The 10 best movies of Ann Hui, Venice Film Festival 2020 lifetime achievement awardee

A six-time winner of best director at the Hong Kong Film Awards, something no other filmmaker can match, Ann Hui has had a career spanning five decades

Picking a top 10 from her roster of consistently excellent films is a tough one, but Post film editor Edmund Lee gives it his best shot

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Andy Lau and Deanie Ip in a still from A Simple Life (2011), directed by Ann Hui.

Published: 7:24pm, 21 Jul 2020Updated: 5:42pm, 4 Mar 2021

Ann Hui On-wah is not a household name among the world’s film-goers, but the 73-year-old icon of Hong Kong cinema is, as a matter of objective fact, the most celebrated filmmaker in a city renowned globally for producing actor Jackie Chan and directors John Woo and Wong Kar-wai.

Hui has been named best director a record six times at the Hong Kong Film Awards – for Boat People (awarded in 1983), Summer Snow (1996), The Way We Are (2009), A Simple Life (2012), The Golden Era (2015) and Our Time Will Come (2018) – even though she has directed fewer than 30 feature films in a career that has spanned five decades.

For anyone in the know, there is no doubt Hui more than deserves the lifetime achievement award she will be presented with at this year’s Venice Film Festival, and which was announced on Monday by festival organisers.

“I am very happy and honoured to be given this prize, especially at this time teeming with bad news,” Hui told the Post when reached for comment on the award announcement. “But apart from my personal glory, being given this prize means that Hong Kong filmmakers are good, and that’s what I’m most happy about!”

Ann Hui poses during a photocall to promote her film A Simple Life at the 2011 Venice Film Festival. Photo: EPA-EFE

It could be fun to watch her receive the award, seeing how modest she is – and how awkward she has always been with fame and celebrity.

The 10 best movies of Ann Hui, Venice Film Festival 2020 lifetime achievement awardee

A six-time winner of best director at the Hong Kong Film Awards, something no other filmmaker can match, Ann Hui has had a career spanning five decades Picking a top 10 from her roster of consistently excellent films is a tough one, but Post film editor Edmund Lee gives it his best shot

A six-time winner of best director at the Hong Kong Film Awards, something no other filmmaker can match, Ann Hui has had a career spanning five decades

Picking a top 10 from her roster of consistently excellent films is a tough one, but Post film editor Edmund Lee gives it his best shot