Discoveries from Hong Kong SAR China World Cinema

Yingtai disguised as a man studied with Liang Shanbo. Forced to marry another, Liang died heartbroken. She leapt into his grave; both transformed into butterflies.

From 2016 to 2019, Jacky Cheung held 233 concerts for his A Classic Tour in 27 months. The Cantopop king sang, danced and reinterpreted 40 of his classic hits – including "Love is Eternal," "I'm Really Hurt," "Messy Hair" and "Legend of a Hungry Wolf" – for a remarkable show that audiences will remember for a long time.

Seventeen-year-old girl Zhang Biyu is born to a well-off family but feels depressed. Biyu’s father is always busy off supporting the family’s economy. Biyu’s mother is addicted to playing mahjong. Both of Biyu’s parents don’t make time for her, Biyu’s brother is also too young, so Biyu has no one to talk to. At school, most of Biyu’s classmates have already have lovers, which makes Biyu feel lonely. Frustrated, Biyu starts having a crush on her teacher.

The girl’s hair is tied in braids by her mother every morning. The rigorous woman believes the tighter the braids are, the tighter the mother-daughter bond is. So, the little girl lives with the achy, throbbing feeling from her scalp and tries to understand this painful love. Actually, there is a little fantasy in her mind which is never mentioned or carried out, until an accident happens…

She gets up early every morning. She works hard everyday. For her, a day is like a lifetime, but she lives on.

On winter solstice day, a tram arrives at the terminus, depositing the last passenger in an old neighbourhood. Roaming eerily empty streets among surroundings at once familiar and strange, the old woman has her mind firmly set on one task, prompting her panic-stricken son to abandon his work and speed to her side. Somewhere, sometime else, a young woman is frantically searching for her little boy. In a city that prides itself on overnight transformations and clearing out the old to make way for the new, the mother takes her son on a reverie where the past and the present, memories and realisations are immutably and inexorably mixed.

In dystopian near-future, news reporting informs people of a mysterious yet fatal epidemic which is transmitted through conversations. Everyone in the city, including Kar-him, are advised to wear earmuffs and to avoid talking to strangers and colleagues alike – even dialogue cards had to be disposed. Kar-him continues with his unremarkable life in silence just like all others, yet doubts linger in his mind. A homeless guy was hauled off when he decided to reveal more than he should; Refusing to stay silent, Kar-him started a dangerous quest to find his father who disappeared after he mentioned about knowing the homeless guy.

Moving from planetary surfaces to deep space, mysterious shapes and spheres guide exploration and slowly return to the surface.

Ah Sheng, the eldest son of a dog meat shop owner in Paradise Town, and his friend Ah Liang meet Ah Li, a girl who performs a striptease at the town's traveling circus. The boys are drawn to the bizarre and free world of these itinerant performers, developing a desire to leave their families and dreaming of eloping together. However, these clumsy, pretentious boys, pretending to be in love, are powerless to sever the entanglements of their newly formed blood ties. It's as if miracles never exist; sacrificing the entire blood-soaked, stinking Paradise Town can neither save the world nor save the boy himself.

A Hong Kong Cantonese film released in September 1948.

The Umbrella Movement was a wave of street protests that took place in Hong Kong from September to December 2014 as a reaction to oppressive practices of the Chinese government against the citizens of Hong Kong dissatisfied with planned changes in the electoral system. In her feature film debut, To Liu captured the citizens of the western part of Kowloon, Mong Kok, whose protests might not have been as visible as those of the leading activists, but were no less important. The documentary rhythmized by opening entries and darkening of the scene, much like the director’s first film, follows two characters, a master and an apprentice.

Still Life (2024) is a self-reflexive documentary and intimate portrait of renowned self-taught painter Yeung Tong Lung (b. 1956, Fujian), best known for his large-scale figurative paintings that capture daily life in Hong Kong’s busy urban landscape. With a cinematic quality, Yeung’s paintings compress multiple perspectives and spaces into one canvas, coaching his audiences in different ways of seeing. The film follows Yeung over a three-year period, including his preparations for his 2021 solo exhibition Daily Practice at Hong Kong’s Blindspot Gallery.

This shocking debut film engages from the crazy opening scene: a maze of masks, despair, disgrace, and colours. Decoding all clever meanings in this voyage through memories and hallucinations of countless war crimes is a true head-scratcher. There are hints of occupations, guerilla fights, massacres, famines, rapes, and other atrocities.

This film shares the common theme of migration and search with Kal Ng’s 1999 film Dreamtrips, while further visualizing the two cities of Toronto and Hong Kong. We can see in this film an empty version of Toronto and a purified version of Hong Kong, which appear and disappear on the screen alternately and create a world of constant flux and imagination. Influenced by André Bazin's 'myth of total cinema', Kal Ng feels that the ultimate purpose of cinema is to re-present a priori experience of human existence deep down inside. In other words, cinema is never a fully developed invention, but a progressive movement that continuously explores the imagery system. Through his films, Kal Ng focuses on exploring the spatial dimension of how emotional messages are conveyed beyond the narrative through the interaction between human beings and landscape.

With the arrival of an outsider, a peasant woman in rural China begins to sense the repressive, patriarchal bindings of her fate. A fruit tree fights to bloom. The Funeral of Spring is a deeply symbolic, intimate and languidly pastoral exploration of a woman’s sense of self in an environment devoid of female autonomy.

A sparkling geometric play of shapes and forms in the M+ Museum of Hong Kong.

Su shot The Magnificent Levitation Act of Lauren O at Hong Kong’s Shaw Studios. She came up with the character after she came across American science fiction writer Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which followed protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina on a quest for freedom. Su’s character belongs to a fictional activist-anarchist group called Laden Raven which was founded in the 1930s. Composed of circus performers—often viewed as social outcasts—and other marginalised members of society, the group attempts to change the world as did the 60s counterculture movement.

Hand drawn animation by Ho Tsz Wing is a creation of an imaginary and magical forest

A whimsical journey of a young autistic girl kayaking in Hong Kong water in search of perfect blue water for her pet Clownfish. Facing incredible odds and dangers, she finds the unexpected in her heart.

In Hong Kong, a stranger wanders and films frantically monologuing next to her camera. Through the windows of the buildings she penetrates the intimacy of the flats, in the streets she lingers over unknown faces, swallowed by the city she seeks to record what exceeds her. It’s after founding a kaleidoscope on the ground that she meets the man with tattoos - he is haunted by a fight.

“Elephant in Castle” is created within the context of two strange years, 2019 and 2020. The work expresses a constant change within Florence’s inner world, to express the emotional, aesthetic, and tactile responses that she has to Hong Kong, the city where she grew up. The film is both a reflection on the political and social changes in the city and an attempt to understand the relationship between city, place and the individual.

Peng is a Chinese gangster boss. Arai is a Japanese gangster boss. Both have strong fighting supporters and gang members. Peng buys heroin for 1 million, hiding in a teddy bear. But the heroin is not real and the dollars are not. And, to make matters worse, a secret policeman emerges: Reason enough for the most magnificent fights of all kinds.

East Is Red is made in one shot. The lighter with young Chairman MAO’s photo imprinted on it, the blurred TV screen, the music ‘East Is Red’, all connote light or brightness. The lighter falls after several loops of the song. This video aims to convey sarcasm and skepticism, through a superficial touch on the subject matter.

Daily life living in Hong Kong.

Married secondary school teacher Hei Man appears to have a happy marriage which merely is a broken dream. Being a victim of domestic and sexual violence, her emotions are reaching their tipping point with nowhere to explode. One day she encounters Chun Heng, a student whose only indulgence is making his own art pieces. Attracted by his passion for art, Hei Man seduces him to develop a sexual relationship with her. He completely falls for Hei Man, while she is only replaying all torture tricks which she suffers in her marriage on him. Chun Heng is desperate for her love, so he makes a decision that would change both their lives.

Mohsin has hopes and dreams to pursue like any local Hong Kong youngster but is held back by a lack of chance and confidence. His father belongs to an older generation of immigrants still holding onto familiar, touchstone Indian traditions and ways. When a case of mistaken identity lands Shahid into their home, his uninhibited ability to express with his voice and body reinvigorates Mohsin’s passion for singing. Following a debut performance that ends in boos and jeers, and an imposter duly debunked, only a page out of Shakespeare and a Bollywood-sque song-and-dance sequence (what else?) can restore confidence and knock down the fence. Will Mohsin again take to the stage, wow with his style and make his father proud?

Remnants is an experimental piece that explores the poetic narrative. After the world has collapsed, Sze picks up his grandfather's diary and goes through the forest accompanied by two guys who don't see eye to eye. They are holding on to their remaining memories of the adult world to try and comprehend the current situation.

Difference in generational values is perhaps as old as time itself, and can neither be explained nor resolved. An ambitious teenager is eager to explore the world by reaching the other side of the river. He meets an indifferent and unenthusiastic ferryman. The tiny ferry is not large enough to hold dissenting opinions. The ferryman considers the teenager naive while the teenager thinks the other spineless with no stance. Reflecting on the present, their conflicts and separate beliefs make a consensus almost impossible. Two people set for sail, yet only one reaches the shore. On the other side of the river, the youngster, instead of hope, witnesses the end of an era.

Yue is a focus puller who suffers from eye floaters. On set, he sees his ex-girlfriend Ting Yu through the monitor. She leads him on a search for a meteor shower that will never appear. In the end, Yue begins to see the reality beyond the frame.

Hoi is a van driver who was a photographer before COVID-19. One day, he received a message from his ex-girlfriend Yin, who had already migrated. They met on the night before she left Hong Kong again. After separating for a few years, the discussion on the long-forgotten love seemed to be the hidden agenda of this night. The two individuals, who had already embarked on completely different journeys in life, had to find a way out for their complicated relationship.

In the spirit of autonomy, how can the voice of common people be heard and who gets to decide? Lok and his like-minded friends actively participated in the 2010 anti-rail movement through an online radio platform. Passionate about social causes, they eventually parted ways due to ideological differences on spreading their ideas and uniting the public. Fast forward to four years later, a more composed and experienced Lok remained as an organiser of various social movements, notably the Umbrella Movement. Bumping into a past comrade who is now a mere passerby, Lok reminisced about their shared pasts and less-than-amicable split. The cerebral short is also a moving coming-of-age story of Lok, now with evolved ideas, new identity and well-rounded perspectives.

A film produced in collaboration with Beijing-based collaborator Yuan Yuan which interweaves 16mm film and DV video with textual intertitles and fragments of voice-over narration. Merging aspects of visionary cinema, landscape film and home movie, the film combines footage shot in Manhattan Chinatown, Hong Kong, and Beijing into an intimate reflection on the act of physical and spiritual passage between a series of pressurised and rapidly shifting temporalities governed by different myths of order.

A film released in 1980

A documentary or travelogue about China 2017

Four siblings return home from the funeral of their recently deceased mother. At the dinner table, they started talking about inheritance.

Siufung attempts to formulate transgender subjectivity by retelling his own gender struggle through poetry and experimental video.

Inspired by a true story, Eggs tells the tale of A-Li and A-Mai from Vietnam who meet and fall in love in Taiwan. When A-mai gets pregnant, what follows is not necessarily a blessing. Like many lost-contact migrant workers in Taiwan who, worried that they cannot afford to raise their children, flee and take on cash-in-hand jobs, A-Li and A-Mai go up the mountain to a place full of lychee stink bugs where A-Li can earn some money. When stopped by the police, they escape into the mountains and forests for fear of their status as illegal migrant workers. Taking refuge inside an abandoned factory, the couple tries to evade the police and to ensure the safe delivery of the baby.

Abstract 2D hand-drawn animation using jazz music

A father has been fighting for the rights of his daughter since she consumed tainted milk powder, yet fails to be understood. With a focus on the connection between father and daughter, the director returns to her own family, discussing love and growth. All of these efforts started with an experience dated back to her childhood.

A monochrome composition of dynamic shapes and patterns comes to light and to life.

Working as the lowest denominator of the society, wandering about in the streets, sleeping in the filthiest corner of the city – living people who look like they are dead make their living in the darkest places and fondle in wastelands with their half-awaken dreams.

A broken-hearted filmmaker navigates an unfamiliar city, an international art fair and his personal baggage in this intimate, playful and unexpectedly comedic documentary.

Ngau Tau Kok Estate is one of the oldest and largest public housing projects in Hong Kong. Most of the residents are either elderly and live alone, or working class families. Since 2001, after the government announced its plan to redevelop the area, residents have been gradually relocated to new housing estates. Following two social workers who work with the residents as they deal with the relocation, the film offers is a glimpse of the lives of old people. It is a group portrait of our parents and grandparents.

A blacksmith is killed and his daughter gets revenge.

Ma and his friends trace a sea monster from a fairy tale they heard on the floating island.

Shaw Bros drama

The feature directorial debut of Jiang Wenjie, cinematographer and editor of Keep Rolling, explores the inner lives of three female Hong Kong writers: Hon Lai-chu, Lee Wai-yi, and Human Ip. Though their styles and thematic concerns differ considerably, the film shows that their literary works are all informed by their immediate surroundings, whether that be a childhood home, the streets of Sham Shui Po, or the cattle and woods near Lai Chi Wo village. Time may inevitably erode everything in this city, but these writers continue to tell their hometown's stories in their own unique ways.

A seemingly innocent romance between two people is destroyed by reality in Step on Grass. Under most circumstances, “she” and “he” would be together happily ever after. However, the problem is that “she” is a teacher, and “he” is her student. The nature of their relationship may be pure, but society will always see it as improper due to their identities. Soon, one step in the wrong path sends their lives further spiraling out of control, and “she” is forced to make a decision.

Come Together (1973) is a 16 mm experimental film–style music video by Alex Cheung Kwok-ming, who first gained recognition as a child prodigy and award-winning experimental filmmaker. Made before his entry into the industry, the piece features colleagues including actors Tsang Hong-ning and Ronna Ko. It captures Hong Kong youth’s engagement with and reinterpretation of hippie culture.

Joyce and Lily have a different class background but stealing unites their friendship. Joyce is the poor one who cannot afford a smart phone whereas Lily is the posh one who turns into a kleptomaniac due to a detached relationship with her family. When Lily spots Joyce stealing a phone from their classmates, Lily helps her out. They even join hands to be partners in crime. Lily teaches Joyce the art of stealing while Joyce appreciates her company. However, too many successes make them go further and further. While starting from shoplifting, they decide to pickpocket on streets. Will their ambition beat them down and have them arrested? Throughout Speaking Low, Joyce and Lily’s friendship also entails an ambiguity of their sexuality.

Set in Hong Kong, the narcotics documentary Opium: The White Powder Opera (1976-77) was commissioned by a British television station. Yung, its associate producer and cinematographer, joined the surveillance team of the Narcotics Bureau to acquaint himself with the workings of the drug trade. This paved the way for The System. In addition to the cat-and-mouse game between the cops and the druglord, a fascinating thread traces the relationship among dealers, junkies and mules in Sai Ying Pun. The title hails from Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, another tragedy concerned with a capitalist society’s oppressed and exploited nobodies.

The documentary “Be Water” records the clash in West Kowloon on 20th October, 2019. Police issued objection notice to the march protest organised by Civil Human Rights Front. The march eventually turns into a clash. Protestors flowed like water, disperse and re-assemble while contending the police.

Ling (Li Tziang), a young woman forced to work as a nightclub hostess to support her ailing parents and young siblings, hides the truth about her job from her family. She meets a sailor (Ping Fan) at the club, and the two quickly fall in love. However, just as he is about to propose, a drunken night causes him to miss their appointment, shattering their plans. Heartbroken, Ling faces another tragedy when her mother falls critically ill. Despite her efforts to raise money for treatment, her mother passes away. Her father, now aware of her real occupation, is ashamed yet sorrowful, unable to change Ling’s situation as the family remains burdened by debt and dependent on her income.