There's a new star rising in Hong Kong indie films - Sam Lee. Richard James Havis talks to the idiosyncratic young actor with a penchant for playing tearaways.

Rags-to-riches stories are often the subject of exaggeration in the movie world. But not in the case of Hong Kong actor Sam Lee. Just two short years ago, Lee was spotted by independent director Fruit Chan, skateboarding around a run-down housing estate.

Nowadays he's popping up all over the place. In this year's Cannes market he features in at least three movies. The Longest Summer sees Lee play a young ne'er-do-well who joins his disillusioned elder brother for a bank heist. In Beast Cops, he's an oddball young policeman who is almost indistinguishable from the triads he's keeping tabs on.

Gen-X Cops, meanwhile, sees Lee join a roster of young talent for an action role.

In fact, in the true Hong Kong thespian tradition of working while you're hot, he's already made a lot of movies. Not all of them are good, he admits: "It's hard to do a good film in Hong Kong. The place is full of businessmen who just want to make money. Money, money, money... that's all they think about. They don't really care about the films.

"This year I did so many movies," he adds. "I just did them as they came along. But they aren't all as good as Made In Hong Kong, Beast Cops or Gen-X Cops."

Lee brings a lot of himself to his roles. While thesps like wild-man Anthony Wong and the sensitive Lau Ching-wan give their all, most local actors are fairly faceless. Not Lee. Often he is cast to type as a renegade youngster with a bucketload of idiosyncracies.