Fruit Chan Gor (; born 15 April 1959) is a Hong Kong filmmaker who is best known for his style of film reflecting the everyday life of Hong Kong people. He is well known for using amateur actors (such as Sam Lee in Made in Hong Kong, Wong Yau-Nam in Hollywood Hong Kong) in his films. He became a household name after the success of the 1997 film Made in Hong Kong, which earned many local and international awards.
Early life
Chan was born in Guangdong, China. His English name is a calque (literal translation) of his personal name Guo (果). Growing up, he watched a lot of films from Communist countries.
He and his family moved to Hong Kong in July 1971.
His break came in 1991 when a film he was working with stopped its production. Chan took this as an opportunity; he used the same studio to direct Finale in Blood. However, the outcome of the first of his own films was highly praised by the critics rather than the public. In 1994 he collected a total of 500,000 HKD and film-materials left over by other productions to begin directing his award-winning Made in Hong Kong. After Made in Hong Kong came out he was thought of as the hope for Hong Kong cinema by fellow Hong Kong filmmakers for challenging the stable model of Hong Kong filmmaking. He had become the first filmmaker to, independently of the big studios, challenge the genre of Hong Kong films and make realistic films about the political and social situations going on in Hong Kong at the time. The film was the first part to a trilogy that included The Longest Summer and Little Cheung.
In 2002, Chan was a member of the jury at the 24th Moscow International Film Festival.
Chan was selected to head the jury for the 2015 Taipei Film Festival.
Style and influences
Chan lists Japanese directors, particularly from the 1960s such as Nagisa Ōshima, as his primary influences. Ōshima specifically was the influence for Chan's film Made in Hong Kong (1997).