his life, he probably won't remember all the cars he had, and he won't remember all the apartments he lived in, but he'll always remember his experience in Canada."
Parker chuckles with a nervous look that says he hopes Canadian moviegoers will take the same chance with his film.
Alexandra Gill