Ecstasy (1983) director

[yukabacera]

https://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml? ... ay_set=eng

The director of this movie is currently listed as Chan Chiu (陳召) who was a screenwriter. This is his only directing credit in our DB. However, the actual name of the director credited on the print is "John Chan." (陳偉)

This entry was very barebones before I edited it, with only the director and two actors listed. It looks to be pretty old as well, so we'll probably never know the source of the data. The HKFA's entry on this film is even more barebones and doesn't even list a director. The only other source I could find that credits Chan Chiu as the director is hkfilmdirectors.com, but I wouldn't necessarily trust this site when it's the sole source for a piece of data, as I've seen that they've taken data (including some errors) from the HKMDB before.

Looking at Chan Chiu's entry, the only circumstantial evidence I could think of to support the claim that he directed this movie would be that he started out in Cantonese movies in the 50s before transitioning to the leftist studios, and several other crew members on Ecstasy also have credits in 1950s Cantonese movies. However, I think the circumstantial evidence that doesn't support this claim is stronger: we know that, more often than not, people who worked in the leftist studios didn't tend to work outside them at this time. This is also Chan's only directing credit and it's not well backed-up by other sources.

I'm reluctant to simply go ahead and delete the credit, but I couldn't find anything to support it and I see no other way to explain the discrepancy with the movie's actual credits beyond this simply being a mistake from the early days of the DB. "John Chan" certainly looks like a pseudonym, but right now I don't see any reason to suppose it's Chan Chiu's pseudonym. If anyone has any evidence to the contrary I would love to see it, but otherwise I'll delete this credit after a while.