Cover From left: Cecilia Yip Tung and Tse Kwan-ho in ’True Love, for Once in My Life’ (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
From left: Cecilia Yip Tung and Tse Kwan-ho in ’True Love, for Once in My Life’ (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
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Hong Kong producer Fruit Chan broadens the scope of filmmaking and challenges the notion of a ‘real movie’ with a slice-of-life film shot entirely on an iPhone
Hong Kong-based independent filmmaker Fruit Chan has made a career out of putting ordinary, overlooked stories onscreen: be it a high-school dropout-turned-gangster with existential struggles in Made in Hong Kong (1997) or a mainland Chinese prostitute navigating life amid political shifts in Durian Durian (2000).
This year, Chan returns with True Love, for Once in My Life, a touching movie about a middle-aged woman who strives to come to terms with her ex-husband’s new marriage and cancer. It’s based on the life of a Hong Kong woman, Sabrina Tse.
Above From left: Tse Kwan-ho and Cecilia Yip Tung in ‘True Love, for Once in My Life’ (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
From left: Tse Kwan-ho and Cecilia Yip Tung in ‘True Love, for Once in My Life’ (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
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To capture this slice-of-life story, Chan has turned to an unconventional filmmaking method, shooting the film entirely on an iPhone.
Some scenes are shot from a fly-on-the-wall angle, placing the audience in the observer’s role and inviting them to reflect on their relationships. The scenes are deliberately bereft of vibrant colours, creating a bleak ambience.
At times, the subjects are out of focus and the videos appear shaky—all part of the artistic decision to make the movie look like a home video. “It’s a story that can happen to anyone,” Chan said at the private preview at Golden Scene Cinema last week.
Above Fruit Chan (Photo: Getty Images)
Fruit Chan (Photo: Getty Images)
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“Love, marriage and the fading away of that passion are universal experiences, and then comes an affair, perhaps” he continued. “But Sabrina is a one-of-a-kind person. She is a living example of having only one true love in her entire life. That’s why I took up the story.”
He brought to his team first-time director Siu Koon-ho and scriptwriter Lou Shiu-wa, known for the Ann Hui-directed classic Night and Fog (2009).
At the preview, Siu says that the movie is an exploration of how far one can go to hold on to their true love. In the protagonist Sabrina’s case, taking care of her bedridden ex-husband without hesitation.
Above A film still from ‘True Love, for Once in My Life’ (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
A film still from ‘True Love, for Once in My Life’ (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
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On the technical side, Chan said that the biggest challenge was controlling the lens’ automatic focus while shooting. “We’re still experimenting. With more advanced phone models coming up, we may consider using them for better quality [in our next films].”Indeed, he’s shooting his yet-unnamed upcoming movie on an iPhone too. “It’s not something that you can do with commercial blockbusters,” he says, highlighting the creative freedom he enjoys as an independent filmmaker.
He also encourages budding filmmakers to create content on iPhone. “Film purists might insist that only movies shot on film cameras count as ‘real’ movies, and some say iPhones are killing the jobs of professional cinematographers. In 2009, when Night and Fog came out, it generated a heated debate as it was shot with a home video camera. Some challenged its credibility, but you can’t deny that there are more formats and options these days and that [shooting with an iPhone] can be a trend,” he said.
“Either way, if we can make a movie with a phone, there’s no excuse for aspiring filmmakers not to go for it.”
True Love, for Once in My Life was shown at the Asian Film Festival in October 2024. Its public release date in 2025 is yet to be announced.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
