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Dare Ya!

“Dare Ya!” explores what has made the members of Hong Kong’s most controversial band, LMF (LazyMuthaFuckaz), the new “voice of Hong Kong youth”. Their music may raise eyebrows with the older generation, but to their hardcore fan base, LMF’s point of view is their “voice” and their music is the heartbeat–and their hopes, dreams, nightmares, concerns, problems, and solutions for their future. As the title of this raw, different, relevant, and timely film suggests, “Dare Ya!” is a challenge to Hong Kong to take a good look at itself, warts and all, because only by facing up to our flaws can we become the “World City” that we aspire to. “Dare Ya!” is not just a documentary about the exploits and growth of ten ordinary young men from the Estates who just happen to be members of a rap band, but a wake-up call for Hong Kong.

Dare Ya!

5.0 2002
Cockroach

In February 2019, the Hong Kong government proposed a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to face trial in mainland China. The controversial bill sparked immediate outrage over widespread fear of arbitrary detention and politically motivated trials that would decimate Hong Kong’s autonomy under ‘one country, two systems.’ Protests escalated into epic pro-democracy demonstrations, in part led by young people connected via social media. COCKROACH, filmed during the height of the protests, captures the extraordinary intensity of an unprecedented era in Hong Kong’s history.

Cockroach

7.0 2020
The Way of Paddy

Sangwoodgoon was founded in the Anti-High Speed Rail Movement and Tsoi Yuen Village Movement in 2009. In 2012, Sangwoodgoon tries cultivating rice for the second time. This film records the rice planting process in spring and Dragon Boat Festival. Not only did the director experience the unpredictable nature of weather, questions for his companion are raised at the same time: How is the life as a farmer in Hong Kong when there is shortage of land and labour? Apart from documenting the non-traditional rice cultivating techniques, the film also wants to discuss about the relationship between farmer and nature, and the changing state of mind of protestors all the way through.

The Way of Paddy

NR 2013
Diasporama: Dead Air

An average of 60,000 people emigrated from Hong Kong each year in early 1990s. An absolutely personal and biased sampling of this diaspora from an insider/outsider perspective just before the 1997 handover. Based on the personal experiences of individuals from Hong Kong in 1990s, Diasporama is an experimental documentary that addresses issues of the diasporic condition. In a series of intimate interviews that explore the relationship of the personal and the political, Yau Ching confronts notions of nationhood, identity, and post-colonialism. Inserting her own face and voice as a form of mediation, the artist herself becomes one of the subjects.

Diasporama: Dead Air

8.0 1997
Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice

Resignation, frustration and helplessness is what we all face as humans living on this planet. In a place like Hong Kong these conditions are intensified and magnified by the densely populated living conditions. The pressures of just trying to survive in the big city are already enough to drive people into extreme physical, emotional and mental conditions. These extreme conditions can cause humans to lock-up in every way. In this documentary, "Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice", we get a group of well-known but reserved musicians and music students from the bustling streets of Hong Kong and send them halfway around the world to the natural landscapes of Iceland, Fire and Ice.

Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice

7.5 2022
We Have Boots

The Umbrella Movement of 2014, also known as the Occupy Movement, paved the way for Hong Kong’s current upheavals, but unfolded in significantly different ways. This creative documentary focuses on the intellectual, political, and discursive underpinnings of the social and political actions of 2014, before fast-forwarding to 2019. A range of thoughtful and engaged intellectuals, students, scholars, activists, and artists including Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man, Ray Wong, and Agnes Chow (many of whom are facing imprisonment for their democratic activism) articulate a range of philosophies, viewpoints and emotions, set against Hong Kong’s spectacular urban background of skyscrapers, night lights, and street-occupying mass movements.

We Have Boots

7.0 2020
Dong

Jia Zhangke travels with painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand as they as they meet everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil. Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by China's Three Gorges Dam project. Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed up by the Yangtze River. The area is in the process of being "de-constructed" by armies of shirtless male workers who form the subject of Liu's paintings. Liu and Jia next travel to Bangkok, where Liu paints Thai sex workers languishing in brothels. The two sets of paintings are united in their subjects' shared sense of malaise in the face of the dehumanizing labor afforded them.

Dong

5.6 2006
Inside the Red Brick Wall

In 2019, Hong Kong was swept by demonstrations against the controversial extradition bill. At the Polytechnic University, a group of students also takes a stand for freedom and democracy. Negotiations with the police are chaotic and aggressive, conducted via megaphones and politically charged music played over loudspeakers. The colorful umbrellas which the young people use to protect themselves against the brutal police actions emphasize the group’s bravado, which borders on recklessness. What begins as an energetic battle against the establishment turns into a lopsided game of cat and mouse when the police decide to surround the building. Within its red brick walls, the university building becomes a prison. Over the nearly two weeks that follow, as fear and exhaustion grow among the hundreds of students, so does the uncertainty. Should they hang on inside, or leave the building to face the armed police?

Inside the Red Brick Wall

6.5 2020
When a City Rises

Behind the gas masks of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, the often very young activists are just as diverse as the youths of the rest of the world. But they share a demand for democracy and freedom. They have the will and the courage to fight – and they can see that things are going in the wrong direction in the small island city, which officially has autonomy under China but is now tightening its grip and demanding that ‘troublemakers’ be put away or silenced. Amid the violent protests, we meet a 21-year-old student, a teenage couple and a new father.

When a City Rises

7.0 2021
This is Not a Game

Angela Su’s fictional artist Rosie Leavers is the last remaining person to upload her consciousness to a video game. Contemplating during a pandemic year which also saw people’s resistance movements in many parts of the world, the work pinpoints the uncanny affinities between gaming and warfare strategies. They have mutually informed the infrastructure of both worlds since time immemorial when diplomatic conflicts played out on the battlefield of the 64 squares of a chess board to flight simulation technologies which were adapted to shape gaming experiences as we know it now. When the conflict is between the state and its people, she speculates that gaming strategies empower civilians in resistance movements to counter imperialism through its own operative logic. But once we upload our consciousness, are we able to return to the sensibilities and political motivation that inspired the revolution to begin with?

This is Not a Game

NR 2021
Chinese Portrait

Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaux of people and environments. Pedestrians shuffle across a bustling Beijing street, steelworkers linger outside a deserted factory, tourists laugh and scamper across a crowded beach, worshippers kneel to pray in a remote village. With a painterly eye for composition, Wang captures China as he sees it, calling to a temporary halt a land in a constant state of change.

Chinese Portrait

6.9 2018
The Unbelievable

A documentary team takes on an expedition to an exotic country in Southeast Asia in search of paranormal phenomena. What they never expected is a horrifying journey with encounters of unexplained occurrences. Led by a notable parapsychologist, the encounters are so gruesome and hone chilling beyond what they can bear, ranging from paranormal phenomenon such as poltergeist, exorcism, haunted house to supernatural force like witchcraft, spells, voodoo, curse, tec. Based on Hong Kong Cable TV’s popular paranormal phenomena program of the same name, “The Unbelievable” is a documentary-style movie that throws the audiences to the twilight zone…and beyond! Rated Category III for its shocking scenes of horror, violence and nudity, the reality program-turned-movie features extreme content that makes the TV version look tame in comparison. I’m a fan of the HK TV program. If you like paranormal stuff, check this out!

The Unbelievable

6.3 2009
岛的故事之大屿山沙之城

Four college students came to Lantau to climb. They stayed in a temple in the mountains at night. Under the hospitality of a little monk (Zhang Guorong), the students chatted with the master of the temple all night and found that the life of the monks was very different from that of the world. The four people who come here only want to climb the mountain, while the family pursues the peak of Buddhism; the family wants to see through the world, while the college students only want to see the red sun; when the men and women have a picnic on the beach, the host is talking about Zen, which is a very clear contrast between the family and the world. The next morning, the students left the temple to continue their journey. The little monk who was cleaning in front of the door just smiled and saw him off. His heart seemed to be full of understanding

岛的故事之大屿山沙之城

NR 1981
Until We Meet

No matter how quickly or far the times move forward, some people and some events will always be remembered by someone. June Fourth has yet to be redressed, rights activists have disappeared, and justice for indigenous peoples remains convoluted and slow. All these injustices bring sorrow. Yet, they refuse to give up; they keep thinking, acting, connecting with like-minded people, and creating alternative spaces in the land where they live. A one-party wall stands before them, making each step difficult; even with party alternation, nothing is guaranteed. They all know this. In these dark times, they join hands and move forward together, often very slowly, very slowly. Perhaps, one day, they will meet each other.

Until We Meet

NR 2019