Ray Yeung is a Hong Kong screenwriter and independent film director. After graduating with a law degree and practicing law for two years, Yeung switched paths to film. His film All Shall Be Well is a story about an elderly lesbian couple, Pat and Angie, and follows the drastic change in Angie's life after Pat's death and the legal and familial issues she has to grapple with. It had its premiere in the Panorama section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on 16 February 2024 and won the Teddy Award for best LGBTQ-themed feature film, and 3rd place in Panorama Audience Award for Best Feature Film.
All Shall Be Well is such a wonderful, incredible premise and a really important movie for the queer community in Hong Kong. Could you share more about how you conceived the idea for All Shall Be Well, and were there any personal stories or experiences that inspired the film?
In 2020, I went to a talk about the Hong Kong LGBTQ inheritance rights. And at that talk, the speaker quoted three cases that he had encountered, and basically very similar to the storyline of All Shall Be Well, about same-sex couples who have been together for a long time, and they were very open to their family members. And then when one of them suddenly passed away, the survivor had all these issues with the deceased family members, particularly over the estate. And in one particular case, she was asked, where were all the watches? And because they wanted one of them to wear for the funeral. So, they got all the watches back and never returned them. So, it was very kind of traumatic for the woman, I guess. So anyway, I decided to interview them. And then after I interviewed them, I decided to write a script inspired by their stories.
That's wonderful. The fact that you were inspired by them and told their story and put it out there to the world to see and admire and appreciate. You're really doing a service to the queer community and to the world. When I was doing my research on you, I read that you used to work as a lawyer. And the film does deal with a lot of legal issues, such as inheritance. As a lawyer, did your experience help in handling the legal issues depicted in the film, such as inheritance? And, what motivated you to make that transition, or I would say leap from law to filmmaking? What is your journey?
Well, actually, I never wanted to do law, to be honest. My parents wanted me to do it and being a good Chinese boy.
Asian parents.
Asian parents, exactly. You know what I mean? But deep inside, I always wanted to do something creative. And I always loved movies. Even when I was very young, I would watch a lot of those films on TV. knew that was something that I wanted to do. And then later on in my life, I was living in London, and I realized that there was a very serious lack of representation of Asians on the Western media. And if there were any representations, they were very negative. A lot of stereotypes, a lot of cliches. And I'm also gay myself. And for a gay Asian man, the representation is even worse. Hardly any. So that was the time that I felt that, well, I needed to do something about it. And so therefore, and because I like movies, so I thought the best way to do it is to show our stories from our point of view, tell the world how we feel and how we want to be represented. I don't feel that we need to be completely like heroes or positive, everything positive. But we want to show we are also vulnerable. We also have our own disciplines. We have our own goals, and we have our own issues. We just want people to empathize with us and not to see us as a two-dimensional stereotype. So those were the reasons why I started making movies. Members of the queer community, they're also human. They also have the right to live out their lives, to follow their dreams, to make their own choices and have the freedom to assert their own sense of free will, which is exactly what's being portrayed in this movie. So, yes, but unfortunately, is that is the case is that they thought that is their lives and they didn't have to deal with it. But actually, you have to deal with it because if you don't address those issues, then at the end of the day, they will come back and bite you because of lack of protection. The law provides nothing protection, no protection for same sex couples, particularly in Hong Kong. So therefore, you have to protect yourself. You have to write a will and maybe get married overseas, you know, do those things to protect.
I really resonated with what you said, because I'm also a law student and I'm also somebody who is not exactly a law student by choice. The fact that you were able to make that decision to follow your passion and your dreams is honestly so inspiring, because you're a living example of someone who's really made that mark for themselves in this industry. So, thank you for that. So that brings me to my next question. Grief seems to permeate every aspect of the film, particularly in Angie's journey. Can you elaborate on how you portray her emotional conflict and turmoil after losing the love of her life? And what were you hoping to convey through her character?
I think most people, most of us can relate to losing someone that's very dear to us. So that is something that I try to portray in the story. I also interview a lot of people who have lost their partners and try to get some authenticity in the story. Very much about it is about two people together and it becomes a habit. Your daily routine is something that is very, very soft, very comfortable to you. And one day when that person passes away and that leaves such a vacuum and such an emptiness inside you. And I think that is what I want to portray in the movie to the extent that it's not just Angie, but also everything that they do, or they used to do, and now she has to do it alone and that kind of sadness. And all the objects in the apartment as well is also like that they have been kind of abandoned and sitting there waiting for their fate to happen. So that was that kind of easiness that I was trying to inject in the movie and in Angie's character. And for Angie, I feel that the character started off when she's with Pat, with her lover, she is a lot more supportive, just a supporting part because she's happy to be the sidekick. And Pat is the one who is out there who is making a lot of business decisions, particularly and Angie playing more supportive part. However, after Pat is gone, Angie has to be stronger, and she has to be more firm in order to get back what she owns. So, the character goes through a journey and discover her inner strength.
She really goes through a journey. She's such a strong and resilient character to, you know, pick up the pieces after all this happened like losing the love of her life, losing her support system, so to say. It's just so hard for anybody to be able to process that kind of grief. Angie really goes through a very empowering journey to discover herself. The title is All Shall Be Well, which is quite a positive phrase, right? It actually appears quite ironic considering Angie's uncertain future post Pat's demise. Could you explain the significance behind choosing this title despite the circumstances? And just to make it a little fun, what else would you have named the film if it were not for All Shall Be Well?
Originally, actually, All Shall Be Well came from the interviews that I did because I met up with some of the interviewees and they are long-term same-sex couples. And I asked one of them, so have you made a will? And then she said, no. So I said, how come? And then she said, oh, well, because my sister would know what I wanted, or my brother would know what to do. So, I thought, well, that's very strange because you have a long-term partner there who's right next to you for all these years. But if in the case that you are not here anymore, her welfare, completely depending on what your sister might think at that time, I said, do you think that it's too risky? And they say, oh, well, it's going to be fine.
'All shall be well'. So I thought, huh? That is very, very over-optimistic of you. Therefore, All Shall Be Well is a very ironic title referring to people. Don't be too over-optimistic because when you give an opportunity and people will have that opportunity to do something for their selfish reason, they will grab it. That is just human nature. So don't put yourself in that situation or don't put them in that situation where they are able to do that while hurting the one that you care the most.
Yes, of course. And it's also something that I've noticed that people tell their friends or family who've lost loved ones. They say All shall be well or everything's going to be OK. But they're going through their own inner demons and turmoil. It is true even in real life. I would think it's very ironic to tell somebody that, but it is a reflection of what happens in real life. It's a very clever title, definitely. Thank you. To move on from that, why did you find it important to explore the aftermath of a relationship? A lot of movies centre around a relationship between two people. But this movie focuses on the aftermath of a relationship. So how does that connect to the broader themes of love and loss in this movie?
Well, I think in particular for the LGBTQ community, there are a lot of movies about falling in love and coming out and being proud of who you are. All that is very important. But for the LGBTQ community, just coming out is really only just the first step. Falling in love with someone and wanting to be with someone is only the second step. But really, we have a lot more challenges in our life. And even though you have found someone, you have built a home together, you have a life together, that could easily be taken away from you, as you can see in the movie. When you lose your loved ones, if you haven't done anything, you don't just lose that person, you also lose maybe the friends and families that you think you have. And you might also lose your identity. And like in Angie's case in the movie, she loses her dignity as well. So, you lose a lot of things. So therefore, you must protect your lover. And therefore, it's a story that I wrote with a purpose to tell that story, which I feel that is very important.
It is a very important story. It's the most human experience, right? To lose someone you love, and to deal with the aftermath, to pick up the pieces, to move on.It's so incredibly difficult. And this is Angie's story. This is what she does. And this is how she moves on. My next question is honestly my most favourite one that I wrote. This film is a very poignant exploration of queer life in Hong Kong, and focuses on an older couple in their 60s, which is another recurring theme in your films such as Twilight's Kiss and now All Shall Be Well. Elder queer love is not often explored in queer cinema. Tell me about the significance of telling this kind of novel story as it's very underexplored.
But we all get old, you see. And I always feel that just because you get old, do you feel that you will change that much? I mean, you might still have vanity, you still have desire, you still want people to walk past you and think, oh, well, good. You know, you still have a lot of dreams, just because you have gained, you know, 20 years more. Doesn't mean that your whole personality will change, and all your desires will change. So therefore, I want to put older people just like everybody, you know, because in movies, a lot of the time older people are being seen as just brothers, mother, father, grandfather, you know, I mean, that kind of role. And they're just there as a mentor to dish out very clever wisdom advice or they're there as a pain in the neck. But they're never really three-dimensional. I wanted to portray that. I'm sure you can't change the industry, but at least you can add something to the industry by showing them that, hey, you can tell their stories as well. And their stories are well worth telling too, you know.
Thank you so much for saying that, because I feel like often older people are neglected or, you know, they're just sort of just pushed away to the side because, oh, you don't add that much value anymore, like you're old now, you're just going to be sitting there in the corner, like, doing your thing. The fact that you've put the spotlight on an older couple is a unique and refreshing concept. I keep telling my own grandfather, “You should find love again, you should explore that part of yourself again”. And he always tells me, “No, I'm too old for all of that”. But really, it's never too old to fall in love. It's never too old to feel those kinds of emotions as age is just a number. My next question is, do you see All Shall Be Well as a potential catalyst for shifting attitudes towards queer cinema in Hong Kong, and the queer community in Hong Kong? And how do you envision the film contributing to broader conversations about acceptance and inclusion for the queer community?
I feel that well, first of all, the movie was the opening film for the Hong Kong International Film Festival. So I thought that was very mportant because that means a very kind of a big official festival has put a spotlight on the movie, and basically telling the whole community, the Hong Kong society that we embrace LGBT. So, and this subject matter is fine, we embrace it, I think that is very, very important because then people do not see LGBT movies as a niche anymore. So that, for me, I think is a very, very good step for the community. We opened in over 30 cinemas; it was a general release. And again, it shows that you can tell a story about aging lesbians. And still, it could be a box office movie, a commercial movie released where people can go in and watch it.
Oh, yes, for sure. And the fact that, you know, it's the movie is garnering such ovation and reaching this kind of wide audience is really important to open people's eyes about different kinds of stories, different kinds of relationships. There are different kinds of relationships, they're so nuanced, they're so diverse. That's the beauty of being human. There's no one size fits all solution. So that's exactly what this, this film has portrayed. Let's go on to some fun questions. What was your favorite scene to film or write? And do you prefer to direct your scenes exactly as the script did? Or do you like, let your actors improvise their craft a little bit, you know, just be a little extra on set? Like, what is your style?
Oh, the one, one scene I like, one of the scenes I like the most is the dinner scene, when we have the whole cast together, and they all sit there, and they, like, basically, sort of like showing what is the dynamic of this family, how close they are, who is, who pays attention to who, who gets more attention, gets ignored. And it's a complicated scene to shoot, but also very fun. And in order to make it work, it needs a lot of work. But yet, you'll find a result, and you're happy with it. And that is very satisfying. And the style that I tried to do is really just to make sure that the actors understand their characters well. What I do is that I will give each actor, their characters, a backstory, so that they will have a clear idea of what is the history of this character. And I also understand what is the history of this character as well, so that we both know exactly where this character is coming from. So when he behaves, or whatever she does now, today, in this particular scene, it makes sense, it makes logical sense, because it's something that, that kind of history would say something like this, would do something like that. Without that, the actor will have to imagine their own backstory, which might not be the backstory that I wanted for that character. So rather than letting the actors have a free flow, I will give them the backstory that I wanted. But of course, we will have a discussion about it before. If the actor decided that, oh, well, I don't think my characters would be like this, I don't think that would be appropriate for him, we can actually change it and have a discussion about it, and try to come to a conclusion where we feel something that will fit that character more. But that is usually how I approach working with actors.
It must’ve been a challenge to put all that together to bring your vision to fruition. But you've done it so masterfully. My next question is, like, are there any movies that you are looking forward to watch that are being screened at the Sydney Film Festival? Or do you have any favourites that you've already watched?
There are so many, they are all fabulously wonderful. I mean, I just look over it, there's like so many movies, and they're all very, very interesting. I wish I have time to watch all of them. I don't even know where to begin. There's so many.
I would like to end this interview now by just saying that this is such an important movie. I feel like it's really going to shape the future of not only queer cinema but also cinema as a whole. Again, Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. We are just a small student body who love watching movies.
Thank you so much. I think for the younger generation who are interested in this topic, I think it's also very important that, you know, you're interested in a story about older generation, about people who are different from you, about people who are going through a different kind of struggles. I think all that is very important, because one thing that movies can do is to provide empathy for the audience.
Definitely. And movies like this really explore the depths of humanity in this way, the depths of love, and loss. Thank you so much again. Thank you for taking the time and congratulations on everything.
