words yvonne teh

bc sneaks a peak at some of the more notable movies from the 32nd HK International Film Festival.

Some days it can feel like there is never a time in Hong Kong some sort of festival isn’t going on. And we don’t mean a small, brief local affair but the sort of bumper event that goes on for weeks and in several venues on both sides of Victoria Harbour simultaneously. The kind that offers a plethora of experiences, yet threatens to overwhelm those who feel so spoiled for choice they end up wishing they could be in several places at once – or, at least, have a modicum of help to sort through the programming and catch enticing gems they might otherwise have overlooked.

With that in mind, bc previewed the over four-weeks-long 36th HK Arts Festival that draws to a close on March 16. Now, we are doing the same for an even larger – in terms of numbers on the programme, if nothing else – event that will begin the day after: the 32nd HK International Film Festival (HKIFF), which includes mouth-watering programmes on a pair of film masters not scheduled to begin until a few days after the festival has officially come to an end!

For those wondering what all this fuss is about, be assured that it really is not that easy to figure out what to see in a film festival that over 20 days screens close to 300 films from 46 countries. And, even more daunting, in venues as far apart from each other as the HK Film Archive in Sai Wan Ho, the UA Langham Place in Mongkok and the Grand Cinema at Elements are, and with as many as five full-length features screening at the same venue in a single day.

So, even if you have no intention of indulging, at least spare a thought for the committed festival goer you are likely to spot hurrying frantically from one screening to another and looking increasingly bleary-eyed the longer the day and festival go on. Yet should you wish to get your own dose of film-festing, what follows is a diverse but digestible sample of HKIFF offerings that should be worth losing some hours of your precious sleep to see:

Opening Film: Kabei – Our Mother
(March 18 and 24)
Yoji Yamada’s long-running Tora-san series guarantees the Japanese filmmaker as well as the series’ kind-hearted vagabond protagonist a place in the hearts of many of their countrymen and women. His Samurai Trilogy, comprising The Twilight Samurai (2002), The Hidden Blade (2004) and Love and Honour (2006), has won him considerable international acclaim in recent years. But rather than rest on his laurels, the 77-year-old director continues to show with this female-centric, family-focused period drama set in early 1940’s Tokyo that he still has a lot that is substantive to say. The 80th film of Yamada’s long career, Kabei – Our Mother is based on a memoir by a former script supervisor for Akira Kurosawa. Regardless of where they hail from, HKIFF viewers will undoubtedly find its themes, including the suppression of dissent, still have relevance today.

Gala Premieres: Mongol (March 23 and 26)
Even though it clocks in at a formidable 120 minutes, Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol is but the first of a proposed trilogy of films about the great Genghis Khan. A historical epic that spans the period from 1172 to 1206, this section of the saga traces the formative years of the legendary conqueror of half the world. Shot on locations in Kazakhstan and the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, the Mongolian language movie that was Kazakhstan’s Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee’s multi-national cast is led by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano and includes Mainland China’s Sun Hong Lei, several Mongolian thespians and a group of Kazakh and Kyrgyz stunt riders.

Asian Digital Competition:
Flowers in the Pocket (March 23 and 28)
Debutant feature film helmer Liew Seng Tat’s Flower in the Pocket comes to the HKIFF on the back of appearances at a fair few other international film festivals (including Rotterdam, where it garnered a Tiger Award, and Pusan, where it was bestowed the New Currents and KNN Audience awards). Unusually for a film festival favourite, this charming bilingual offering is as unpretentious as it is funny and poignant. An example of what has become known as the Malaysian New Wave so well-represented in HKIFF programmes in recent years, it revolves around two motherless brothers whose emotionally distant father often leaves them to their own devices, prompting them to get into all sorts of gentle mischief.

Gala Presentation: The Counterfeiters
(March 21 and April 4)
This thriller cum drama from Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky tells the true story of a disparate group of Jewish artists, financiers and swindlers secretly interred in a concentration camp and made part of the Nazis’ Operation Bernhard, a scheme aimed at undermining the Allies’ economy by flooding the world with phoney British pound notes and American dollars. Centring on one of Europe’s greatest forgers in particular, The Counterfeiters poses the question as to whether it is better to fight for what you believe in and face certain death or co-operate with the enemy to save your own skin. In the process, this year’s Foreign Language Film Oscar winner suggests that surrendering your soul and humanity may be worse than losing your life altogether.

Master Class: Encounters at the End of the World
(March 28 and April 1)
Cineastes familiar with the remarkable filmography of the individual behind Encounters at the End of the World would expect no less. Nevertheless, at the start of his South Pole-situated documentary, iconoclastic auteur Werner Herzog (Aguirre, Wrath of God) feels obliged to assure viewers that he did not travel to Antarctica to make another film about penguins! Instead, it is the “professional dreamers” among the frozen continent’s small scientific community that he and his director of photography, Peter Zeitlinger, choose to train their gaze on for the most part. And, of course, the amazing landscapes of the world’s most sparsely populated continent!

Hong Kong Panorama 2007-2008: Besieged City (March 22 and 28)
South African-born filmmaker Lawrence Lau (aka Lawrence Ah Mon) has not made a new feature film for a while, so it is a bit of a surprise to find that the HKIFF will host the world premiere of one film co-directed and another entirely helmed by him! Besieged City is by far the more depressing and gruelling of these two offerings. At the same time, there is little doubt this dramatic movie set in the City of Sadness that is Tin Shiu Wai is a powerful work – a film to definitely see if only to get a very good idea of what living hell can be like and why those who undergo it can so very easily lose hope.

Global Vision: It’s Hard To Be Nice
(March 27 and 30)
The title is in English but the dialogue is not, for director-scriptwriter Srdan Vuletic’s second feature film actually hails from Bosnia and Herzegovina. And while it is as hard to be nice as the work’s title suggests – and especially in a post-war society where values have been damaged as much as buildings – that is indeed what the film’s middle-aged taxi driver protagonist from Sarajevo seeks to do. That, and try to change his life and take charge of his destiny. Will he succeed? Is that even really the point? That you can only find out, and more, should you decide to give this work, which will have its Asian premiere at the HKIFF, a try.

The One and Only Edward Yang (1947-2007)
(April 12-27)
The late Edward Yang, who finally lost his seven-year battle with cancer on June 27, 2007, is the subject of a complete retrospective that features in the HKIFF programme but whose films’ screenings will take place between April 12 and 27. The visionary filmmaker’s A Brighter Summer Day may be considered his masterpiece and Yi Yi may have garnered the most film honours – it won the American National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics Circle awards for Best Film, and Yang the Best Director prize at Cannes, among others – but strong cases can be made for pretty much every other work in this sublime programme being worth checking out.

The 32nd HK International Film Festival officially starts on March 17 and runs to April 6. For complete ticket and programme information, go to www.hkiff.org.hk