The turmoil caused by political unrest in Hong Kong in 2019, followed by the Covid-19 outbreak, sabotaged many well-laid plans, but it couldn’t get in the way of one story. Love, it seems, does conquer all.
My Indian Boyfriend, a cross-cultural love story about a young Indian man and a Hong Kong Chinese woman, was filmed entirely in Hong Kong during the pandemic. Slated for release in India and Hong Kong in March/April, the film – the first bilingual movie to be made in Cantonese and Hindi – is a romantic drama replete with song-and-dance sequences in true Bollywood style.
The film follows the story of Krishna, the son of Indian immigrants in Hong Kong, played by debutant Karan Cholia, and a young Hong Kong Chinese woman, Jasmine, played by well-known local actress Shirley Chan Yan-yin. The pair live in the same neighbourhood and fall in love.
However, drama begins when their families learn of their dalliance. All hell breaks loose and the couple encounter many obstacles along the way.
The film is loosely inspired by the life story of the film’s writer, director and producer, a long-term Hong Kong resident who uses the two-word screen name Sri Kishore. He met, fell in love with and married a Hong Kong woman, Fanny Ng, in 2015, and they now have a five-year-old son.
“When Fanny and I disclosed our relationship to our parents, we faced resistance from both families. My mother had wanted me to marry someone from our own community from southern India. Fanny’s parents were not that familiar with Indian culture and were very concerned about my background,” says Sri Kishore, who comes from the state of Telangana.
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“However, once our respective in-laws got to know us better and met each other, they came around very quickly and gave us their blessings,” he adds, explaining that he has dramatised the reaction of the parents to make it exciting.
“In fact, now my mother and my mother-in-law are good friends, even though my mother does not understand Cantonese and my mother-in-law does not speak much English or know Telugu, which is my mother tongue. My mother-in-law went to India a few years back to spend Diwali there and loved being a part of the festivities.”
An electrical engineer by training, Sri Kishore quit his job in India to pursue his passion for filmmaking. He moved to Hong Kong in 2008 to teach Bollywood dance and simultaneously started working as an assistant movie editor in the Telugu film industry, travelling to India to work on film projects. He subsequently directed three feature films, all crime thrillers, making his directorial debut with Sasesham (2012), followed by two more whodunits, Bhoo (2014) and Devi Sri Prasad (2017).
He was also inspired by his students in Hong Kong to make his latest film. “My Chinese students love Indian culture and would always ask me numerous questions about India – about the clothes, the customs, the dances. That encouraged me to go ahead and make a movie showcasing Indian culture.”
My Indian Boyfriend is a tribute to both his Indian and Chinese families. “I feel that both Chinese and Indian cultures are very similar. They are both family-oriented, there is respect for elders, they have a rich history and are proud of their heritage. I wanted to show people how similar the traditions and beliefs of both communities are.”
Cholia, 20, who makes his feature film debut as the Indian boyfriend, was born and brought up in Hong Kong, though his family comes from Amritsar in India’s Punjab state. He is studying media production at the City University of Hong Kong and took acting and dance classes for a year to prepare for his role.
“My Indian Boyfriend is very special to me,” says Cholia, who speaks fluent Cantonese and has appeared in several short films. “Shooting for the movie was truly enriching. The best part for me was to see the bonhomie between the Indian and the Chinese crew. The camera crew was from India, and the lighting and audio team was from Hong Kong. Even though they did not understand each other’s language, they struck up a friendship.
“Filming was hard work and fun. A memorable episode during the making of the movie was the shooting of a song-and-dance sequence in the middle of Central. There were 50 dancers in the shot and another 50 people in the technical team. We had to follow Covid guidelines, divide ourselves into groups of four and keep a distance of two metres between each group at all times. We managed to shoot the song adhering to the rules.”
My Indian Boyfriend was shot in multiple Hong Kong locations, including Causeway Bay, Chai Wan, Central, Mong Kok, Stanley and The Peak. “I wanted to showcase how beautiful and charming Hong Kong is to the Indian audiences,” Sri Kishore says.
The film has been dubbed in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi for release in India, and will be released in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore in the original Cantonese-Hindi version.
Making the movie was not easy. “We faced several challenges,” the director says. “There were multiple delays in the shooting schedule.” Early shoots initially scheduled for October 2019 had to be cancelled after increasingly violent acts erupted between protesters and police in the city.
In the end, the film was shot over a tight schedule of 30 days in September 2020. “Shooting during Covid had its own challenges and we had to ensure that everyone was following the social-distancing guidelines,” Sri Kishore says. “The Indian crew got visas for a short period of time and we had to finish shooting within the given time period.”
Actress Chan, 27, explains that her character is a university student from an affluent family. “Her father becomes bankrupt and the family is forced to move into a public estate, where she meets Krishna. The story is about how Krishna and Jasmine get to know each other, fall in love, and face and overcome obstacles together.”
She says being a part of the movie was a lesson in cultural integration and she hopes to travel to India soon with the team to promote the film. “I learned so much about Indian culture – the customs, the beliefs and the food. As a team, we would sit cross-legged on the floor and eat Indian food together. The original plan was for a part of the film to be shot in India, which got shelved because of Covid-19. I have many fans in India and receive a lot of messages on social media from them. They are passionate about films.”
Besides Chan, the film includes other well-known Hong Kong faces such as Justin Cheung Kin-sing, Kaki Sham, Gill Mohindepaul Singh (stage name Q Bobo), Lenna Yeung Cheuk-na and Pancy Chan. Indian actors Inderjeet Singh, Maitreyi Karanth, New Dellily and Roshani Shetty also appear in the film.
“This was my first experience working in an Indian production,” says Yeung, 42, who plays the role of Jasmine’s mother. “It was fun, educational and everything went smoothly despite the fact that we had to shoot during the pandemic.
“I play the character of a traditional Chinese woman who has invested everything to raise her daughter in the way she thinks appropriate, only to find that she is losing her to the Indian boyfriend. The film depicts the difference in thinking between traditional Chinese and Indian parents and the younger generation, and shows the vibrant, multicultural environment in Hong Kong. The most beautiful thing the story highlights is that love is powerful and can cross all boundaries.”
Sri Kishore says the film is a portrait of two cultures. “I hope the movie will bring the Chinese and Indian communities closer together, and will give them an appreciation of each other’s values. Making this film has given me immense satisfaction. My hope is that cinema-goers in Hong Kong and India will enjoy the fusion of the two cultures that we have portrayed and realise that we are more alike than different.”
