Tag: film

Actor Kenneth Tsang Dies in Quarantine

Actor Kenneth Tsang Koon-yat 曾江 died in a quarantine hotel yesterday, the 87-year-old actor had flown in from Singapore and tested positive for covid.

Tsang was born in Shanghai and became an actor in the 1950s starring in many popular films during the 60s. In the 80s appearing with Chow Yun-Fat in A Better Tomorrow and its sequel, and films like John Woo’s The Killer and Rush Hour 2 raised Tsang’s international profile and saw him appear in The Replacement Killers in the James Bond film Die Another Day.

In his 50-year career, Tsang appeared in over 200 films, directing three.

Tsang has a star on the Avenue of Stars on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront.

Kenneth TsangKenneth Tsang Avenue of Stars

46th Hong Kong International Film Festival

Originally scheduled for March, the postponed 46th Hong Kong International Film Festival will now run from 15-31 August 2022.

Similar to last year’s HKIFF45, the festival will feature a mix of in-person and online screenings and events. The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society will announce the HKIFF46 programme in July.

Aaron Kwok returns as festival ambassador for the fourth consecutive year saying that “There is no better platform for the Hong Kong public to reconnect with the best cinema offers.”

HKIFF46 Aaron Kwok

46th Hong Kong International Film Festival
Date: 15-31 August, 2022
Venue: various
Tickets: tbc

Hong Kong French Film Festival Celebrates 5 Decades

The Hong Kong French Film Festival (HKFFF) celebrates its 50th edition this year. Since 1953, the festival has brought more than 1600 French films to local screens.

Organized by the Alliance Française de Hong Kong, and featuring more than 50 films, the 50th HKFFF runs from 24 November – 14 December at 5 cinemas. A full screening schedule can be found on the festival’s website.

The HKFFF’s opens with two films Martin Bourboulon‘s Eiffel and Titane by Julia Ducournau. There’s a tribute to female directors and a collaboration with Greenpeace – Cinema for the Climate.

50th Hong Kong French Film Festival
Date: 24 November – 14 December, 2021
Venue: Various cinema and online
Tickets: various
More info:
www.hkfrenchfilmfestival.com

KINO/21 – German Film Festival

KINO/21 – German Film Festival
Kiss Me Before It Blows Up!, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Free Country, The Kangaroo Chronicles, The German Lesson, Hello Again – A Wedding A Day, Enfant Terrible, Tides
Date: 15-24 October, 2021
Venue: HKAC, Louis Koo Cinema; HK Film Archive; Elements Premiere; Broadway Cinematheque
Tickets: $150, $95, $90, $75

Hong Kong’s Filmmakers Fight To Stay Free

The director kept his eyes on the audience, ignoring the cops in the back of the room.

It was a private screening of a romance film by Kiwi Chow. Several dozen friends had gathered in the office of a local district councillor to watch the movie and hear Chow speak. He was a politically sensitive figure who’d made films about Hong Kong’s protests and China’s crackdown on the city’s liberties.

His new work was an apolitical tale about a schizophrenic man who falls in love with a psychological counsellor. Hardly a storyline that would provoke dissent or violate a national security law. But the audience took note when two dozen police officers arrived. Chow, undeterred, went on with his talk.

By midnight, police had shut down the screening, fining each attendee HK$5,000 for violating social distancing rules. If the screening had featured Chow’s protest documentary, they could have been fined HK$1 million and imprisoned for up to three years, according to a law proposed by the Hong Kong government in August.

Police raids on movie screenings — unimaginable in Hong Kong a few years ago — are the latest reality in Beijing’s relentless suppression of the territory’s civil liberties. For filmmakers like Chow, 42, they are a sign of how China’s grip on Hong Kong is not only about asserting political control but also suffocating the cultural spaces where art can reflect truth and build solidarity in a society…

Read the full LA Times article here https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-09-16/china-hong-kong-movies-censorship

Kiwi Chow