Hong Kong themes give hometown heroes an on-screen presence at HKIFF
There's a strong local element to some of the categories but many interests - global, new and old - are catered to in the city's annual celebration of movies, writes Yvonne Teh
Even before the Hong Kong Arts Festival ends on March 24, some local culture vultures are already looking ahead to another of the city's annual bumper cultural events.
The opening film will be a gala presentation and world premiere of Herman Yau Lai-to's Ip Man: The Final Fight. The director's second film about the wing chun master (the first is 2010's The Legend is Born) looks at Ip Man's later years in Hong Kong, rooting the immigrant from Foshan's story into the city's history and culture.
The festival's ambassador, singer and actress Miriam Yeung Chin-wah, has Yau's film as one of her top 10 picks from the line-up. "How could I miss the [festival's] opening film? People will be amazed by the rich elements of Hong Kong culture and history in this latest biopic of the wing chun master," she says.
Yeung reveals a serious side in her picks, with the majority being documentaries. Holocaust film Shoah, she says, is an epic that "is known as and will remain the greatest documentary ever made". Of Gulabi Gang, Yeung says: "We should all be inspired by the courage and conviction of the Gulabi Gang, an organisation of activists in India who stand up for the rights of women against abuse."
Choosing 'Ip Man', which is so rooted in the Hong Kong of the 1950s, pays homage to our city's rich history and helps show that Hong Kong cinema isn't dead
At the HKIFF's opening press conference, The Final Fight lead actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang said he was careful to ensure his Ip Man spoke with a Foshan accent, and to show how his character grew to feel at home in Hong Kong after moving here in 1949.