Tag: Hong Kong Asian Film Festival

Sixteenth Hong Kong Asian Film Festival

The Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (HKAFF) returns this month, now in it’s sixteenth year the film festival will run from the 29 October – 17 November and feature a wide range of modern and digitally remastered Asian films with numerous directors in town to talk about their work.

Opening and Closing Films: Local Directors’ Outlook on Life and the City

HKAFF2019 will open with two films. Lion Rock, Nick Leung’s second feature, is a fact-based story about how a top rock climber finds his way back on the peaks after losing his ability to walk.

Patrick Leung’s Ciao, UFO is a charming sci-fi comedy that revolves around the urban legend of a UFO hovering above Wah Fu Estate in Aberdeen. It marks the reunion of Tsui Tien-you, Wong you-nam and Charlene Choi.

Closing the festival are films from two local female directors. My Prince Edward is winner of the First Feature Film Initiative launched by the Film Development Fund. Norris Wong’s directorial debut is a lighthearted story about the struggles a woman faces as she prepares to get married.

Starring Dada Chan and Kevin Chu, The Secret Diary of a Mom to Be is a comedy about the lives of contemporary career women and the unexpected surprises in life. It is the second feature film by writer-director Luk Yee-sum.

Gala Presentations: The Fallen, Missing, and The Garden of Evening Mists

The HKAFF Gala Presentation features three films of distinctive styles. After making an explosive debut with G Affairs, director Lee Cheuk-pan returns with The Fallen, a gritty and stylish revenge thriller reminiscent of classic Hong Kong crime thrillers. Irene Wan returns to the silver screen and is captivating as the puppet master of the sinister revenge scheme. Inspired by a popular internet novel,

Ronnie Chau’s feature debut Missing is a supernatural thriller about the mystical gateway. Gillian Chung stars as a social worker who is desperately searching his missing father in the mountains.

Starring Sylvia Chang, Angelica Lee and Abe Hiroshi, The Garden of Evening Mists is a star-studded drama about memory, loss and the art of gardening. It is an adaptation of Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng’s Man Booker Prize-nominated novel by Taiwanese director Tom Lin.

Special Presentations: Documentaries, Independent Films, and Romantic Dramas

In the Special Presentations section. Documentary director Wong Siu-pong turns his camera on Hong Kong’s medical system with 3CM, a documentary about Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) patients who struggle to live. Cheuk Cheung’s Bamboo Theatre is a documentary that follows ritual practices in various villages and remote islands of Hong Kong, as well as how bamboo theatres are built and dismantled.

Award-winning director Chow Kwun-wai’s romantic drama Beyond the Dream is about the relationship between a recovering schizophrenic and a psychological counselor. Benny Lau, who is known for his nostalgic youth love stories, returns with Your World, Without Me, a pure-hearted tale set in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. Memories to Choke on, Drinks to Wash them Down is a collection of short films from cinematographer-director Leung Ming-kai and partner Kate Reilly. It contains three stories about how Hongkongers bear the weight of treasured memories, raise themselves up to meet present challenges, and stand ready.

The Murders of Oiso is a co-production of Japan, Hong Kong and Korea, produced by Hong Kong director Fei-Pang Wong and directed by Misawa Takuya. The mystery-drama follows a juvenile gang who encounter a series of unsettling mysteries.

Director in Focus – Mohammad Rasoulof; Country in Focus: Cambodia

The films of Mohammad Rasoulof reflect reality, revealing to audiences hidden and uncomfortable truths about society. Rasoulof is regarded as a troublemaker by the Iranian government, and yet he never caves to authoritarian pressure or corruption. As a tribute to the director who has just been sentenced to one year in prison for defying state censorship, HKAFF presents a seven-film retrospective. Mehdi Abdollahzadeh an Iranian film critic will give a talk on Rasoulof’s films.

This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the end of the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge regime. This history is very much ingrained in the films coming out of the country. HKAFF has chosen seven films to illustrate the development of Cambodia cinema in the last four decades. Directors Davy Chou and Sok Visal will attend a talk on Cambodian cinema.

16th Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
Date: 29 October – 17 November, 2019
Venues: Broadway Cinematheque, Broadway The One, My Cinema Yoho Mall, AMC Pacific Place, Palace IFC, Movie Movie Citiplaza, Premiere Elements
Tickets: www.cinema.com.hk

13th Hong Kong Asian Film Festival

The Hong Kong Asian Film Festival returns this month, now in it’s thirteenth year the film festival will run from the 31 October – 20 November and feature a wide range of modern and digitally remastered Asian films with numerous directors in town to talk about their work.

Local Directors – Opening/Closing Films

Somewhere Beyond the Mist directed by Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards winner Cheung King-wai is one of the festivals two opening and closing films. Starring Stephy Tang, the film explores humanity and goodness through a teenage girl’s chilling murder of her parents. The other opening film is In Your Dreams written and directed by new female director Tam Wai-ching. You Mei is a teacher who falls in love with a secondary school student (Ng Siu-hin). In depicting the relationship between the two, the film reveals the loneliness experienced by many in society.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/HKAFF-2017/i-GcCM25X

Closing the festival will be The White Girl directed and written by Christopher Doyle and Jenny Suen. Set in Hong Kong’s last fishing village and starring Angela Yuen, Odagiri Joe, Michael Ning and Tony Wu, the film is about a girl who is allergic to the sun and is kept cooped up at home by her father.

The other closing film is Love Education, whose script took director Sylvia Chang 4 years to write, is about the relationships and struggles of 3 generations of women in a family.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/HKAFF-2017/i-JnTzvN3

Gala Presentation – Hong Kong Action Films

The HKAFF’s Gala Presentations this year are The Empty Hands and The Brink. Both will have their Hong Kong premiere at HKAFF. The Brink is directed Jonathan Li and stars Zhang Jin, Shawn Yue, Janice Man, Wu Yue and Gordan Lam. With the film rumoured to cost over 100 million to make, the expectations are for some dynamic action scenes!

The Empty Hands, whose title is a translation of the literal meaning of karate, has it’s World Premiere at HKAFF and is produced, written and directed by Chapman To. Stephy Tang, previously known for her romance films, tries out a new role as karate practitioner. Her co-stars include Japanese karate master Kurata Yasuaki and local actor and martial artist Stephan Au. Dada Chan has a guest appearance.

First-time feature film director Chan Tai-lee’s Tomorrow Is Another Day tells an urban tale about an ordinary housewife. After enduring her husband’s secret affair for the sake of her autistic son, Mrs Wong (Teresa Mo) finally decides to take revenge against her husband. The film is an affecting look at how a middle-aged mother finds a new path for herself after being shaken by domestic crisis.

Deniece Law’s documentary debut Light Up captures a year in the life of an artistic troupe that welcomes performers with disabilities to show that mental and physical barriers can be broken with pure passion for performance and self-expression.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/HKAFF-2017/i-wNxgkCW

Director in Focus – Suzuki Seijun

Suzuki Seijun, avant-garde filmmaker and one of the most important figures of Japanese New Wave, passed away in February this year. In a career spanning over 60 years since his directorial debut in 1956 Seijun has directed over 50 movies. Infused with elements of violence, gangsters the avant-garde, they include classic like Branded to Kill, Zigeunerweisen and Kagero-za. His approach and style of film making has inspired generations of filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch. This year’s HKAFF features several of his classic film, digitally restored, to commemorate an outlaw master of Japanese cinema.

The festival also features a selection of lighthearted films able to slow down the hustle and bustle of the city. A showcase of Taiwanese film includes Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter of the Nile, Pakeriran by Lekal Sumi Changasan and The Last Painting from Chen Hung.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/HKAFF-2017/i-GmndNX8

13th Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
Date: 31 October – 20 November, 2017
Venues: Broadway Cinematheque, Broadway The One, Palace APM, My Cinema Yoho Mall, AMC Pacific Place and Palace IFC
Tickets: www.cinema.com.hk