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Asian cinema: Hong Kong film
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Lokman Yeung (left) and Lam Ka-tung in a still from “Mad Fate”. The crime thriller, directed by Soi Cheang, has been voted the best Hong Kong film of 2023 in the latest edition of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards.
LifestyleEntertainment

Soi Cheang’s Mad Fate wins best picture in 2023 Hong Kong Film Critics Society awards; Wu Kang-ren, Jennifer Yu pick up acting prizes

  • Mad Fate’s best picture win marks the second such honour for Cheang in three years, with his crime thriller Limbo scooping the same award in 2022
  • Best director went to Jonathan Li for Dust to Dust, while the acting awards went to Wu Kang-ren (Fly Me to the Moon) and Jennifer Yu (In Broad Daylight)
Asian cinema: Hong Kong film
Edmund Lee
Edmund Lee
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Soi Cheang Pou-soi’s crime thriller Mad Fate has been voted the best Hong Kong film of 2023 by a panel of critics, the Hong Kong Film Critics Society announced on January 15.

Starring Lam Ka-tung as a fortune-teller and Lokman Yeung as a young man tempted to commit his first murder, the film was described in the Post review as “part grisly murder mystery, part pitch-black absurdist comedy feverishly musing on destiny and free will”.
The film’s best picture win marks the second such honour for Cheang in three years, after his 2021 crime thriller Limbo was named best film in the same awards in January 2022.
The best director prize went to Jonathan Li Tsz-chun (The Brink) for his second feature, the mainland Chinese production Dust to Dust – a crime drama co-produced by Cheang and based on one of the largest armed robberies in Chinese history.
Da Peng (left) and Lam Ka-tung in a still from “Dust to Dust”.

New director Sasha Chuk Tsz-yin won best screenplay for her feature debut Fly Me to the Moon, a wistful coming-of-age drama in which she also plays one of the leading roles.

Chuk saw her co-star, the Taiwanese actor Wu Kang-ren, take home the best actor prize for his portrayal of a drug-addicted father.

In the best actress category, Jennifer Yu Heung-ying fended off competition from four other emerging actresses to win the award for her role as a tenacious investigative reporter in the fact-based journalism drama In Broad Daylight.
Wu Kang-ren in a still from “Fly Me to the Moon”.
Jennifer Yu in a still from “In Broad Daylight”.

Apart from Mad Fate, the society also named its eight recommended films of 2023:

  • Dust to Dust (directed by Jonathan Li)

  • Time Still Turns the Pages (dir. Nick Cheuk)

  • To Be Continued (dir. Dora Choi and Haider Kikabhoy)

  • Fly Me to the Moon (dir. Sasha Chuk)

  • In Broad Daylight (dir. Lawrence Kan Kwan-chun)

  • Elegies (dir. Ann Hui On-wah)
  • The Goldfinger (dir. Felix Chong Man-keung)

  • The Lyricist Wannabe (dir. Norris Wong Yee-lam)

Chung Suet-ying (left) and Amy Tang in a still from “The Lyricist Wannabe”.
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