Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau promotes his new movie Firestorm in Beijing. He is the leading actor, producer and co-investor of the movie. Photos by Jiang Dong / China Daily

Shooting in 3-D enhances the action, but requires more money. Bill Kong is known for his strict control of a budget. Lau used HK$500,000 ($64,503) of his own money to make a 3-D trailer as a demonstration to persuade him.

While an actor is only responsible to his director, a producer and investor have more people to answer to.

In Firestorm, Lau did something that has never before happened in Hong Kong films — put an explosion in Central.

"In Speed, a film shot 20 years ago, they had had these impressive scenes inside the Metro of Los Angeles," he says. "Although the shots were filmed using a miniature model, they were very imaginative and exciting. Filmmaking is about dreaming of things impossible."

But the area is only available to filmmakers between 8 am and 11 am on weekends. To shoot the scene the crew needed to shoot and then wait for 15 weeks. It was too long in-between.

Lau went to Kong to persuade him to build a set in a deserted airport, which cost HK$15 million.

"The first thing he said to me was, ‘half of the cost will come from my pay packet'," Kong recalls.

Lau was not a wise investor at the beginning of his behind-the-scene career. He would rather call himself a "dumb kid", the name of one of his hit songs.

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