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In his article “The Television Work of Ann Hui”, Shu Kei asserts that “when Hui was first employed by Tvp, the station had largely taken over the functions of Cantonese cinema in the fifties and sixties: i.e. to provide mass entertainment” He also reminds us that many young filmmakers who worked in television between 1976-78 — the Golden Age of Hong Kong television — used the industry as a stepping stone to enter the big screen. Collectively they became a force to be reckoned with… to herald the Hong Kong New Wave,' a phenomenon which many people then considered pregnant with possibilities.”. While Hong Kong film lovers mourn the drowning in commercialism of the hopes generated by the New Wave, it is again to television that Hui turned back to make innovative work. “The Prodigal's Return” was produced by her “alma mater,” Radio Television Hong Kong. (source: Berénice Reynaud (from...

In the godforsaken satellite city of Tuen Mun. 13-year-old Cookie suspects she's pregnant. Lately, things have not been going her way. Her mother left; her father ignores her; her best friend is in reform school; and her boyfriend Is off selling bootleg VCDs in bustling Mong Kok. Flanked by her ride-or-dies Banana, Sissy, and Bean Curd, she journeys into town to find an abortionist.

Director Lawrence Lau updates his 1988 debut Gangs—a shocking account of underage Triads— with an all-girls cast surviving on the lowest rungs of gang life after the bosses have long gone legit. Swimming in turn-of-century malaise, this Category Ill youth drama offers a slice of urban grime as our quartet, who can only rely on themselves, navigate drug abuse, bad boyfriends, and library books way past their due dates. Produced by Johnnie To (Election) and written by Lo Chi-leung (Viva Erotica).

This edition includes:

★New 2K...

Join Focus Hong Kong, the only UK film festival dedicated to celebra7ng the amazing cinema and filmmakers of Hong Kong, at The Garden Cinema in London on Saturday 24 June to experience two classics of contemporary Hong Kong cinema on the big screen. Going beyond the usual representations of Hong Kong productions via older genre cinema, the programme features two very different but equally fascina7ng and authentic looks at Hong Kong since the 1997 Handover, including Leung Ming-kai and Kate Reilly's Memories to Choke On, Drinks to Wash Them Down, an anthology mixing the personal and the political through four gently provocative stories of everyday people, and Fruit Chan's searing 1997 masterpiece Made in Hong Kong, a shocking, violent look at Handover-era Hong Kong youth.

Tickets are on sale now: https://focushongkong.uk/strand/june-2023/

Memories to Choke On, Drinks to Wash Them Down features four stories, which show how fiction and fact,...