Simon Yin is a writer/director/producer/actor from Atlanta, Georgia, who has called New York, L.A., and now Hong Kong home. We met at the old Clock Tower near the Star Ferry concourse that overlooks the iconic Victoria Harbour. One of Simon’s films, Supercapitalist, a financial thriller that was picked up at Cannes last year, was shot in this same spot.
Since moving to Hong Kong, Simon’s also created CB FRESH, a sketch comedy show that blurs the line between reality and fantasy, directed music videos for huge Cantopop star Edison Chen and rapper MC Jin, started a production company called Bamboo Star Productions (meaning overseas Chinese, just like him) and directed Zombasians, a horror film in "3DD" starring, you guessed it, sexy Asian zombies.
I was curious as to why Simon (and a slew of other young talent like him) would leave the country that his parents worked so hard to emigrate to "for a better life with more opportunities," to only go back to the very country they had left to do so, decades ago. Simon joked that his mom cried for 10 days when he told her he was going to move to Hong Kong to jump into the lucrative world of filmmaking. His internal pull-back to Hong Kong pays a great deal to the fact that because the city is so small, everyone’s like 2 degrees separated, which makes for a super tight-knit community that harbours creativity. For example, Simon’s friend in New York from his MTV Chi VJ days, knew someone from the online artist community Alive Not Dead (founded in part by the same people behind Rotten Tomatoes) and from there, he got to meet other likeminded talent and just started creating… and hasn’t stopped since.
MORE HONG KONG POSTS:
MILKTEETH IN KWUN TONG
EATING AND SHOPPING WITH PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
TIGERBOMBERS IN LAMMA ISLAND
NIGHTLIFE WITH JOSIE HO