Hong Kong in Film: 2024
Well, look at that. In the new movie world order Hong Kong had a moment.
Remember last year, when we mentioned the theory floating around about a possible Hong Kong film renaissance being underway? It could be true, even if it’s a soulless one – according to Johnnie To at least. Hollywood types (and, yeah, their counterparts in Korea, Europe, India…) are bemoaning the state of the box office, but at the same time they’re pumping out endless streams of IP, sequels, prequels, sidequels, reboots and spin-offs, and taking entirely the wrong lessons from last year’s Barbenheimer phenomenon. Audiences didn’t respond to Mattel; they responded to creativity. That’s less the case in Hong Kong for myriad reasons – the Infernal Affairs franchise is done, though no one would put it past Donnie Yen to crank out a fifth Ip Man film – and the industry is more focused on finding a way forward in a vastly different global marketplace. Nonetheless, let’s take a look at the last 12 months in the fragrant harbour.
10. sTuck in the ’90s…
Your personal feelings about Andy Lau Tak-wah, are irrelevant vis à vis Hong Kong’s movie star machine. In his quest for Liam Neeson geriaction fixture status, Lau starred in I Did It My Way, High Forces and Cesium Fallout this year, each bonkers in its way but indicative of a larger problem plaguing Hong Kong cinema: Why is Andy Lau doing these? Working since 1982 (!) Lau should be segueing into edifying character roles like Ed Harris, scruffy working class schlubs like Song Kang-ho or shady badasses like Vincent Cassel by now. But Lau and Francis Ng Chun-yu (Crisis Negotiators), Jacky Cheung Hok-yau and Nicholas Tse Ting-fung (Customs Frontline), Ekin Cheng Yee-kin (Last Song for You), Louis Koo Tin-lok, Patrick Tam Yiu-man, Karen Mok Man-wai and a bunch of others are either loitering or getting pulled out of mothballs – and keeping Hong Kong stuck in the past. Even Donnie Yen Ji-dan is starting to worry about his knees. Guys, the 1990s aren’t coming back.
09. …But it’s not all Old Guard
Which doesn’t mean a clutch of young actors isn’t emerging alongside the recent bundle of directors also starting out, many showing potential for long careers. Collar Cantopop star Marf Yau Yin-tung and Sheena Chan Syu-yan were awesome in Riley Yip Yuk-ying’s debut Blossoms Under Somewhere, an empowering coming-of-age dramedy about high school girls selling their used undies. Okay, it’s more than that but that’s the hook, and Yau and Chan knock it out of the park. But Michael Cheung Tin-fu (Love Lies, The Prosecutor) and Locker Lam Ka-hei (the upcoming Fight for Tomorrow) had memorable turns – the former making a case to take the fight baton from Yen – as did Chung Suet-ying, Ho Kai-wah, Leung Chun-hang, Natalie Hsu Yan-yi, Adam Pak Tin-nam and Cecilia Choi Si-wan. Bonus: they’re not “emerging” but Michelle Wai Sze-na (The Last Dance) and Philip Ng Wan-lung (Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In) finally started getting some damn respect.
08. MIRROR, MIRROR
Is Mirror the gift that keeps on giving? The boy super-band burst out of gate way back in 2018 and at first it looked like it might burn out rather than fade away, but nope. The boys-now-men are still with us and were as omnipresent as ever in ’24. Though the crime comedy We 12 was goofy AF, it fell short of goofy band benchmarks like Spice World and the V6 vehicle Hard Luck Hero. Better? The Moon Thieves, not an official Mirror product but genuinely fun – particularly watching Keung To act “tough”. That’s adorable. Also this year: Ian Chan Cheuk-yin co-starred as a young Ekin Cheng (!) in Last Song for You, Edan Lui Cheuk-on cameoed in Philip Yung Chi-kwong’s in Papa, Stanley Yau Sze-chun had The Floating Generation, Yeung Lok-man and Keung had Cicada Cycle, and Keung and Yau co-starred in My Lovely Liar, all on ViuTV (duh). Guess 2025 will belong to the other half dozen.
07. What are we talking about exactly?
Environmental disaster. A paradigm shift in filmmaking. Unique funerary traditions. Phone scams and pig butchering. Independence and agency. A legal system unresponsive to mental illness. The invisible poor. Animal rescue. Addiction. A lack of spousal recognition and rights for LGBTQ+ partners. Jewellery heists. Up until this year, the FFFI-powered local industry was looking like one big blob of sameness, coming this close to misery porn and developing a reputation as a cinema of lonely unhappiness. Clearly Hong Kong’s filmmakers were getting bored of the grey too. The past year was all over the map narratively – basking in nostalgia one minute (Walled In) or aiming for bonkers Roland Emmerich-style disaster epic (Cesium Fallout), challenging rigidly patriarchal and exclusionary religion (The Last Dance) and examining the fallout of violence (Papa) the next. It was one of the most genre-diverse years in recent memory and we hope it continues.
06. REady for His close-up
Was it us, or was Terrance Lau Chun-him absolutely everywhere earlier this year? The unseen hand of the movie gods has been positioning Lau as the second coming of Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing ever since he played him in Anita. Trouble Girl started Lau’s year with a supporting role as a kind teacher, then came the premiere of Nick Cheung Ka-fai’s Peg O’ My Heart at Udine’s Far East Film Festival in April (coming soon). May was home to the one-two punch of the brazenly nutty A Balloon’s Landing, which leaned hard into the Cheung connection (“A Balloon’s Journey” was a major plot point) and the box office juggernaut Walled In, the all-timer until November. Stuntman dropped in September, finishing up a busy year. Lau has it in him to dial down the histrionics that can grip actors here, he’s handsome, and best of all he’s young. Cheung’s shoes are giant, and expecting him to film them is a big ask, but Lau could come close. Time will tell.
05. The Rise of the Legal Thriller
Legal thrillers are as old as the hills anywhere movies are made. They’re fun, usually filled with all manner of twists and turns, and they can also be wrapped inside other types of films – and vice versa. Case in point: Anatomy of a Fall. Back in 2022, Ho Cheuk-tin’s imperfect but creative and deliciously grisly The Sparring Partner kicked off a sudden interest in the genre here. In part, possibly, because cops and robbers thrillers have fallen out of favour, and partly because legal systems everywhere have increasingly gone under the microscope we’re all into watching legal manoeuvrings. Dayo Wong Chi-wah rode Jack Ng Wai-lun’s A Guilty Conscience to box office supremacy last year, legal wrangling figured prominently in Papa, and Yen’s The Prosecutor was about, yup, a lawyer who uses the law the right way! There was a lot of law in that; sadly Yen’s character didn’t go on a kung fu-fuelled revenge streak. Curious to see where this fixation goes.
04. No Dongs, Again
Evidently pearl clutching in Hong Kong is reserved for peen. Last year Todd Haynes’s May December got the snip snip (an awful thing to say in relation to penises) for a micro-flash of Charles Melton’s prosthetic dong after some consensual, adult sex. This year, the censors took issue with peen or peen-adjacent action in The Apprentice, in a gay (that’s important) orgy scene involving Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn character. Strangely, Ivana Trump’s alleged rape allegedly by Donald passed muster. As did the oodles of (straight) peen-free sex in Anora. WTF? Violence, of course, got a pass. As usual. We’ll never understand.
03. Girls, Girls, Girls
In an industry where women are still a shocking minority, sistahs in the SAR are damning the torpedoes and getting shit done. Sasha Chuk Tsz-yin got the ball rolling with her gentle family and identity drama Fly Me to the Moon in April, and the rest of year filled up with a crazy array of films from Ho Miu-ki (Love Lies, which premiered at HKIFF), Norris Wong Yee-lam (The Lyricist Wannabe), Berry Ho Kwok-man (We 12, yo!) and documentaries by Jessey Tsang Tsui-shan and Ka So-ue, (Winter Chants and Ah Cheung: Wings of Hope in limited release). The coming year already has two to watch lined up: Oliver Chan Siu-kuen’s follow-up to her award-winning debut Still Human, the brutally honest and wholly unmiraculous Montages of a Modern Motherhood (looking like April) and Veronica Bassetto and Sophie Yang’s Gamer Girls, which is not only a feminist spin on the gaming scene it could set a VFX and CGI benchmark for Hong Kong films. Stay tuned.
02. The Year of Wong
Ladies and gentlemen, Hong Kong’s own Matthew McConaughey. Starting with Agent Mr Chan in 2018, Dayo Wong went on a tear at the local box office. The one time stand up comedy trailblazer followed that modest success with a less modest if slightly more bizarre COVID hit in 2020, The Grand Grandmaster… and then he went bananas. Or audiences did: Table for Six (2022) was the picture of a stealth winner, but then came the city’s biggest box office hit ever: A Guilty Conscience. But, lo! That record only stood for about year, thanks to Anselm Chan Mau-yin’s The Last Dance, which Wong also toplined and which is still racking up ticket sales. Rags to riches could be applied here considering not too long ago Wong was box office poison: anyone want to revisit House of Mahjong? Nothing is Impossible? Didn’t think so. Whether it’s age or simply not wanting to get burned again, Wong rolled the dice and picked right three years running. Need proof he’s found a magic touch? Look at Table for Six 2 without him. Here’s to 2025.
01. We Got A Pulse here…
It’s hyperbolic to say Hong Kong had an amazing year at the box office. It didn’t. Receipts were down, as they were in a lot of places, and fret as producers might over shrinking audiences, high costs, AI, shitty CGI and a dearth of superstars, the sky isn’t falling. People like to go to the movies but the rush to catch the streaming bus created a market where we all say, “Looks shite. I’ll wait for Netflix/Apple/Disney+.” Hey, you made your bed. Still, give audiences something interesting, creative, resonant or awe-inspiring and they’ll come out. The Last Dance did that, and now it’s the city’s biggest grossing film ever (HK$144 million and counting). So did Walled In (HK$108M), Cesium Fallout (HK$41M), and the art house gang: Love Lies, Papa and buzzy late entries Last Song for You and running doc Four Trails. Original local fare trounced Mufasa: The Lion King, Moana 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Make it worth it and Hongkongers will still pay for Hong Kong Cinema.