Teddy Robin Kwan is an unforgettable face in the Jackie Chan movie world after co-starring in the hugely popular Twin Dragons (1992). What many people don’t know though is outside of the acting Teddy is a hugely talented and well respected Film Producer and Music Scorer. The 40 year entertainment career of Teddy Robin Kwan is something thing of legend…

…Back in September 2006 Screen Power had the privilege of meeting up with Teddy in Hong Kong along with the attendees of the magazine’s annual Jade Screen Tour (read elsewhere in the Jade Screen section). After a screening of Twin Dragons, Teddy was introduced and we all fired as many questions as we could to this most humble of Hong Kong film celebrities. Special thanks to the tour members for their questions.

Screen Power: In the West you are known the most for your film work but before the movie career you found tremendous success within your own band – Teddy Robin & The Playboys. Tell us about that? Did you Tour a great deal?

Teddy Robin Kwan: All around the world you know, so we became the Beatles of Hong Kong. That was a really good time. I had a good time in the mid-sixties. I started in 1967, so from that stage built up a reputation as an entertainer, then I worked as an actor.

Actually, I don’t think of myself as an actor, I’m really a Producer for films, but not for big budget films, yes I did a couple of big films, but usually I enjoy medium budget films for Hong Kong, what you guys would probably call low budget films, but I really enjoy producing small to medium sized independent films.

A lot of Directors in Hong Kong do know me, and they think I am a good actor and so they invite me to act on occasion in their project. I have done maybe around 20 films I think as an actor, and Twin Dragons with Jackie Chan was the biggest one I guess commercially. I have worked with a lot of Hong Kong stars over the years but as a supporting actor though.

SP: Staying on the music side of your career - what do you think of the younger Hong Kong Canto-pop stars nowadays coming into films? Do you think it works?

TRK: A couple of them. Yes, a couple of the singers now turned actors work, some do not really. Actually, I didn’t produce films for quite some time, because the Hong Kong film business and movies were not as good as before, but recently I just produced a film and the star is Eason Chen and he’s a pretty good singer, and he also enjoys rock music too, so that’s why we become friends and so I produce a film for him. I’m still working on the post production stage right now. I think Eason is a good singer. Some of them can make it both sides, as a singing star as well as movie star.

SP: You have also found great success composing music scores for films including such big projects as The Adventurers starring Andy Lau, Black Mask and Hitman starring Jet Li and Full Contact starring Chow Yun-Fat. It must be quite satisfying for you being able to mix both film and music.

TRK: Yes, it is very satisfying. Yes, I have done a lot of film music scores over the years. One of my first films I composed the score for was the big action comedy Aces Goes Places for Eric Tsang. That was in 1982 something like that and I also received a Nomination for Best Film Score at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards so that made me very happy. I also I did City on Fire. That was a Chow Yun-Fat film and directed by Ringo Lam. That was a good film. I did the music score for the one too and received another Nomination at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards.

SP: Have any Western composers influenced your work?

TRK: I haven’t really studied anyone in particular, but I do like a lot of Western films. However, we don’t have the same resources that they have, our film budgets are a lot smaller. It’s not as big as a Hollywood thing you know, but even so we still try to do our best. I do more of the European style of film scoring, some of them have only a guitar and piano, some have more different kinds of instruments but not that big. Not so much like John Williams style, I enjoy more simple things.

by Richard Cooper.

For the rest of the interview please see SCREEN POWER VOL. 7, ISSUE 5