Danny Cheng Wan-Cheung (Chinese: 雲翔; born 20 March 1967), known professionally as Scud, is a China-born Hong Kong filmmaker. He says that he chose the name "Scud" to match his Chinese name, which translates in English as "Scudding Clouds". His films explore taboo themes within Hong Kong cinema, including same-sex relationships and drug-taking. His filmmaking style eschews cynicism or gritty realism, and embraces an acceptance of the life choices made by his characters, rather than a search for "solutions". Scud has cited Pier Paolo Pasolini, Yukio Mishima, Pedro Almodovar and Peter Greenaway as directors who have influenced his work.
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Life and career
Scud was raised by his grandmother in China before he moved to Hong Kong at the age of 13. After a 20-year career in IT, he founded a publicly listed company and acquired a bachelor's degree through part-time study at the Open University of Hong Kong. He moved to Australia in 2001 for permanent residence.
In 2005, he returned to Hong Kong to start a film production company, Artwalker. He wrote and produced City Without Baseball (2008), then became a film director with Permanent Residence (2009), which he said was a semi-autobiographical account of his own life, with many scenes and locations providing a faithful account of it. This was followed by Amphetamine (2010). Scud released his fourth film, Love Actually... Sucks!, in 2011, while his fifth, Voyage (2013), was the first of his stories to be filmed almost entirely in English. He released a sixth film entitled Utopians in 2015, as well as a seventh, Thirty Years of Adonis, in 2017.
In May 2022, Scud told Variety that he planned to retire from filmmaking and leave Hong Kong (due to the worsening market for independent films and censorship) after finishing four films: Apostles, Bodyshop, Naked Nations: Hong Kong Tribe and Ghosts Just Wanna Have Fun.
Awards
City Without Baseball
2008 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards – Film of Merit Award
2008 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards – Winner in Top 7 Suggested Films
2008 Taiwan Film Critics Society Awards – Winner in Top 10 Best Chinese Films
Permanent Residence
10th Chinese Film Media Awards – Best New Actor
33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival – Official Selection
20th Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival – Official Selection (Director's Cut)
10th Taipei Film Festival – Special Reserved Screening (Director's Cut)
25th Torino GLBT Film Festival – Official Selection
Amphetamine
2010 Teddy Award Nomination at the Berlin International Film Festival of 2010.
24th Teddy Award – Runner Up
34th Hong Kong International Film Festival – Closing Film
25th Torino GLBT Film Festival – Competition
46th Chicago International Film Festival – Official Selection
12th Rio International Film Festival – Official Selection