With movies like Woohoo!, Great Day and The Journey all big successes in their own right, Ola Bola showed in no uncertain terms that Chiu was a master of his craft.
In an exclusive interview with South East Asian Globe (SEAG), Chiu relates how money was never the driving force behind his calling and says: “If you keep on thinking about how to make money, you won’t. After you make a film, there has to be a reset; you have to go back to normal.”
An avid footballer himself who once dreamed of becoming professional, the Batu Pahat native however did the next best thing and followed his idols – Liverpool’s Number 9, Ian Rush, and Messi of Barcelona, his current favourite.
Making Ola Bola however, brought Chiu right back to his school days and before he knew it, he was on the field, a tad older and more rusty in some places as he attempted his football manoeuvres.
He tells SEAG, “At my age, what your mind wants to do isn’t always what your body does.”
The cast of Ola Bola however spent some four months in training, despite one film critic still pointing out that they did not quite pull off the football playing scenes.
However Chiu, taking the criticism in stride, said Ola Bola was not so much about football per se than about team spirit.
“It’s a story about Malaysia. I wanted to talk about team spirit; how a team of young players went through difficulties, trained together, sweated together and how they worked as a team… I think nowadays it’s too easy to give up when facing something difficult and people tend to blame each other.”
He said filming was “really tough” and achingly slow at times as what was rehearsed did not always come off convincing on the pitch when cameras were rolling.
“Even one or two goals took more than 40 takes, as we wanted to make it look real,” he told SEAG.
Talking about his path to film making, Chiu told SEAG he studied graphic design, then editing after joining a local film production company. He said that was when he realised that what he really yearned to do, more than playing football, was film making. So he headed to the Beijing Film Academy and came back to his homeland bursting with creative concepts he wanted to flesh out on screen.
One element to film making he was determined to showcase in his work was authenticity. So instead of casting well known actors in his movies, he scoured the streets instead in search of virtual unknowns. For Ola Bola, the two leads went to an engineering student and a quantity surveyor.
As a director, Chiu also treasures his audience, and yearns to experience what they experience, so much so that it is common for him to watch his own films in cinemas over and over again.
He tells SEAG: “I like to experience my films with crowds. Sometimes you might think they’ll laugh or be sad at a certain point and, if they’re not, you have to think why. Is there a reason, and are you going to change something? It’s good to think about that.”
Clearly dedicated to his craft, Chiu also said: “If you really want to make a good movie… you have to really believe [in it]. If you put your love into it the audience can feel it. Love what you do and tell the story you really want to tell.”
A generous dose of drive, passion and self-confidence doesn’t hurt either, he says.