Juno Mak on his latest film ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ and why Chanel fosters avant-garde projects

Mak’s own appreciation for alternative film lies in his belief that they are more than just forms of entertainment. For him, watching such a film is like stepping into a black void that transports him to a new dimension. “This dimension has a lot of unknowns,” he says. “For me, this is the most attractive part of cinema.”

Growing up, Mak gravitated towards horror for its dark elements and ability to influence one’s psychology. Film noir, marked by its moody contrast of light and dark, similarly feeds into Mak’s internal drive to explore the outré and the unknown. “I feel that there is something attractive about this darkness,” he says. “Even if film noir is not in trend today, you can’t just have lightness and not want shadows. It’s yin and yang.”

Following the success of Rigor Mortis, fans and investors alike were eager for a sequel. Rather than bending to commercial pressures, however, Mak stayed true to his soul’s calling, telling Tatler, “There are some who say: I don’t want to take risks; I’m fine with replicating what gave me success in the past. But at the same time, I feel as a creative person, your path is to explore and find your own answers. You need the courage to betray everyone around you.”

For Mak, this choice to go against the grain comes with its own unique hurdles. “It’s fascinating but at the same time, it’s very lonely. Being creative, whether you’re painting, performing at concerts or directing films, they all share this sense of loneliness,” he says. But the film festival will give Mak the chance to find solace in his solitude and a reminder that he is not actually alone. “What I was most happy to hear was that the festival is bringing together a diverse group of people from around the world.”

He came up with ideas for the first scenes of his second film—a crime drama—while travelling to promote his directorial debut. The script for Sons of the Neon Night would prove to be a four-year endeavour. And while shooting was completed in 2018, delays in post-production sparked by the pandemic has meant radio silence about its release until this year. In April, the film was selected to show at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival this month. Chosen from a record-breaking pool of 2,909 submissions, Sons of the Neon Night will be part of the prestigious film festival’s Midnight Screenings category.

Set in a dystopian, snow-covered Causeway Bay, Sons of the Neon Night is slated to be one of the most expensive films in Hong Kong cinema history. With a production budget that exceeds US$50 million, the project features a cast of cinematic titans, from Tony Leung and Sean Lau to Louis Koo and Takeshi Kaneshiro. And while it exhibits all the tell-tale signs of a nostalgic gangster film—police, assassins and triads—Mak ensured that his crime drama was infused with deeper topics. As well as issues related to addiction, Sons of the Neon Night wrestles with the Confucian notion of filial piety, with overlapping storylines of individuals bound by blood and non-blood ties.

Mak’s approach to filmmaking is also unconventional. “Because I don’t come from a film background, I don’t have normal, step-by-step, logical ways to do things,” he says. However, he uses this to push himself to expand the frontiers of Hong Kong cinema. In Sons of the Neon Night, for example, Mak had to monitor up to ten cameras at a time—five times that of Rigor Mortis—to bring the film’s complex narratives to life. “At some moments, it felt like I was shooting six different films at the same time,” Mak says. “From a filmmaker’s perspective, this is shocking and a new path.”

Mak’s drive to march to the beat of his own drum also motivated him to test the limits of his cast. Shooting over 140 days in Hong Kong, mainland China and South Korea, the crew endured both sweltering heat and temperatures dropping down to minus 38 degrees celsius. The director also made sure that the veteran stars assumed roles that would not be expected of them. “While I was writing [the script] I thought: wait, I’ve never seen Takeshi Kaneshiro or Sean Lau like this before, and I’ve certainly never seen Louis Koo like this. It’s like piecing together something unique,” he says.

To help them get into character, Mak introduced an unconventional rule: by the fourth time he met them, the actors had to embody their characters in every aspect, from their gestures down to the socks that they wear. For Mak, this wasn’t a means of controlling them but rather building trust. “Maybe they think that the socks they wear don’t matter but I think this level of care builds trust. In a sense, they have to trust me. In this unfamiliar world we’re creating, I’m the only one who’s been there before. If I don’t even trust myself, it’s hard for us to explore,” he says.

Mak turned to another industry trailblazer for the soundtrack: the late Japanese composer, record producer and keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over a six-hour session in a hotel room in Tokyo, the duo dreamed up an original score for the film’s final scenes; this composition would be one of Sakamoto’s last before his death in March 2023. “That session was so magical,” Mak says. “Maybe because we respected this very sacred moment of pure creation, we didn’t want outside distractions so didn’t bring our phones or take photos. We came to a shared understanding; you don’t need other people to get it.”

The filmmaker stands firm in his belief that a work’s lifespan often outlasts its creator. “Whether 300 years later or 500 years later, there will be some kind of butterfly effect, though I’ll never know for sure,” he says. “I stand by my work. I’m proud of it. What I can do is give my work its own life and let it carry on. [Whether] it succeeds or doesn’t succeed, it’s all good.”

Mak’s cinematic creations may be surreal and countercultural but his advice for aspiring independent filmmakers is surprisingly pragmatic. “I believe every game has its own set of rules. For me, you have to learn the rules first and then you can deconstruct them. But deconstructing [the rules] is not the answer: you have to reconstruct them too.”

Despite his wins, Mak admits that going down an untrodden path is easier said than done. For him, it’s a constant evolution, meaning that even Sons of the Neon Night no longer represents who he is today. “It takes figuring out a lot of details to discover something authentic within yourself,” he says. “This is the most important.”

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Creative Direction: Zoe Yau

Photography: Alexander Yeung 

Styling: NiNi 

Hair: Powder Room

Make-Up: Janice Tao 

Set Design: Lit

Photographer's Assistants: Kapo Lam, Victor Tang 

Production Assistants: Carlos Zui, Zed Leets

Special Thanks: The Shophouse