WILD CHILD Allen Fong, 1977
Winner of the Gold Prize, Fifth Asia-Pacific Youth Film Festival
«The wild child is Allen Fong's paean to childhood. It is a nostalgic and, at times, heart-breaking recollection of innocence and growing up. A boy is taken by his mother to stay with grandmother who lives in the vicinity of a cemetery. The boy is inducted into a group of children who earn pocket money from cementery duties. The children form a community apart and their frolics in the cemetery ground constitute a free and inspiring wold -a kind of dream bubble that will burst with the intrusion of adults and the children's own sense of growing up and facing up to responsibility. This is Allen Fong's universal theme and it's one that wormed its way into Fong's picture. Thus, The wild child is an essential marker in Fong's career -a small little gem of a film, beautifully done and invested with jus the kind of feeling that make for pure cinema». Hong Kong new wave, twenty years after
OLD PLOUGH Allen Fong, 1978
Small rice shop proprietor Old Plough is still unmarried despite being in his fifties. When he hears that one can marry a Thai bride for just ten thousand-odd dollars, he takes the plunge and finds himself wedded to a beautiful young Thai girl. Unable to comprehend each other's language, the couple's life together is dull and tedious -- a situation not helped by Old Plough's discovery that his wife was pregnant prior to coming to Hong Kong. One day, he returned home to find his wife gone...
NIGHTWALKER Allen Fong, 1978
A reporter specializing in corering breaking news spends his nights cruising around, seeing every dark side of human existence. One night, an innocent young boy made him smile for the first time in a long while, and the two enjoyed a ride together. But when he subsequently covered a traffic accident, the victim turned out to be...
ODE TO UN CHAU CHAI Allen Fong, 1977
«The song of Yuen Chau Chai is one of the Allen Fong's early efforts at social-realism. Yuen Chau Chai is a fishing village in the New Territories. A young married fisherman lives with his family on board a fishing vessel that is permanently beached -"stranded between the sea and the land", as a prefatory title puts it. The fisherman has five children dependent on him, and an old father who gathers kelp when the tide is down. The fisherman is frustrated by his life: he must "sail further away in pursuit of smaller catches" and his meagre earnings are all spent on gambling (stealing his wife's money for this purpose). The man finally leaves to go further inland in search of a job, leaving his wife to tend after the children. The episode ends with a couple of foreign tourist taking pictures of the wife washing her son by the water pipe. Fong's realism is embellished with disarming poetic brush strokes, such as the scenes of children playing around a putrid part of the beach catching live rats ». Hong Kong new wave, twenty years after
CHOICE OF DREAMS Allen Fong, 1978
Several women form Taiwan came to Hong Kong in search of their dreams. Blessed with a beautiful voice, Lin Mei-Yun dreamt of making the leap from lounge singer to pop star. Ah Ching and Siu-Fung, originally roommates, become bitter enemies over the issue of finding work. Free-spirited writer Tang Hsian embroils hemself in affairs with a poet, a photographer and a writer, but after the passion is over, will she be able to find her true soul-mate?
NEW LIFE Allen Fong, 1979
After being released from prison, repeat offender Lam Sai-Song received neither compassion from his family nor acceptance by friends and relatives. Nevertheless, he refused to give up himself, and worked hard in the hope of supporting himself. However reality makes every step of a struggle.
ROAD Ann Hui, 1978
Tsui-Fong is a drug addict who has added misfortune of being abandoned by her boyfriend after she becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, to feed her drug habit, dance-hall girl Siu-Lai willingly ends up the kept woman of a Triad boss. Can social worker Mrs Lee set these two women down the path to a new and better life?
«The Road is Ann Hui's incisive look at the drug problem as it affects women, here a mother and daughter (plus a sub-plot involving another young woman). The mother licks her addiction in a treatment centre and it is now the daughter's turn, prodded on by the nurse in the centre who pays her a visit. Carol Cheng delivers another well-considered performance as the daughter: she quitely expresses the inner turmoil of an addict, well aware that her addiction has affected the lives of all around her. She must give up the addiction for the sake of her mother, and her own young daughter (as her mother may relapse into addiction and the young girl may be influenced into using drugs herself). The performances are heartwarming. Hui's stance is nonjudgmental and her sympathy for the characters is apparent.» Hong Kong new wave, twenty years after
BRIDGE Ann Hui, 1978
A wooden bridge across a highway is a vital route for the residents of a squatters' area. When the government suddenly announces that the bridge is to be dismantled. it raises the residents' ire and leads to a series of protests. An expatriate radio reporter covering the affair resigns in disgust after experiencing obstruction. It is not until a child being run over while crossing the highway that things begin to turn around...
«The Bridge is one of Arm Hui's best works in her TV period, gaining in resonance as a complementary work to Hui's newest film, the extraordinary Ordinary Heroes. The dismantling of a pedestrian bridge brings about inconveniences to the residents of a neighbouring public housing estate. All the vested interests involved - the politicians, civil servants, journalists, activists from pressure groups, opportunistic residents, etc - offer mutually contradictory perspectives for a solution. The Bridge is thus incredibly broad and complex for a short TV film (it runs just under 50 minutes). Sometimes it plays like an intimate drama, at other times it offers vignettes of social drama, and even political drama. The apparent dichotomies of perspective make for a vocal, surprisingly mature work.» Hong Kong new wave, twenty years after
FROM VIETNAM Ann Hui, 1978
Considered the prequel in Ann Hui's 'Vietnam Trilogy", this is the story of Ah Man, an illegal immigrant from Vietnam whose life seems to get on track after his cousin Yin takes him in. When he accidentally discovers that Yin works as a male prostitute, he is deeply shocked and resolves to run away from home...
«The Boy from Vietnam is Ann Hui's first part of her Vietnam trilogy that includes he, cinematic features The Story of Woo Viet and The Boat People. A Vietnamese box flees to Hong Kong by boat and tries to assimilate himself into Hong Kong society together with other Vietnamese refugees, including the boy's cousin who had arrived earlier, and an artist whom the boy befriends. The boy soon learns that life in Hong Kong has its drawbacks, e.g. he discovers that his cousin works as a male prostitute, Hong Kong is seen as a transit point from where the refugees may go on to the United States. From his flashbacks (more proof of Hui's fondness for the technique, which she has keenly displayed in several of her TV works), we learn about the boy's traumatic experiences in Vietnam - but the trauma continues in Hong Kong even as the boy seeks solace and security (and is by no means sure that Hong Kong will accept him).» Hong Kong new wave, twenty years after
WHERE ARE YOU GOING? Ann Hui, 1992
Renowned singer-songwriter Hou Dejian becomes a figure of public condemnation after the events at Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989, for stating that he "didn't see anyone get killed'. The programme includes interviews with leaders of the student movement, interspersed with sequences re-enacted by Hou himself. Under pressure from the Chinese government and faced with ridicule from the Taiwanese people, is there anywhere he can find refuge?
SUNRISE SUNSET Cheung Man-yee, 1975
Awarded the 3rd Asia-Pacific Young Filmmakers Festival's Prize of Distinction
In the early 70's, slum dwellers are doomed to living with loud noise, ovecrowding and the utmost dilapidation. Amidst unceasing fights and quarrels, everyone is oblivious to the plight of others until the sudden demise of an old man and the outbreak of a fire brings home to them the importance of mutual support and community spirit.
GRANDMOTHER'S PRAYER Wong Wah-kay, 1974
A news special reveals the hardship faced by some 5.000 boat people in Aldrich Bay, who live in a cramped and unsanitartyawaits environment, with no water for either drinking or flushing their waste. All they can do is pray to the gods for a better life, but the government's 10-year housing construction scheme brings them a tiny spark of hope.
THE OLD COUPE Wong King-kein, 1987
A 60 years-old husband leaves home to live on his own: his wife wants a divorce. Their four children are anxious to save their parents' marriage in their twilight years, but have family problems of their own to deal with, and none of them are willing to shoulder the
burden of caring for their aged mother.
HOME Wong Lo-tak, 1992
Awarded the 29th Chicago International Film and TV Festival's Prize of Distinction
Lynn, her husband and their daughter emigrated to San Francisco one after another. The relation among the trio is unstable. Lynn's mother from the mainland who has been separated from her daughter for over 20 yews, comes to see Lynn in Hong Kong. Mother and daughter break the ice and develop a mutual understanding. The story depicts the pressure on familial relationship brought about by the wave of emigration it.
UNCLE SO Yung Wai-mi, 1985
Awarded the 21st Chicago International Film and TV Festival's Prize of Distinction
Uncle So leaves home to lead an independent life. At first, he was pleased with finding an ideal job at an antique shop at Hollywood Road; but later disillusioned by the manipulation of the owner of the shop, he ends up
PAW Wong Sum, 1977
A pawnshop could tell stories of all walks of life. The story goes that a thief who stole a gold pen meets a down and out old writer. The thief gradually becomes sympathetic to the writer who has to pawn his antique collection, even at the cost of his life. The Chinses character "pawn" depicts the sentiments of ordinary and powerless individuals.
