Review | The Way We Talk movie review: Chung Suet-ying shines as a deaf woman new to sign language

Chung Suet-ying delivers a powerful performance in Adam Wong’s The Way We Talk, which explores identity and deaf culture with great humanity

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Chung Suet-ying in a still from The Way We Talk (category IIA, Cantonese, Hong Kong sign language), directed by Adam Wong. Neo Yau and Marco Ng co-star.

Published: 5:45pm, 19 Feb 2025

4.5/5 stars

In his six films to date, Hong Kong writer-director Adam Wong Sau-ping has repeatedly revealed a soft spot for protagonists who are trying to understand themselves and find their place in the world.

It was evident from a teenage boy’s discovery of his sexuality in Wong’s debut When Beckham Met Owen; the street-dancing dreams of university students in his breakout hit The Way We Dance; and the struggles of performing artists in navigating Hong Kong’s urban spaces in The Way We Keep Dancing.

But none of those come close to matching the immersive sense of soul-searching he evokes in The Way We Talk, his latest feature. This deeply humane drama about a trio of young deaf people is Wong’s best film yet by some distance.

Stepping into a big debate in deaf culture – the choice between using cochlear implants (surgically implanted electronic devices that improve hearing) or sign language – the film offers an articulate account of a deaf woman’s confusion amid advocation from both sides.

Chung Suet-ying, who was named best actress at the 2024 Golden Horse Awards in Taipei for her part, plays Sophie, a university graduate in actuarial science and the face of an awareness campaign for cochlear implants (CI), for which her mother (Yam Yuen Yee-man) signed her up shortly after she lost her hearing as a toddler.