Culture> Film and TV

Yung Chang-fruit hunter filmmaker

By Mike Peters ( China Daily ) Updated: 2013-11-01 07:40:03

Yung's enthusiasm for exotic fruits didn't always lead to a bellyache, but he admits that he got sucked into the passion of the people he filmed.

It's not the first time, he says. During the filming of China Heavyweight, about a boxing coach and his two students in rural China fighting to become champions, "I was training right along with the fighters, and got myself extremely fit - I felt great!" Earlier, while making his debut documentary Up the Yangtze, he says, "I practically turned into a tour guide."

His most recent project was inspired by a book, also titled The Fruit Hunters, which he found in Canada. It's now available in both English and Chinese editions.

"I saw it as an opportunity to travel, see different cultures, and try weird fruit," he says over a recent lunch in Beijing.

"The book made me realize how we take fruit for granted," he adds, "and modern people have become disconnected from our food. But the people in the book were amazing - like any other cause, it's fringe individuals who make interesting things happen."

One of them is Ken Love, president of Love Family Farms on Hawaii's main island. "What we share is a common passion for learning," Love says. "It's like the kids' Pokemon game motto, 'gotta catch-'em all' - we got to collect, eat, learn and share about them all - meaning tropical fruit trees. There is always that elusive fruit just out of reach that keeps us going."

That mentality has inspired observers to compare Love to a plant-chasing Indiana Jones. But Love and fellow fruit hunters - like Noris Ledesma, who collects fruit specimens for the prestigious Fairchild Tropical Garden in the US state of Florida - are not secretive about what they find.

"Growing it, tasting it or sharing the one you have doesn't matter as once you do that, there is a new one around the next bend," says Love.

Ledesma, for her part, invites one and all to her garden's annual mango festival, which attracts fruit lovers from around the world.

Yung, meanwhile, has been enjoying a six-month hiatus after producing his past two films almost simultaneously. His current trip to Asia has been mostly about visiting relatives - his mother's people are from Beijing and his father's from Shanghai.

His next project will be set in China. He's currently writing Eggplant, his first feature film, about a Chinese wedding photographer.

"I haven't done fiction before," he says. "But I think it will be fun to apply what I know about documentary-making to a made-up story about people who exist in real life."

"You've seen wedding photographers in China, right?" he asks. "Talk about people who will go to extremes for their passion."

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