The Hong Kong Film Panorama, organised at the initiative of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Brussels, has started its 2009-2010 European tour in Antwerp, Belgium, where it will be showing until the end of May 2009.  Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid and Barcelona will follow.

Presenting some of the latest Hong Kong productions, selected with the help of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, the Panorama has become a popular annual event on the calendar of film enthusiasts in some of Europe’s capitals and main cities. This is the seventh year in succession that the Panorama is being hosted by the Antwerp Film Museum.

Included in this year’s programme are Johnny To’s Sparrow, two crime thrillers (Law Wing-cheong’s Tactical Unit – Comrades in Arms and Derek Kwok’s The Moss), Heiward Mak’s coming-of-age drama High Noon, Lawrence Lau’s surprising City Without Baseball and two non-fiction films, Herman Yau's True Women For Sale and Angie Chen’s This Darling Life, all films made in 2008 or 2009.

In addition, there will be a tribute to iconic director Tsui Hark, with his films Once Upon a Time in China (parts I, II and III), The Legend of Zu and Shanghai Blues.  It is 25 years since Tsui Hark founded his Film Workshop. In the 1980s and 1990s, Tsui Hark was so active as a director, writer, producer and talent spotter that his name became almost synonymous with Hong Kong films.

He made films in every known genre and launched new talent both behind and in front of the camera (John Woo, Chow Yun-fat, Jet Li, Ching Siu-tung and Brigitte Lin).  He either invented or breathed new life into the genres typical of Hong Kong films in the 1980s and 1990s (‘heroic bloodshed’, spook romance, kung fu epic, futuristic fantasy, Shanghai musical). Tsui sees himself as a guardian of ancient Chinese culture rather than just a filmmaker.

Opening reception

Special Representative for Hong Kong Economic and Trade Affairs to the European Communities, Miss Mary Chow, told around 200 guests at the opening reception (see attached photos) on 6 May that the Government has been promoting creative industries, including the film industry, in Hong Kong by creating an environment that is conducive to the arts.

“In this regard, we have embarked on an ambitious project to develop artistic and cultural life in our city. We will convert a 40-hectare harbourfront site into a cultural district. The West Kowloon Cultural District, as it will be called, will boast 15 new performing arts venues of different types, including a concert hall, theatres and a museum for 20th and 21st century art.

“The future waterfront cultural district will provide a platform to show the world the best in Chinese culture and to bring the best cultural and arts programmes and exhibitions from all over the world to Hong Kong. The first phase of this new development will come on stream in 2015.”.

Miss Chow said that the film industry in Hong Kong has built a reputation for creativity comparable to the best in the world.  She noted that the film ‘Vengeance’, by one of Hong Kong’s most successful directors, Johnnie To, has been selected to compete for the Golden Palm at the Cannes International Film Festival later this month. 

“The Hong Kong SAR Government wants to help all the other budding Johnnie Tos in our film industry.  In recent years, it has sought to nurture new talent by helping to finance small to medium-budget films.  With this in mind, the Government has injected some HK$300 million into the Film Development Fund.” 

The Hong Kong Film Panorama will be held from 2 to 31 May 2009 at the Filmmuseum:
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PROGRAMME (click on the document top right for programme in Dutch)

To see stills of the films, click here

SATURDAY 2 MAY  -  20:00
Once Upon A Time in China I

The first part of Tsui Hark’s trilogy about the legendary Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung (1847-1924), a herbalist and Confucianist, skilled in the arts of war, who fought poverty and injustice.

End of the 19th century. All over China, the growing influence of the West is being felt.  Foreign ways disrupt the traditional order.  Firearms constitute a threat to the ancien arts of combat.  A new commander, in collusion with the colonisers, forces Wong Fei-hung to disband his martial arts school, seeing it as a threat to his power. When Wong’s girlfriend is kidnapped to be sold as a prostitute, Wong is forced to make a move.

Together the three parts of the trilogy form what is probably the ultimate kung fu epic.

> HK 1991 > Director : Tsui Hark
> Starring Jet Li, Biao Yuen, Rosamund Kwan, Jacky Cheung, Steve Tartalia
> 112’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

SUNDAY 3 MAY - 20:00
Tactical Unit - Comrades in Arms

Johnnie To’s characters from PTU are back in this sequel produced by him. 

Rival sergeants Wah and Maggie have one more mission to accomplish before their teams are disbanded. A gang of armed robbers holed up in the hills above Hong Kong must be flushed out. The members of the team hate each other and their morale is severely tested: the terrain is rough and dangers lurk around every corner. 

Tactical Unit is a variation on the tried and tested genre formula of the disfunctional group, whose members have to put aside their differences to operate as a close-knit team.

> HK 2009 > Director: Wing-cheong Law
> Starring Simon Yam, Maggie Siu, Suet Lam, Samuel Pang, Chi-yin Wong, Vincent Sze
> 90’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles
 
WEDNESDAY 6 MAY  - 20:00
Sparrow (Man Jeuk)

Kei, nicknamed Sparrow, is an experienced and carefree pickpocket.  One day he and his gang are approached by a breathtakingly beautiful girl.  Each member of the gang falls for her in turn, but she has a mysterious past and soon reveals what she really wants from them. 

Johnnie To seduces and titillates the viewer in turn with his captivating mix of film noir, musical and melodrama (his favourite Hollywood genres), Cary Grant and Stanley Donen, nouvelle vague and French musical. In the final scene, Kei is challenged by a gangster in an absurd but brilliantly choreographed pickpocketing scene with umbrellas in the rain (a nod to Jacques Demy’s elegant Les Parapluies de Cherbourg).

> CH/CH/HK 2008 > Director: Johnny To
> Starring Simon Yam, Kelly Lin, Lam Ka-tung
> 87’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

THURSDAY 7 MAY  - 19:00
Once Upon A Time in China II

Episode two of the China saga which is even better than the first. The climax fight between kung fu superstars Jet Li and Donnie Yen is the best in the genre.

In this version of one of China’s most popular legends, Wong Fei-hung is a frustrated hero. He is torn between two factions: that of San Yat-sen, who is fighting the corrupt imperial leadership, and that of the clan of the White Lotus, a mystic Buddhist cult which preaches a hatred of foreigners (and is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution under Mao).

> HK 1992 > Director: Hark Tsui
> Starring David Chiang, Rosamund Kwan, Jet Li
> 112’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

FRIDAY 8 MAY -  20:00
City Without Baseball

What was intended to be a documentary about baseball in a city where the game is as good as inexistant quickly became a feature film when it appeared that the members of the HK Baseball Team were prepared to play themselves in a dramatised version of their lives on the pitch and off.

Tai is the team’s new Taiwanese coach.  Chung is the charismatic star player, and Ron is a new, talented player who is still unsure of himself and of his place in the group.  The very manly Chung tries to save a girl from suicide, while Ron has relationship problems: his girlfriend is cheating on him and he has ambiguous feelings for Chung. 

City Without Baseball is unmistakeably a Hong Kong film, but one that goes against all expectations: with an unusual amateur cast, sexual themes, postmodern reflection and frontal male nudity.

> HK 2008 > Director: Lawrence Lau
> Starring Leung Yu-Chung, Ron Heung, Gia Lin, Monie Tung, Man-Lei, John Tai
> 100’ > English subtitles

SUNDAY 10 MAY  - 20:00
Once Upon A Time in China III

China around the year 1900, during the Qing dynasty. The Empress decides to organise an exhibition tournament with the aim of pitching the various nationalities that have settled in China against one another in combat.  But her plan fails. It is the various Chinese factions that engage in a struggle.
Wong Fei-hung travels to Beijing to visit his father.  The latter is sparring with his rival, Chiu Tin Bai, who is determined to win first prize at the tournament.

China III is by far the most ambitious and epic part of the triology. The spectacular combat scenes surpass anything else in the genre. What Sergio Leone did for the Wild West, Tsui Hark did for 19th century China with this triology.

> HK 1993 > Director: Tsui Hark
> Starring Rosamund Kwan, Lau Shun, Jet Li, Xiong Xin Xin
> 105’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

FRIDAY 22 MAY – 20:00
The Legend of Zu

The Legend of Zu is an update for the digital age of Tsui Hark’s own 1983 film Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain and is based on the 64-part epic of the same name.

Legend takes place in the mythical Zu mountains inhabited by an immortal race, the Omei.  The powerful Omei are threatened by an evil power, Insomnia, which wants to rule over the mountains, and Amnesia, a witch who wants to prove herself.  The leader of the Omei, White Eyebrows, will lead the fight against Insomnia together with the warriors King Heaven and Red.

Legend is a must-see for every gamer and hardcore fan of kung fu, sci-fi and fantasy films.

> HK/CH 2001 > Director: Tsui Hark
> Starring Ekin Cheng, Cecilia Cheung, Sammo Hung
> 104’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

SUNDAY 24 MAY – 20:00
The Moss

Jan is a corrupt policeman patrolling in the Sham Sui Po district, Hong Kong’s ‘Sin City’. He does deals with the local gangs and offers protection to prostitutes in exchange for their favours. Jan’s daily routine is disturbed when the son of Godmother Chong appears to be missing. The boy was last seen in the area of the city controlled by rival gang leader Tong. Chong asks Jan to find her son and confront Tong.

The Moss is a hyperactive hybrid of action movie and film noir, a typical urban thriller by the maker of The Pye Dog, shown last year.

> HK 2008 > Director: Derek Kwok
> Starring Shaw Yue, Bonnie Xian, Louis Fan, Shi Xueji, Eric Tsang
> 95’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

TUESDAY 26 MAY – 20:00
True Women For Sale 

This ‘sequel’ to Herman Yau’s prostitution drama Whispers and Moans, shown last year,  is a heartfelt and sensitive portrait of two women struggling to survive in Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po district.

They have chosen to sell not their body, but their womb (as the Chinese title of the film indicates). One is addicted to drugs, the other is a young pregnant woman from China who marries an older man so she can stay in Hong Kong. True Women is franker and more explicit than Whispers and Moans, but shows once again how the downtrodden manage to scape an existence in Hong Kong.

> HK 2008 > Director: Herman Yau
> Starring Prudence Liew, Anthony Wong, Race Wong, Sammy Leung
> 90’ > in Cantonese with English subtitles

THURSDAY 28 MAY -  20:00
This Darling Life

A lovingly-made documentary about the often bizare ties between dogs and their masters. 

Angie Chen (who together with Tsui Hark, Ann Hui and others belongs to Hong Kong’s New Wave, but no longer makes feature films)  interviewed a series of dog lovers, including herself, her brother Michael, Paul Wong (composer and lead guitarist of Beyond), Sally Andersen (founder of HK Dog Rescue, who single-handedly looks after 100 animals), a homeless man and his inseparable canine companion. Some of these people have long since turned their back on family members and the only love they still experience is for their four-legged friends. Angie Chen reveals a great deal more about the often extreme and eccentric forms that love for animals can take.
 
> HK 2008 > Director: Angie Chen
> With Angie Chen, Michael Chen, Paul Wong, Sally Andersen
> 80’ > English subtitles.

SATURDAY 30 MAY -  20:00
High Noon (Lie ri dang kong)

24-year-old Heiward Mak makes her debut with this portrait of teenagers growing up in Hong Kong (her film is part of the Winds of September project, a trilogy about teenagers in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong). Lam Yiu-sing is a boy who has just arrived at secondary school. He and his friends do what all teenagers do: fighting, singing karaoke, getting detention.  But their games take a dangerous turn when erotic cellphone videos, suicide, drug use and gang violence intervene.

Mak is a talent to be watched.  Her deliberately hypersaturated, expressionist style fits the raging adolescent emotions of her characters.

> HK 2008 >Director: Heiward Mak
> Starring Lam Yiu-Sing, Anjo Leung Hiu-Fung, Sham Ka-Kei, Jeremy Liu
106’ > English subtitles

SUNDAY 31 MAY -  20:00
Shanghai Blues

A musician and a singer meet under a bridge in Shanghai, where they are sheltering from a Japanese air raid.  In the dark they agree to meet again under the same bridge when the war is over.  Ten years later, the woman, now a singer in a nightclub, takes a country girl under her wing. The girl falls in love with the musician upstairs, who, unknown to the singer, appears to be the young man she met under the bridge all those years ago.

Shanghai Blues, Tsui’s first production for his Film Workshop company, is a retro musical completely in the spirit of the Shanghai and Hollywood comedies of the thirties and forties. Tsui mixes slapstick and sentiment, naive romance and sophisticated technique, as well as Hollywood ever could.

> HK 1984 > Director: Tsui Hark
> Starring Kenny Bee, Sally Yeh, Sylvia Chang
> 98’ > in Cantonese with English