News

Transitions from small-screen video-makers to big-screen filmmakers have been a pattern since the dawn of MTV, as though it is natural. It is inevitable that online video-makers, like Trevor Choi and his 16by9 production, would choose the same path. Big in Hong Kong, 16by9 launched their crowdfunding campaign for the Frank project in 2022 and have since faced challenges such as casting changes and several creative and financial overhauls. The end result is nothing short of remarkable. But they seem to carry over some elements of their online content to their feature, which may sometimes be questionable.

Smashing Frank by Trevor Choi is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Set in a fictional Hong Kong where religion gets entangled with power, a gang of youth thieves who leave behind graffiti of the word “Frank” starts attacking money lenders and jewelry stores. Frank threatens the powerful through their online videos, and their audience cheers for them.

Following the quite circulated but not exactly great “Still Human”, Oliver Siu Kuen Chan has definitely moved up a level as both a director and a writer, with “Montages of a Modern Motherhood” being another testament to the excellent year Chinese diaspora films had this year, especially in the family drama genre.

Montages of a Modern Motherhood is screening at Far East Film Festival

Suk-jing is living what is perceived as a regular mother’s life, in the New Territories in Hong Kong. As her day begins, she pumps breast milk, leaves her daughter with her mother-in-law, and heads to the bakery where she works. All would have been peachy, except for one small detail, reality. The baby never stops crying, annoying both her in-laws and her neighbours, to the point that, at nights, Suk-jing is forced to take walks in a nearby park until the baby falls asleep. Furthermore,...

Family drama Montages of a Modern Motherhood is a deeply personal undertaking for writer-director Oliver Chan Siu-kuen, who began developing the feature after freshly becoming a mother herself.

Starring Hedwig Tam, Lo Chun-yip and Pang Hang-ying, the Cantonese-language film had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival last year, before making stops at the Tokyo International Film Festival and Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Festival.

The film will now have its homecoming at the ongoing Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff), screening in the Gala section on April 13.

“In making this film, the starting point was me becoming a mother, and how my whole perspective really changed,” Chan tells Deadline. “Before becoming a mother, when I saw naughty babies or those who can’t stop crying on the subway, I used to really judge the mothers but now I understand it’s really out of our control.”

Montages...

The world premiere of The Brightest Sun by Japan’s Nakashima Tetsuya will open the 49th Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff), along with Pavane For An Infant by Malaysia’s Chong Keat-Aun.

Johan Haugerud’s Dreams (Sex Love), winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale last month, has been set as the closing film.

The full line-up of the festival, which runs from April 10-21, was announced on the first day of Filmart with Hong Kong star Louis Koo, this year’s filmmaker in focus, and Angela Yuen, the new festival ambassador, in attendance.

Nearly 200 films from 69 countries...

Despite the challenges currently faced by the Hong Kong film industry, a wave of new filmmakers has emerged in recent years. Backed by government funding and the mentoring of experienced local producers and directors, these talents have seen encouraging box office results at home as well as festival play and some commercial success overseas.

Unlike Hong Kong’s previous generation of filmmakers, which specialized in crime thrillers and martial arts action movies, these younger directors tend to work with much smaller budgets and focus on realistic characters and social issues relevant to their hometown of Hong Kong. Few of these filmmakers are aiming for mainland Chinese audiences, due to the high costs, cultural differences and censorship issues that complicate releasing films in that market.

For nearly two decades now, the Hong Kong Film Development Council (Hkfdc) has provided a range of funding programmes to support local filmmakers, including the Film Production Financing Scheme,...

Anselm Chan’s The Last Dance leads the pack going into the 43rd Hong Kong Film Awards (Hkfa) with 18 nominations.

It is followed by Soi Cheang’s Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In with 14 nods and Philip Yung’s Papa with 11 nominations. All three films will face off alongside Adam Wong’s The Way We Talk and Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well, in both the best film and best director categories.

The 18 nominations secured by The Last Dance is the highest in Hkfa’s history since Teddy Chen’s Assassins And Bodyguards received the same number in 2010. Chan...

Following the quite circulated but not exactly great “Still Human”, Oliver Siu Kuen Chan has definitely moved up a level as both a director and a writer, with “Montages of a Modern Motherhood” being another testament to the excellent year Chinese diaspora films had this year, especially in the family drama genre.

Suk-jing is living what is perceived as a regular mother’s life, in the New Territories in Hong Kong. As her day begins, she pumps breast milk, leaves her daughter with her mother-in-law, and heads to the bakery where she works. All would have been peachy, except for one small detail, reality. The baby never stops crying, annoying both her in-laws and her neighbours, to the point that, at nights, Suk-jing is forced to take walks in a nearby park until the baby falls asleep. Furthermore, her growth is subpar, and this seems to have something to do...

Hong Kong’s Golden Scene has acquired the worldwide rights to Oliver Chan’s Montages Of A Modern Motherhood, ahead of its premiere in competition at Busan International Film Festival.

The drama has been selected for Biff’s New Currents competition, which comprises emerging Asian filmmakers, and marks the first Hong Kong film to screen in the strand since Cheung King Wai’s Somewhere Beyond The Mist in 2017.

It is the second feature of director Chan, whose 2018 directorial feature debut Still Human won several awards.

Her latest film follows a new mother who finds herself stressed out taking care of...

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (Hkiffs) has added 15 work-in-progress projects to the 22nd Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf), rounding up a bumper line-up of the new Hkiff Project Market.

This year, Haf joins the inaugural Hkiff Industry-caa China Genre Initiative (Hcg) to create the new Hkiff Industry Project Market, which will showcase 47 projects, including 26 previously announced in-development Haf projects and six Hcg projects.

The Wip section will introduce the latest works by notable filmmakers such as Chang Tso-Chi, Lav Diaz, Mark Gill, Midi Z, Tan Chui Mui, and Yang Chao as well as by prominent and emerging actors,...

The progress of director Eric Tsang Hing-weng has been gradual but steady. Hailing from a journalism and communications background at University, he has participated in Johnnie To's Fresh Wave Short Film Competition a number of times, working first as a Dop on the award winning “Liu Yang He” and then as a director himself with the Best Film winning “The Umbrella” followed by “A Thousand Sails”, which premiered at Sundance. In 2022, he finally progressed from the constraints of the short form to make his feature-length debut with “Hong Kong Family”, which debuted at the Busan International Film Festival.

The Sunny Side of the Street is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

Middle-aged couple Ling and Chun head to their ancestral home for the winter solstice dinner with their children Yeung and Ki. All through the journey, the two continue arguing over petty matters, an argument that continues when they reach their destination.

For his project under the lauded First Feature Film Initiative programme, director Ka Sing- fung tells the heartrending journey of a woman whose life is forever changed by the children she takes in as a temporary foster carer. In a career-best performance, Sammi Cheng stars as Mei, a woman trying to get over the death of her young son through the children she welcomes into her home. Each ward offers Mei a different challenge and a newfound appreciation for the difficulties of motherhood, but when her dedication to the job causes her marriage to turn sour, Mei is forced to make a choice. (Source: Hkaff 2022)

Lost Love premiered in November 2022 as one of the closing films for the 19th edition of the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival and is now scheduled for release in Hong Kong on March 2, 2023. Its cast also includes Alan Luk and Hedwig Tam.

This sequel to 2021’s Hong Kong movie, Ready O/R Knot, explores a series of heart-rending realities encountered by urban men and women who are in the different stages of their relationships. Ah Jia and Keyi face new challenges in their lives as they deal with the arrival of Ah Jia’s mum as well as wedding preparations, a house purchase and work … their previous joy and freedom are being gradually replaced by burdens and responsibilities. On the other hand, there is Huixiong who has cultivated himself to be a good house-husband. Not only does he discover that his wife, Jenny, has lost all interest in him, but he also sees ambiguous text messages on her phone. Could it be that they can’t escape the “seven year itch”? At the same time, Ah Jian and Jessica suddenly receive what must be a divine prank – even with excessive protection, it...

The treatment of sapphic love in films could be an uncomfortable toss-up between tragedy and bliss, but “The First Girl I Loved” does neither of these. Co-directed by Candy Ng Wing-shan and Chiu Hoi Yeung, the entry to the 2021 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival and 2022 Osaka Asian Film Festival instead explores the liminal space between the two, where love simply evolves and is not punctuated by anything.

“The First Girl I Loved” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

The film tells the story of Lee Wing Nam and Sylvia Lee Sum Yuet and how their romance blossoms in a Catholic all-girls school in Hong Kong during their youth, only to see its certitude challenged as they slowly enter the realm of adulthood. The hurdles to their love first come in the form of institutions, with restrictions and rules imposed by an educational system defined by dogma. Wing and...

The treatment of sapphic love in films could be an uncomfortable toss-up between tragedy and bliss, but “The First Girl I Loved” does neither of these. Co-directed by Candy Ng Wing-shan and Chiu Hoi Yeung, the entry to the 2021 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival and 2022 Osaka Asian Film Festival instead explores the liminal space between the two, where love simply evolves and is not punctuated by anything.

“The First Girl I Loved” is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

The film tells the story of Lee Wing Nam and Sylvia Lee Sum Yuet and how their romance blossoms in a Catholic all-girls school in Hong Kong during their youth, only to see its certitude challenged as they slowly enter the realm of adulthood. The hurdles to their love first come in the form of institutions, with restrictions and rules imposed by an educational system defined by dogma. Wing and Sylvia...

In Anselm Chan’s debut full-length film, dark comedy blends with romance in a twisted exploration of love and commitment. Although closed-minded and traditional in its execution, “Ready O/R Knot” still has a significant number of darkly comedic moments.

“Ready O/R Knot” is Screening as Part of Asian Pop-up Cinema Season 12

Chan’s movie follows Guy and Heidi five years into their relationship, and faced with a serious dilemma: Whether or not it is time to marry and form a family. They are equally in love, and their relationship is going strong. But while Heidi is ready to settle down and believes that marriage is proof of one’s everlasting love, Guy holds the belief that marrying Heidi will result in him being tied down to a woman that he will one day grow distant from. Heidi consults her girlfriends for advice, and Guy consults the guys. What...