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James Mottram

Renny Harlin is in tears. The Finnish director behind 1990s blockbusters such as Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger is presenting his new thriller, Deep Water, at the fourth edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta on June 26.
“What I think really prepared me for this movie was getting married and having kids,” he announces, suddenly overcome with emotion.
His wife of five years, Johanna, who produced Deep Water with Harlin and with whom he shares three young children, is sitting close by.
“I couldn’t have made this movie any time before or understood its meaning, [which is] family and love,” he adds.
The project marks the latest chapter in the 67-year-old Harlin’s unique life, one that has seen him go from the epicentre of Hollywood excess to a six-year period living in China, which began after he collaborated with Jackie Chan on the 2016 hit buddy comedy Skiptrace.
“I think I learned a lot there,” he reflects two days later, when he sits down for this interview in the bar of his boutique seafront hotel. “I learned about that culture, the people and the storytelling, and how Chinese audiences always expect something really emotional and hopefully also funny in their movies.”

Initially, Harlin had not planned to stay in China, but the Skiptrace experience was overwhelmingly positive. “I fell in love with it, and they kind of fell in love with me because I was very organised and disciplined and had a Hollywood method of doing things.”
Back then, he adds, Chinese film production was a very different beast. “It was still largely the Wild, Wild East, and it’s no secret that most movies had no budget, no script, and people were paid in cash. Production crews were showing up with a plastic bag full of cash, and that’s how they would pay for the permits to shoot somewhere.”
He cites Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow Sing-chi’s 2004 mega-hit, from which Harlin used the editor, first assistant director and line producer for Skiptrace. “A great movie,” he says. “I was curious to hear about the making of that movie, and they all confirmed the same thing: they said they never had a budget, they never had a script.”
Accordingly, Chow improvised scenes on the day. When Harlin came in to make Skiptrace – shooting it in 83 days, two days ahead of schedule – the producers were delighted, begging him to stay.
“I was the right guy at the right place at the right time,” he says.
He remained in China, directing the 2018 video game adaptation Legend of the Ancient Sword (which bombed) and the moderately successful Bodies at Rest (2019), a co-production between Hong Kong and mainland China starring Nick Cheung Ka-fai and Richie Jen Hsien-chi.

It was a time when the Chinese film industry was opening up. “I was there when the surf was highest, and so I benefited from it,” he says. “It was a great six years.”
A shifting tide in Chinese cinema
Harlin left China when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, and ultimately returned to Finland. But his Chinese ties remain apparent in the visceral Deep Water, in which a passenger jet (piloted by Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart) flying from Los Angeles to Shanghai goes down in the ocean near Guam.
Evoking Harlin’s own 1999 shark attack tale Deep Blue Sea, the new film sees the survivors of the crash left clinging to the splintered fuselage as sharks start circling.


Smartly, Harlin reworked the script to include various Chinese characters, including esports teammates Sam (actor-singer Li Wenhan, a member of the boy band Uniq) and Lilly (Rosie Zhao Simei). Harlin drew on his experience in China when depicting the tentative romance between the two young leads.
“Chinese people are, to a certain extent, very reserved and very proper in a way that maybe in Western culture we don’t understand,” he says. “The show of affection is a very tricky thing in China, and even the fact that he kisses her on the forehead … we had a lot of talks about it, and I said, ‘We’ve got to do something!’ But the culture is just so, so different.”
Does Harlin still keep an eye on the stagnating Chinese film industry? “It seems like it’s maybe doing a little bit better right now, but after Covid-19 and certain political changes, it completely changed,” he says.
When he was there, “Hollywood movies were making hundreds of millions of dollars in China”, which encouraged studios to invest in Chinese-American co-productions such as Zhang Yimou’s fantasy epic The Great Wall (2016).
“All of a sudden, that just dried up completely. First, people wouldn’t go and see those movies, and then they wouldn’t even show [them], and now some have come back, some have worked out, but not that many.”

Embracing the AI revolution
Then there is the question of AI, which is becoming more prevalent in the Chinese film industry. Is Harlin against it? “No, I’m one of those people who thinks we have to embrace AI. We have to realise that it’s the future.”
He does not support the creation of digital “actors”, but he is in favour of eliminating the need to shoot in complex locations or build giant sets. “The fact is that if you use AI as a tool in the right way, you can do those things in a very convincing way.”
It is a surprising statement, given that Harlin is a practical filmmaker at heart.
He was last in Malta 30 years ago, making Cutthroat Island (1995). Starring his then-wife Geena Davis, the pirate movie tanked – in fact, it once held the Guinness World Record for the biggest box-office disaster in film history – but it is hard not to admire the stunning action sequences, which were all made for real.

Similarly, he went through agony while making Die Hard 2. For the Christmas-set sequel, with Bruce Willis reprising his role as police officer John McClane, the production spent months chasing snowy weather across the United States during a particularly warm winter.
“I feel relatively bitter,” Harlin jokes, knowing that these days a snowy backdrop can be digitally rendered in seconds.
As for AI, he thinks that it is not going to affect what movies are about – humanity and storytelling – but it is going to bring costs down.
“Yes, there will be fewer jobs in some areas, but then there will be new jobs. If I were a young person getting into the film industry and wanting to learn about it, whether you’re directing, or producing or production designing or being a DP [director of photography], I would put all my focus into learning about AI.
“I feel that if you refuse to accept it and you just pretend that it’s not happening, you’re going to be left at the station when the train leaves.”

His next movie, The Beast, starring Samuel L. Jackson as a US president under attack, is already in the can, but Harlin will be keeping an eye on Deep Water in China, which is due for release there “in the next couple of months”, he says.
“If the movie succeeds there, it would be a huge, huge win for the financiers.”
He has not dismissed the idea of returning to China one day.
“I would never say no. I’d be happy to go work there. I love that culture.”
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Director Renny Harlin during the Director Masterclass at the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta on June 26. Photo: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock for Mediterrane Film Festival.

Hollywood director Renny Harlin leads a director masterclass at the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta on June 26, 2026. The filmmaker talks to the SCMP about being in “the right place at the right time” during his six-year stint in China, and how drawing on his experience helped him make his new shark-attack thriller Deep Water. Photo: Shutterstock for Mediterrane Film Festival

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The Finnish filmmaker talks about the ‘great’ years he spent in China during its pre-pandemic film boom and how using AI can benefit movies


The Finnish filmmaker talks about the ‘great’ years he spent in China during its pre-pandemic film boom and how using AI can benefit movies.


What Hollywood director Renny Harlin gained from China’s film boom and why he embraces AI

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Finnish filmmaker talks about the ‘great’ years he spent in China during its pre-pandemic film boom and how using AI can benefit movies

The Finnish filmmaker talks about the ‘great’ years he spent in China during its pre-pandemic film boom and how using AI can benefit movies