The greatest joy of being a producer is to treat making a movie like a big toy.
When I first came to Hong Kong, traditional brothels were banned. I heard so many interesting stories about them from the older people I met. So I decided to produce a movie called ‘Profiles of Pleasure’ about this period.
I chose a director who used to be a production designer and was meticulous about his work detail. He studied everything and built a set in the Golden Harvest studio with a certain rawness about the whole thing.
The twenty-course cuisine on the table was carefully researched and recreated, including bottles of antique Hennessy Brandy. The movie starred the most beautiful actresses and it was fun for me to design Cheongsam for the ladies.
For the role of the rich client, I decided to guest star my good friend Nee Kuang who was quite famous in Hong Kong, appearing in a variety of TV shows, newspapers and magazines.
When I saw everything was in place and that the shooting would take the whole night, I went home.
In the middle of the night, my phone rang.
“Mr. Nee drank up the four bottles of brandy and has completely passed out! What am I to do?" The director was in a panic.
“You mean to tell me you haven’t seen any drunken man in bars before?" I answered coolly.
“I know what to do," the director said.
He shot the scene with all the girls laughing at an unconscious Mr. Nee.