Covid-19 intermission spurs Singapore director Anthony Chen’s revenge directing

SINGAPORE – An identity crisis spurred a sudden spike in productivity for home-grown film-maker Anthony Chen.

In 2021, he had prepared himself to direct Drift, the adaptation of Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel, A Marker To Measure Drift. But the Covid-19 pandemic put the production on hold for months.

London – where he was based – was in lockdown, leaving him stuck at home.

He recalls: “I was a house husband. I did the washing and the cooking and looked after our son, who was 18 months old at the time. During the lockdowns, my wife worked in the home office. She had a day job, with meetings and everything. She clocked in, she clocked out.”

His wife Rachel Yan is a risk analyst.

Chen, 39, was speaking with The Straits Times at a press event for his new film, The Breaking Ice, at the Sands Theatre at Marina Bay Sands on Monday. It opens in Singapore cinemas on Thursday. 

“I lost my identity as a film-maker. I was a man. I was a father. I was a husband. But I wasn’t a film-maker,” says Chen, who moved to Hong Kong with his family in 2022.

That period of crisis was also the time when he read news reports about young people in Britain, United States and China who were feeling unprecedented levels of frustration, loneliness and alienation. The result was a screenplay about three young people who over the span of four days explore their feelings for one another and life in general.

The Breaking Ice stars Chinese actors Zhou Dongyu (Better Days, 2019), Liu Haoran (Detective Chinatown, 2015) and Qu Chuxiao (The Wandering Earth, 2019) as the three people seeking answers in the snow-covered city of Yanji, one of the coldest places in China.

Chen says he considers refugee drama Drift – which stars English actress Cynthia Erivo and American actress Alia Shawkat – his third picture, and Chinese-language drama The Breaking Ice his fourth. He hopes to release Drift in Singapore by the end of 2023.

The English-language film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, several months ahead of The Breaking Ice, which made its debut in May at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard category.

Chen’s debut feature, the drama Ilo Ilo (2013), was awarded the Camera d’Or for best debut feature at Cannes.

The six-year gap between Ilo Ilo and his next feature Wet Season (2019) had given him the reputation as a film-maker who worked slowly and deliberately, so those who knew him expressed surprise at his sudden burst of productivity.

Distributors and festival programmers jokingly asked him if he was going to submit a third film to the ongoing Venice Film Festival, he says.

The Breaking Ice might have been developed at an uncharacteristically rapid rate, but it would be wrong to consider it a rushed or barebones project, says Chen. He lavished on it the same attention he gives to every film, except that this time, he was compelled by frustration to quicken his pace.

“It was all the pent-up emotion from the pandemic that was firing me up to want to do stuff. I have never been so prolific in my career. In the span of six months, I shot two films,” he says.

The Breaking Ice’s leading lady Zhou says at a press conference during the same event that she became a fan of Chen’s work after watching Ilo Ilo. In particular, she was impressed by the character of Filipino domestic helper Terry, played by actress Angeli Bayani.

“She felt very real. She is the kind of character I hope to play one day,” adds the 31-year-old actress.

Chen says that in contrast to other actors he has known, Zhou is eager to get feedback and always ready to redo a scene if required. She also puts her feelings aside for the sake of the shoot.

Asked by the emcee to give an example of her commitment, she spoke about her dislike for the odour of tobacco. For The Breaking Ice, she had to film a scene which shows her character enjoying a relaxing smoke. But for her, the experience was far from relaxing.

“I’m not sure how many cigarettes I went through. We had to do several takes. By the end, I had to throw up,” she says.