Interviews

Yunah Hong

When Walter Meets Frau May Wong

We are happy to be with Yunah Hong, author & director. You have lived in both Seoul and New
York. The question arises spontaneously: How have you experienced the world of cinema on both
sides and how much does this influence your work?

Growing up in Seoul, Korea in the 1970s, my exposure to cinema was somewhat limited. I watched the
golden age of Hollywood movies from the 1930s to the 1950s on a black and white television and enjoyed
watching those movies very much. In the middle school, I talked passionately about those movies with
classmates. I had limited access to Korean movies at the theaters due to age restriction and censorship at
that time.

During my university days at Seoul National University, I joined a film club, discovered and watched the
French New Wave films. Their auteur approach is more personal and retains more artistic freedom than the
studio system of American movies I had watched on television before. The French New Wave films
broadened my knowledge of film and opened up new possibilities for storytelling. I was curious about other
international films that I didn’t have access to at that time.

After graduating from the university, I moved to New York City to continue my education. In New York City, I
had opportunities to watch diverse films from all over the world at small revival theaters. I saw Andrey
Tarkovsky’s films which I found difficult. I spent days pondering about his films and wondered what was he
trying to say? I was intrigued by his spiritual and philosophical pursuits in his films. I discovered Rainer
Werner Fassbinder’s emotional, radical and sometimes political German New Wave films. I was also
intrigued by the poetic and difficult films of Pier Paolo Pasolini. I was also watching contemporary
American independent films of the 1990s. I wouldn’t say that watching those films had influenced or
shaped my filmmaking journey. It’s much more complicated and complex than being a cinephile. But
thinking about the films led me to see the possibility of cinema as a means of artistic expression and for
storytelling. Around this time, I started to make my own video work to express my artistic interests. I
became a filmmaker in New York City in the 1990s working with film and video.

Also, I would like to mentioned that in the 1990s, I rediscovered the Korean classic films from the 1960s
when I helped to organize a retrospectives of Korean film masters in New York City. Watching a golden
age of Korean films from the 1960s, I learned more about the rich history of Korean cinema and understood
Korean society from an outsider’s POV.

Tell us about your career, “When Walter meets Frau May Wong” is a ‘part’ of a bigger project:
Your documentary feature, right?

As a filmmaker, I have followed my own interests and have worked on both narrative films and
documentary films as I have searched for the possibilities of narrative storytelling. I am a woman
filmmaker who lives outside Korea by my own choice, speaks and writes in English.


Because I was interested in video technology and computer graphics, I moved to New York City to study.
There, I started out as a video maker experimenting video as an art form. My first video was “memory/all
echo” (1990) which is based on DICTEE, the writing of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Korean American writer
and multi-media artist. After that, I got interested in narrative storytelling and made short films. I also made documentaries, “Becoming an actress in New York” (2000) and “Between the Lines: Asian American
Women’s Poetry” (2001).


I spent ten years for the research and making of a feature documentary, “Anna May Wong: In Her Own
Words” (2010). The documentary is about the life and career of Anna May Wong (1905-1961), the first
Chinese American International film star and stage actress. I saw her in “Shanghai Express” and was
struck by her strong cinematic presence. I was curious about her as a person behind her strong cinematic
image. It is the culmination of my experiments in documentary filmmaking and narrative filmmaking.
Wong passed away in 1961 and I wanted to recreate her with an actress playing her in the documentary.
Doan Ly as Wong, narrates and connects different stage of Wong’s life. The film had a world premiere at
the Busan International Film Festival in Korea in 2010. It broadcasted on PBS (Public Television System)
in America three years (2013-2015) and is currently streamed at Amazon Prime Video.


During the process of making of the documentary, I encountered several pivotal moments of her life and
had many unanswered questions. I have been interested in finding ways to dramatize some of those
moments of her life in a narrative film. Walter Benjamin’s article, ‘Conversation with Anna May Wong’ in
1928 led me to imagine their encounter from my own understanding of a brief moment in their lives at that
time in cosmopolitan Berlin. With this short film, I wanted to capture the essence of their characters
through their expressive dialogue and actions. In the future, I want to expand the short film to a narrative
feature which can be produced in Europe.

Were there any production difficulties for the short film? Or do you remember anything specific
that struck in your mind during the filming days?

My short film, “When Walter meets Frau May Wong” is a historical vignette set in literary parlor of Berlin in
1928. Recreating the time and place of the setting was definitely challenging from the beginning. I spent
hours on visual research for photographs, paintings and films from Berlin, in the 1920s. I had visual
references for recreating locations, costumes for actors, hair and make-up. Finding the right location to
shoot was difficult too. But we found a townhouse which has preserved the much of the interior of a parlor
room of the 1920s. We worked hard on the art direction, rearranging the interior and making modifications
for the shoot.

I wrote the German language part of the dialogue in English first. Later, it was translated by a professional
translator from English to German. I spent many hours listening to recorded German dialogue to prepare
for the production.

Casting was also a challenging experience. Since my lead characters, Walter Benjamin and Frau May
Wong are based on actual and historical figures. They should have certain visual resemblance to the
actual persons at the same time they should have the acting ability to recreate the personas. As many
actors auditioned for the parts, we had a difficult time narrowing down to the final two actors. We did hair
and make-up test for the actors during the pre-production which turned out to be very helpful.


We did several rehearsals for the two lead actors before the shoot. Michael Leigh Cook who is a German
native and works in both Berlin and New York City now, plays Walter Benjamin. H. Lynn Pai who grew up
in both China and America, plays Frau May Wong. I worked closely with them to bring out their chemistry
in the film.

During the days of the shoot, I focused on bringing out the best performance from all six actors to capture
the essence of each character. I couldn’t sleep at night partly because I was haunted by their
performances and partly by worry about the next day’s shoot. It was difficult and exhausting to direct a
narrative film after not making a film for a decade.

How did you find Milan Shorts and how does the experience with the festival look so far?

I found Milan Shorts through FilmFreeway website. The communication by emails has been fair and
welcoming. I am grateful to Milan Shorts inviting me for this interview. I appreciate the festival’s help
promoting my short film. I look forward to attending the in-person screening at the festival in the future.

Do you have plans for the future? Any other projects in mind? Do you want to reveal anything to
us?

I hope that the short film is my comeback to the narrative filmmaking. I plan to make more narrative films in the future. I rediscovered my passion for writing narrative scripts during the pandemic. I have several
narrative feature scripts to produce.

One is about: A successful executive suffering from the aggressive form of cancer in Seoul, Korea, attempts to reconnect with her estranged daughter in New York whom she gave up for the adoption in America years ago. She travels to America to seek forgiveness from her daughter for the one last chance. The story is told from the Korean mother’s POV.

As I mentioned before, I want to expand the short film to a narrative feature which can be produced in Europe: After spending frustrating and unfulfilled years as a supporting actress, at the age of twenty-three, Anna May Wong, Chinese American actress, leaves Hollywood. She moves to Berlin with her older sister, Lulu, in spring of 1928. In Berlin, she becomes the star of a German silent film, “Song” and finds herself as a
free cosmopolitan woman.