Kennon Cheung
The 100-day anniversary of being in love. Office workers who value a sense of ritual may have carefully prepared fine wine and a cake, looking forward to spending the special day with their beloved. Before the anniversary, they stayed up late writing letters and drawing hearts on the wine bottle, wholeheartedly expecting to fulfill the promise of walking together by the seaside. However, on the anniversary day, a phone call from the hospital shattered all their hopes — their lover had passed away suddenly from sudden death. Alone at the empty dining table, they might finish this belated commemoration by themselves: pouring wine, cutting the cake, and pouring out unspoken surprises and longing to the vacant seat. The tenderness hidden in every detail — tidying up the room, leaving sticky note reminders — stands in stark and heartbreaking contrast to the loneliness of the moment. The sweet promise of 100 days ends in regret, leaving only endless melancholy beneath the lamplight.
10/21/20263 min read
Indie House Interview
Zhang Kezhen | The 100th Day
Can you explain to the audience your career?
I’m a university student studying electrical engineering and automation. I started exploring photography in 2024 and have since made many videos for social media. The 100th Day is my first serious filmmaking project. I handled the writing, directing, cinematography, acting, lighting design and setup, editing, color grading, sound design—and even my own makeup.
How many years have you been making movies?
I started with photography and social media videos in 2024, so about two years. But The 100th Day is my first more serious step into filmmaking.
Why did you start making movies?
In 2024, I watched Wong Kar-wai’s Blossoms Shanghai, which led me to Chungking Express, My Blueberry Nights, and his other films. Their visual beauty and emotional atmosphere drew me in. They made me want to explore filmmaking, and I also wanted to use film to tell my own stories.
Tell us a little about your project. What will the audience be able to see in your film?
The 100th Day follows a young office worker preparing to celebrate his hundredth day together with his girlfriend. He writes a letter and prepares wine and a cake, but a call from the hospital tells him she has died suddenly. He is left to carry out the celebration alone, speaking to an empty chair. The film tells this story through his performance and small details, such as handwritten notes and the surprises he prepared.
Why did you do this project?
Honestly, I started with a practical question: what kind of story could I make entirely on my own? That led me to someone preparing an anniversary celebration and eventually facing it alone. It gave me a story I could tell through one character and the space around him.
How do you approach directing actors? What kind of work do you do with them?
For this film, I was the only actor as well as the director, so my experience was mainly about directing myself. I used a wireless monitor placed outside the camera’s frame, where I could see the image. The hardest part was the emotional performance. For the scene where the character learns of his girlfriend’s death, I spent an entire evening working on it, crying until I achieved the result I wanted.
How did you allocate your time and money between direction, photography, sound, postproduction, work with actors, and art direction or locations?
Money and time were distributed differently. My biggest expense was renting a guesthouse for three days. I owned the equipment, so there was almost no additional equipment cost. Art direction, cinematography, and acting required the most effort during production. In postproduction, sound design took the most time. I didn’t track exact percentages, and many tasks overlapped because I did everything myself.
If you could go back, what would you change about this project? One thing only.
I would secure more funding before filming, so I could rent the location for longer and extend the shoot. Having only three days at the location put a lot of pressure on the production. More time would have given me more room to work on the scenes.
What are you happiest about this project?
The scene where the main character learns that his girlfriend has died. It’s brief in the finished film, but I spent the whole evening working on the performance. Finally getting the emotion I wanted made it the most rewarding scene for me.
Make a wish to the movie gods. What do you ask?
I’d wish to meet filmmakers I connect with, so we could work together and tell stories of our own. After making this film alone, I’d love to discover what we could create together.
What movie would you have liked to direct?
I’d choose My Blueberry Nights. I love its visual style and emotional atmosphere. My version might be less restrained than Wong Kar-wai’s. I think I would let the characters express their emotions more openly.
What kind of cinema do you like? Genre, directors, actors?
Wong Kar-wai is the director I’m most drawn to. I love the visual beauty of his work and the way he builds an emotional atmosphere. His films were a major reason I became interested in filmmaking.
Imagine that all movies are going to be lost. If you could save three movies, what would they be?
I’d choose my own film, The 100th Day, along with Pride and Prejudice and Gei A Ma De Qing Shu (a Chinese title meaning “A Love Letter to Grandma”). My own film would be one of them because it marks my first serious attempt at filmmaking and is something I made entirely myself.
If you have more projects underway, can you give us a bit of information?
I don’t have a new project underway at the moment. Funding and finding collaborators are my biggest challenges right now. I’d like to connect with filmmakers who share a similar sensibility and find a way to make our next film together.