“Mad World,” a Hong Kong movie about bipolar disorder, opens in China on Thursday, March 30. The character with the medical condition, played by Shawn Yue Man-lok, would have an emotional reconciliation with his father, played by Eric Tsang Chi-wai, who has been absent for a long time from his child’s life.
Tough & Heavy Project
The film, directed by Wong Chun from a screenplay by Florence Chan Chor-hang, was produced with a budget of HK$2 million that came from a grant from the First Feature Film Initiative of the Hong Kong Film Development Council. Although Tsang initially turned down the role when Wong offered it to him because the movie was a tough and heavy project, he changed his mind eventually, China Entertainment News reported.
Tsang convinced Yue to accept the role because of the possibility that it could land him a Best Actor nomination, if not an award. His hunch about the film winning awards was right because “Mad World” got eight nominations for the Hong Kong Film Awards scheduled next week. The movie premiered in September at the Toronto Film Festival. Wong won the Best New Director award and actress Elaine Jin Yan-ling bagged the Best Supporting Actress award at the Golden Horse Awards in Taipei for the movie.
Awards for Movie
However, Star 2 reported it was Tsang who won a Best Actor award for his role in “Mad World” at the Malaysia Golden Global Awards held on March 5. At the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, Wong and Chan won the Best Director and Best Scriptwriter awards. The film got the Grand Prix award at the 12th Osaka Asian Film Festival, Variety reported. The inspiration behind the script of Chan – Wong’s girlfriend – is a news story are a recovering mental patient. Chan started to write the script in 2013. The two held interviews with recovering mental patient, truck drivers and social workers to help Chan craft the script.