A documentary team has initiated a fundraiser to help cover the costs of completing a film featuring Melvis Kwok, Hong Kong’s well-known Elvis Presley impersonator who died in December.
According to the project’s GoFundMe page for “The Heartbreaker: The Story of Melvis,” the team has about eight hours of never-before-seen footage of the late icon, including a sit-down interview, his street performances and backstage at two of his final concerts.
“The events in Hong Kong and the Covid pandemic in 2020 postponed our filming plans with Melvis. It also meant that our interviews with him were his last ever recorded before his untimely death, making our footage far more poignant than ever before,” a description on the fundraising site reads.
Kwok passed away due to kidney failure at the age of 68 in December. Known as “Melvis the Elvis,” the performer roamed the streets of Lan Kwai Fong and Soho starting in the 1980s, a guitar strapped around his shoulders as he attended back-to-back gigs at bars and nightclubs.
He was born in Indonesia and moved to Hong Kong in 1974, working his first job in the city at a Kwun Tong factory.
The documentary team consists of filmmakers from Hong Kong and London, who are aiming to raise HK$1,140,000 (US$147,000) to help with various costs including for production, post-production aid distribution.
“We are now focused on completing the film so it can be made available to audiences worldwide,” the team wrote, adding that it has already been in discussion with broadcast platforms. “If we are successful in reaching our goal, we aim to finish the film by March 2022.”
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