With a series of blockbusters, especially the aforementioned 2009 hit Bodyguards and Assassins, which swept the 29th Hong Kong film awards by winning in eight categories, Chen is ranked among Hong Kong's top directors.

"My favorite director is Steven Spielberg. He's a master, able to handle quite different themes, from the thriller Jaws to the sensitive biopic, Schindler's List," he says.

"I didn't receive a high education. All my filmmaking skills have been learned on the job, but I do hope I have the chance to try my hand at different themes."

Now, spending most of his quarantine nights penning his next project, Chen reveals the inspiration came from his friend Gao Xiaosong, a popular singer-songwriter and variety show host.

"Gao told me an interesting story about a prisoner, an orphan who was abandoned at a railway station and grew up there. In the years before he was arrested, the station was his only shelter," recalls Chen.

The new story will be "sort of like The Legend of 1900", about a piano prodigy whose life is tightly bonded with a ship, adds the director.

Now, with his main wish being to see the pandemic completely under control so that he can return to the film set, Chen says: "Although I was not well-educated and I write stories slowly, my films are like my babies. No matter how critics judge them, I love them and feel proud of every single one."

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