Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2019: from Lion Rock to My Prince Edward, 12 exciting new Hong Kong films to see
- For Hong Kong film fans used to moaning about being fed cookie-cutter police thrillers, event offers an impressive line-up of new movies that avoid the genre
- Alex Lam, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, and Chu Pak-hong are among the stars who appear, and Ten Years contributor Chow Kwun-wai is back with his second feature
Fans who bemoan the Hong Kong film industry for becoming an assembly line of cookie-cutter police thrillers are in for a treat at the upcoming Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. Now in its 16th year, the annual showcase features an impressive slate of Hong Kong films – all, remarkably, made by new or emerging filmmakers with a clear affinity for the city.
We take a look at 12 of the most exciting titles in the programme.
1. Lion Rock
The first of this year’s two opening films is based on the inspirational true story of Lai Chi-wai, an elite climber who was left a paraplegic following a traffic accident in 2011. Having played with horror-comedy conventions in his 2015 feature debut, the social satire Get Outta Here , director Nick Leung Kwok-pun again channels the fighting spirit of Hong Kong people in a whimsical tale. He draws from Alex Lam Tak-shun possibly his best performance to date. (October 29 and November 4)
2. Ciao UFO
The festival’s other opening film is a quintessentially Hong Kong story. Directed by Patrick Leung Pak-kin (Simply Actors), the sci-fi comedy uses an urban legend – of UFO sightings from a public housing estate in Aberdeen, in Hong Kong’s southwest, in the 1980s – as a vehicle to tell a deeply human story about life’s many disappointments. A must-see for fans of 2000s pop idols Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin, Chui Tien-you and Wong You-nam. (October 29 and November 6)
