The Way We Are (2008) is local doyen Ann Hui’s latest film which had its world premiere at this year’s HK International Film Festival but has yet to have a regular theatrical run. Cageman (1992) is a drama by director Jacob Cheung that beat out mega crowd-pleasers like Tsui Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China II and Stephen Chow starrer King of Beggars to bag the Best Film prize at the 12th Annual HK Film Awards. Made close to four decades ago, Man on the Brink (1981) is a movie about an undercover cop from writer-director-cinematographer Alex Cheung that foreshadows some of the developments in the 21st century box-office megahit Infernal Affairs (2002). An adaptation of a popular comic, The Kid (1950), boasts a precocious performance by a then eight-year-old Bruce Lee. These are but just four of the 16 thought-provoking films that make up a strong community-oriented programme currently running at the HK Film Archive.
With offerings from the world of cinema and TV productions by Radio Television HK (RTHK) and the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) that address a range of social issues, Care for Our Community aims, in the words of its publicists, “to enhance audiences’ interest in our city’s culture and social development”. Divided into four sections, the programme represents attempts by local filmmakers of different generations to voice their concerns about Hong Kong’s people and their community.
Community Through the Ages includes The Way We Are – Ann Hui’s contemporary look at daily life in Tin Shui Wai, the New Territories town with a reputation for being a City of Sadness – and Mud Child (1976), an effort centring on an impoverished couple who save a child during the kind of landslide that caused a considerable amount of damage and casualties in resettlement estates of that era. Under the Same Roof comprises films proving a housing shortage has been a major social problem in our overpopulated city for decades. It includes Faces and Places: The Diviner (1983), an RTHK episode directed by Lawrence Lau (aka Lawrence Ah Mon) drawing attention to individuals on the edge of society who frequent Temple Street, including a fortune-teller with problems of his own but also an ardent belief in life as a whole.
With films about cops and prostitutes, Public Order & Sex Workers contains the kind of characters most familiar to fans of local commercial cinema. Also familiar will be the faces in the movies of this section, with the late Roy Chiao and Damian Lau appearing in Ann Hui’s ICAC: The Investigation (1977), 1970’s sex goddesses Tanny Tien Ni, Betty Ting Pei and Tina Chin Fei starring in Patrick Lung Kong’s The Call Girls (1973) and Sylvia Chang giving an HK Film Awards Best Actress performance in Lawrence Lau’s Queen of Temple Street (1990).
Still other famous names and recognizable faces – including Andy Lau and the kung fu legend known to Cantonese speakers as Lee Siu Lung (Little Dragon Lee) – are to be found within the half dozen films in the programme’s largest section, Family Relations & Teenage Growth. Here too, you will find Father and Son (1981) and Ah Ying (1983), two of the three personal and real life-based offerings that made Allen Fong a triple HK Film Awards Best Director winner over a period of a little more than five years in the 1980s.
Unfortunately for those less than fluent in Cantonese, Fong’s films – as with a few other works like The Call Girls and the intriguing sounding Save Your Water Supply (1954) – are being screened without English subtitles. At the same time, we are pleased to report that the majority of the Care for our Community programme – including the vast majority of the works highlighted in this article – do come with English subtitles. (Besides the titles already mentioned, these include Little Cheung (1998), the final film in auteur Fruit Chan’s Handover trilogy, and Lonely Fifteen (1982), a story of runaway girls who become prostitutes that’s considered particularly controversial because it was purportedly based on the real experiences of its young cast.)

The HK Film Archive’s Care for Our Community film programme began on June 21 and will run through to July 19. Tickets are $30 from URBTIX, 2734 9009. For further details (including individual screening dates and times), please check our Listings section.