Set in the early 1970s, it tells the story of a Chinese-Japanese student who returns to her native Hong Kong after graduating from a university in London. Once she arrives back home, she and her family begins to fight, largely due to cultural and societal conflicts between her mother and herself.Read More »
Ann Hui
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Ann Hui – Ke tu qiu hen AKA Song Of the Exile (1990)
Ann Hui1981-1990ArthouseDramaHong Kong -
Ann Hui – Tau ban no hoi AKA Boat People (1982)
1981-1990Ann HuiDramaHong KongQuote:
A landmark of the nascent Hong Kong New Wave of the early ’80s, this melodrama — directed by Ann Hui — concerns the plight of Vietnamese peasants shortly after the fall of Saigon. The film centers on a Japanese photojournalist named Shiomi Akutagawa (George Lam Chi-cheung) who ventures to Danang to document Vietnam’s attempts at rebuilding after the war. At first he’s bussed around by government officials showing off quaint villages and happy, healthy children. Later, he manages to get permission to wander about the countryside without a government chaperon. Soon he happens upon a young lass named Cam Nuong (Season Ma Si-san) who is from a desperately poor family.Read More » -
Ann Hui – Di yi lu xiang AKA Love After Love (2020)
2011-2020Ann HuiChinaDramaThe film tells the story of a young girl who travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong in pursuit of education, but ends up working for her aunt seducing rich and powerful men.Read More »
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Ann Hui – My Way (2012)
2011-2020Ann HuiArthouseHong KongShort FilmAnn Hui’s My Way—starring Francis Ng and Jade Leung—is about a pre-op transsexual man nervously waiting for his operation. It is a stylishly melancholic film, and defined by the moment when he goes to the hospital for the operation, goes to sleep in the male ward (next to a newspaper reading old man) and wakes as a woman in the female ward…and finally indulging in a smile of relief and happiness.Read More »
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John Reinhardt – Open Secret (1948)
1941-1950Ann HuiFilm NoirPoliticsUSAQuote:
It made me think of the Third Man, just the structure of how the story unfolds, like as if Rollo Martins was a married couple on their honeymoon stumbling onto the tail end of No Pockets in a Shroud.I actually picked this up because I always love John Ireland’s villain in Railroaded. and he definitely didn’t disappoint as the he-man hero husband in this one. In fact everyone did a great job – keep a look-out for the sinister, serpentine woman & her hell-spawn spouting poison in the street, a grand single-scene supporting performance. Well I liked it anyway, I doubt she got any awards, but true artists never do! Actors like that lady prefer to live in the shadows…Read More »
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Ann Hui – Qian yan wan yu AKA Ordinary Heroes (1999)
1991-2000Ann HuiAsianDramaHong KongSynopsis:
Critically-lauded but somewhat distant drama from Ann Hui.Review by Kozo (taken from Love HK FIlm):
Award-winning political drama from Ann Hui treads on rich territory and results in a noble, but emotionally lacking effort. Using the work of real-life activist Father Franco Mella (played here by Anthony Wong) as a guideline, Ordinary Heroes moves from the plight of the boat people through the tragedy at Tiananmen Square with a sweeping view of political activism in Hong Kong.
The situations and storytelling are top notch but ultimately the film proves a better portrait than a story. The film doesn’t try to educate viewers about Hong Kong’s political history, and instead concentrates on a long-unrequited romance between Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-Sheng and Loletta (now Rachel) Lee. Sadly, that plotline proves of tenuous interest, which isn’t helped any by Lee Kang Sheng’s obviously dubbed acting. The relationships, while affecting, don’t truly reach a conclusion in the film, which is sad because it seems that Hui is reaching for one.Read More » -
Ann Hui – Laam yan sei sap AKA July Rhapsody (2002)
2001-2010Ann HuiDramaHong KongYiu-Kwok is a high school teacher, having a perfect family. Good times don’t last long, when a student, Choy-Nam, falls in love with him. For dealing with a relationship with Mr. Seng, a beloved teacher of the couple, his wife Man-Ching requests a leave for a month. A midlife crisis mixing with pressure sends him into an emotional tailspin. Everything seems to lead him towards Choy-Nam, the forbidden fruit. History seems to repeat itself.Read More »
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Ann Hui – Tin shui wai dik ye yu mo AKA Night and Fog (2009)
2001-2010Ann HuiAsianDramaHong KongRussell Edwards at Variety:
Domestic violence gets a compelling once-over in Hong Kong vet Ann Hui’s “Night and Fog,” which rises above its low-budget limitations on the basis of its hot-button topic and stellar performances. Establishing an air of fatalism at the start, this is a distinctly grim companion piece to Hui’s 2008 pic, “The Way We Are,” which offered a more benign portrait of the same Hong Kong town. Hui’s home fanbase should ensure respectable B.O. upon release in May for a subject many would like swept under the carpet. Further afield, the pic will become a fixture of quality fest programs.Read More » -
Ann Hui – Jin ye xing guang can lan AKA Starry is the Night (1988)
1981-1990Ann HuiArthouseDramaHong KongA social worker falls in love with a teenager, and remembers an affair she had with a professor while she was at university.
Quote:
Cosmo Bjorkenheim@screenslate
“I spent a year at the Vidal Sassoon headquarters,” brags Lydia (Brigitte Lin), a sprightly social worker trying to impress Tian-An (David Ng), a stock market whiz kid and aspiring hairstylist. It’s a fitting overture for a movie brimming with striking hair, from Tian-An’s very 1987 mullet to Cai-Wei’s very 1966 bob-with-bangs, from Dr. Zhang’s (George Lam) caterpillar mustache to Lydia’s butch-adjacent boy-cut. It works; Tian-An falls for Lydia, and despite their nearly 20-year age difference, their relationship flourishes in health and happiness—or does it?Read More »
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