Directed by:
Ann HuiScreenplay:
John Chan Kin-chungCinematography:
Nelson Yu Lik-waiCast:
Kang-Sheng Lee, Anthony Wong, Lawrence Lau, Ann Hui, Nina Paw, Rachel Lee, Gardner Tse, Mo-chun Chik, Curry Lau, Ally Wong, Thomas Hudak, Hei CheungPlots(1)
Ann Hui responded to both the tenth anniversary of June 4th 1989 and the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 with this ambitious 1999 film. Employing impressive structural and thematic density, Hui develops interlocking stories of various activists and HKers in the 1980s. Superb local actors Anthony Wong, Rachel Lee, Lee Kang-sheng and Tse Kwan-ho play a Marxist priest, social workers/activists and a calculating politician. Augustine Mok is the Trotskyite actor whose Temple Street agitprop performance frames the personal dramas. Hui knows how to build subdued melodrama, and also how to pause her storytelling to capture (in Yu Lik-wai's electrically luminous photography) the texture of everyday altruism and idealistic action that can improve the lives of a great city's underclass. The film's shattering end, commemorating the Tiananmen movement, asks whether the hybrid modern Chinese-style society that HKers have created can really sustain a better, more just, freer way of life. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)
(more)Cast
Kang-Sheng Lee
Taiwan
Best movies:
Vive L'Amour (1994)
The Hole (1998)
Rebels of the Neon God (1992)
Anthony Wong
Hong Kong
Best movies:
Hard Boiled (1992)
Infernal Affairs (2002)
When Fortune Smiles (1990)
Lawrence Lau
South Africa
Best movies:
A Simple Life (2011)
Echoes of the Rainbow (2010)
The Stunt Woman (1996)
Ann Hui
China
Best movies:
The River (1997)
Echoes of the Rainbow (2010)
Winners & Sinners (1983)
Nina Paw
Hong Kong
Best movies:
Lost in Time (2003)
Fearless (2006)
Bullet in the Head (1990)
Rachel Lee
China
Best movies:
Shanghai 1920 (1991)
In the Line of Duty 6 - Forbidden Arsenal (1991)
Street Gun (1996)
Gardner Tse
China
Best movies:
Just Another Pandora's Box (2010)
Shock Wave 2 (2020)
Warriors of Future (2022)
Mo-chun Chik
Best movies:
New Police Story (2004)
Lavender (2000)
One Nite in Mongkok (2004)
Curry Lau
Best movies:
Lightning Kung Fu (1980)
The Incredible Kung Fu Master (1979)
Above the Law (1986)
Ally Wong
Hong Kong
Thomas Hudak
Best movies:
A Man Called Hero (1999)
Knock Off (1998)
Hei Cheung
Best movies:
Lightning Kung Fu (1980)
Chinatown Kid (1977)
His Name is Nobody (1979)