(China Daily) Wrapped in a gray long-sleeve T-shirt emblazoned with the title of his latest television series, See Her Again, Hong Kong actor William Chan strode into the interview room at a luxurious downtown Beijing hotel on Nov 20, in high spirits.
It was a warm winter afternoon. A little more than an hour earlier, the 18-episode drama had debuted simultaneously on Tencent Video in China, and on Netflix internationally, respectively the largest streaming services in the country and the world.
In the hopes of reaching a wider global audience, the series will also be streamed on major platforms in a number of countries, including Singapore and Malaysia, as well as broadcast on television channels in overseas markets like Japan and Thailand.
The Hong Kong native, who shifted his career from his home metropolis to the Chinese mainland in the early 2010s, says the drama provided him a chance to return to the environment that shaped his childhood.
"There are several reasons why I chose to appear as lead in this show. The first is that I have always liked time travel-themed films and TV series," Chan says, giving the example of the 1985 sci-fi film Back to the Future, as one of his favorites.
Set in 1993 Hong Kong, See Her Again follows the protagonist, a police officer played by Chan, who investigates the case of a seemingly mentally disturbed suspect who he believes may be connected to a series of murders. During a chase, Chan's character steps into an elevator, which suddenly plunges, leaving him in a coma. When he wakes up, he finds that he has traveled through time to 2018.
The officer is even more shocked to discover that his wife and young daughter, who were injured in a car bomb explosion that might be related to the murders, are nowhere to be found, and their former apartment now has new residents. The officer manages to speak to a former subordinate, and comes to believe that the only way to return to 1993 and reunite with his family is if he can unravel the still unsolved serial murders that happened 25 years earlier.
"The script is intriguing," says Chan, who adds that he read it almost in one go.
In one of the biggest twists, the police officer, who has no valid identity card for 2018 Hong Kong, decides to use the identity of a deceased undercover officer to return to the police station with the help of his former subordinate, who has become team leader. The officer's greatest drive is to find his daughter, despite the fact that the child, who had been a kindergartner, would now be a 20-something only a few years younger than himself.
Despite not being a father, Chan says that he finds it easy to perform alongside children, as his first job was as a host of a children's program on the Disney Channel.
"My elder sister has a daughter who is similar in age to my character's daughter in 1993. Through this experience, I have become good at taking care of children, and being a good communicator who listens to them," he says.
While acting in scenes with his character's adult daughter — played by Cya Liu — Chan says teasingly that he became almost parental toward her during the last month of filming. Immersed in the role of caring father, he would "remind" Liu to wear warmer clothing when the temperature fell, and checked to see if she was eating well.
With the actor playing the suspect, Ling Man-lung, Chan took a different, and what he describes as more "thrilling" approach. During filming breaks, he practiced exchanging intense eye contact with Ling as they ate take-away food, and rehearsed lines about the serial murders.
The show was something of a nostalgic opportunity to revisit Hong Kong in the 1990s, with street scenes filled with iconic neon signs and references to popular films of the time, such as the 1993 crime-horror film The Untold Story, which is mentioned as an important clue during an interrogation.
As someone who has experienced the rapid and profitable expansion of the film and television industry in the Chinese mainland over the past decade, Chan says each time he appears in a new project, he can see progress in both the technological and storytelling aspects.
When asked how a Chinese show might be able to better reach an overseas audience, he says that he believes a good production transcends national and regional boundaries.
"Sometimes, I watch South Korean movies or dramas. Even if I don't understand what the characters are saying without reading the subtitles, I still find the scenes captivating," he says. "If a Chinese film in Mandarin or Cantonese can entice foreign audiences to follow along through subtitles, that means it's successfully gone abroad."
In addition, Chan believes that nuanced emotions, such as those of traditional family interactions, can distinguish Chinese programs from their Hollywood counterparts.
Director Wong Kwok-keung says that the core of the story is love. He says that the show's exploration of how an individual struggles through adversity while depicting brotherhood, friendship, and family affection, interwoven with elements of redemption and revenge, was what attracted him to the project.
The drama debuted to a rating of 8.3 out of 10 on the Asian show review aggregator MyDramaList, and became the second most popular Hong Kong TV series on Netflix on its third day of release.
Posters for the drama featuring the main stars — (from left) William Chan, Cya Liu, Stephen Fung, and Tse Kwan-ho; a scene featuring police officers discussing details of a case.