Category: editorial

Cirque Returns to Hong Kong

Cirque du Soleil returns to Hong Kong this week with Kooza, a circus-themed extravaganza that has been extensively reworked since its first appearance here in 2018.

As Duncan Fisher, Chief Show Operations Officer of Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, said at the launch, the Central Harbourfront venue is a stunning location: watch the sunset before the show commences, enjoy a night-time Star Ferry ride across the harbour afterwards while marvelling at the beauty of our home under lights.

There is something wonderful about seeing a show under the ‘big top’ – so different from our many bland concrete box venues with terrible acoustics – you feel part of the show. Especially since Kooza 2.0 is a much more engaging experience than the original.

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While the underlying story remains the same. There are new acts – I don’t want to give too many spoilers here – and much of the cast has changed, bringing new and different skills to the show. The band is tight and sounds great under the big top.

After having been a Cirque ‘desert’ – 4 shows in thirty years – the future looks far more exciting with Mr Fisher saying that he hopes to bring a different show to the Hong Kong harbourfront every two years and establish Hong Kong as a signature Cirque city on a par with New York and London. Can’t you just ‘see’ senior government and HKTB officials making heart signs with their hands on hearing that!

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If there’s one criticism of Kooza, it’s that there’s not an ounce of localisation to the show… How difficult would it be to tweak the clown parts to include a little play on the local stereotypes of each city visited? There is a ‘dog’ in the show which was funny – but I looked at it and thought with Hong Kong’s current panda obsession, how funny it would have been if it had been a panda…

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Kooza’s season in Hong Kong has been extended to 13 July.

Images: copyright Simon Durrant 

Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza
Date: 21 May – 13 July 2025
Venue: Central Harbourfront
Tickets: $1,988, $1,698, $1,298, $998, $758, $600, $450
More info:
Wednesdays: 7:30pm
Thursdays: 7:30pm
Fridays: 7:30pm
Saturdays: 1pm, 4:30pm, 8pm
Sundays: 1pm & 4:30pm

Merry Christmas

All of us at bc magazine would like to wish all our readers, advertisers and suppliers a Merry Christmas and hope you have a happy and healthy festive season.

Please also spare a moment of your day to remember all those Hongkongers who are separated from their families.

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Tiananmen Square Vigil Across Hong Kong – 4 June, 2021

Standing united across Hong Kong and the world, millions of people lit a candle to remember the dead and remind those who might have forgotten the truth about the CCP.

In banning the annual memorial vigil in Victoria Park to remember those murdered in and around Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989 the HK police publicised the massacre to the world.

Never Forget!

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Remembrance Day 2020 – Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day

We wear a poppy
On Remembrance Day,
And at eleven
We stand and pray.
Wreaths are put
Upon a grave.
As we remember
Our soldiers brave.

The Poppy Appeal in Hong Kong

Poppies can be obtained at the following location:

Temporary Poppy Depot at Room 3505, The Landmark Edinburgh Tower, Landmark Atrium, 15 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong (Tel : 2713 3315).
Opening hours: Mondays-Fridays 9am-5pm

Saturday 7th November 2020 – Poppy Day.
The streets of Hong Kong Island from 9am – 12:15pm.

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

 – Laurence Binyon (2014)

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

– John McCrae