Hong Kong Hustle: The Chinese Cinema Odyssey Of Stephen Chow (2024)

Be Water

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.

Revolution of Our Times

Throughout Hong Kong’s history, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed. In 2019, a controversial extradition bill was introduced that would allow Hongkongers to be tried in mainland China. This decision spurred massive protests, riots, and resistance against heavy-handed Chinese rule over the City-State. Award-winning director Kiwi Chow documents the events to tell the story of the movement, with both a macro view of its historical context and footage and interviews from protestors on the front lines.

Umbrellas Move

“Umbrellas Move” is a long feature documentary capturing scenes from Hong Kong’s city-wide protest, the occupy movement in 2014. This documentary witnessed a critical page of Hong Kong after transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from Britain to China. Around 1200 thousand people have involved in this longest occupation in the history of Hong Kong in 2014. 79 days of occupation, Hong Kong people are fighting for their rights to vote under a fair election in order to be against the political controls from China.

Do Not Split

The story of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, told through a series of demonstrations by local protestors that escalate into conflict when highly armed police appear on the scene.

We Have Boots

The Umbrella Movement of 2014, also known as the Occupy Movement, paved the way for Hong Kong’s current upheavals, but unfolded in significantly different ways. This creative documentary focuses on the intellectual, political, and discursive underpinnings of the social and political actions of 2014, before fast-forwarding to 2019. A range of thoughtful and engaged intellectuals, students, scholars, activists, and artists including Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man, Ray Wong, and Agnes Chow (many of whom are facing imprisonment for their democratic activism) articulate a range of philosophies, viewpoints and emotions, set against Hong Kong’s spectacular urban background of skyscrapers, night lights, and street-occupying mass movements.

If We Burn

Hundreds of thousands − perhaps even millions − of protestors have taken to the streets of Hong Kong since early June. Sparked initially by the government's plans for a controversial extradition bill, the movement has now transformed into a broader push for greater freedoms and democracy, with anger over police brutality fuelling a cycle of violence. The protests are Hong Kong's biggest challenge to Beijing since its return to China in 1997. If We Burn looks at the movement through the eyes of Hong Kongers whose fates, like their city's future, now hang in the balance.

Home and a Distant Archive

A poetic, experimental portrait of four Hong Kong women in London working to digitise records of the handover agreement between the United Kingdom and China. Impressionistic and precise, personal and expansive, Cheung's elegant, eloquent work decodes history and how politics are enacted.

Age of Valiant

At the forefront of most of Hong Kong's demonstrations, 'frontliners' (aka 'the valiant', yung mo in Cantonese) are the black-clad, masked, often armed youth willing to use violence against the HK government and its heavily-armed police force. Willis Ho's remarkably revealing doc approaches from the inside, giving them voices and offering understanding, not judgment.

Blue Island

Although the Chinese government promised that Hong Kong would retain separate status until 2047, in recent years the Chinese state has consolidated its power over the metropolis. Large-scale protests by the populace have been brutally suppressed. This mix of documentary, fiction, and visions of the future reveals the current state of desolate depression among the people of Hong Kong. “A desperate attempt to capture the final moments of a sinking island”, as maker Chan Tze-woon himself puts it.

Mong Kok First Aid

Mong Kok First Aid investigates the experiences and unheard stories of a group of young volunteers who provided First Aid services to wounded participants during Hong Kong’s landmark Umbrella Movement of 2014. Just half a decade later, their first-person narratives reveal an intense feeling of time passing and memories fading, as this documentary seeks to challenge history by intervening to supplement the record. After all, who decides whose story can be a part of history?

YP1967

Everyone has their secrets. Everyone has the past no one’s heard about. But what makes an entire generation sit in stunned silence with unmentionable hesitation to talk about their past? Even the past was 50 years ago. Five decades after the Hong Kong leftist riots, six ex-young prisoners speak out for the first time about their personal and unmentionable experience. Documentary film YP1967 is about their love and hate towards their country, their honour and dishonour as a convicted criminal, their condonation and condemnation of the parties involved, and their truth-seeking and reconciliation with the past.

Days After n Coming

Hong Kong's high-speed rail link, the demolition of Choi Yuen Village, the impending budget and the influence of the global Occupy movement are at the centre of independent filmmaker Lo's timely measure of the city's pulse. Ostensibly the third entry in a trilogy that began with 21 years after. (2010) and to be continued (2010), which also captured public reaction to watershed moments in Hong Kong's political life since 2009. The documentary was built upon the material used in its previous installment (to be continued, 46 minutes). It disproves the notion of a passive Hong Kong in a chronicle of a generation poised for massive social change.

Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks

The fantastic story of how an ancient martial art, Chinese kung fu, conquered the world through the hundreds of films that were produced in Hong Kong over the decades, transformed Western action cinema and inspired the birth of cultural movements such as blaxploitation, hip hop music, parkour and Wakaliwood cinema.

Almost A Revolution

The Occupy Central movement called for civil disobedience in the middle of Hong Kong’s financial district, in pursuit of democratic elections. The movement attracted many sympathetic students and citizens, and became known around the world as the “Umbrella Revolution” in 2014. This film closely follows the action on the ground: debates within the movement, street speeches, the unofficial referendum which was held as part of the campaign, and the student-led protests at the Central Government Office. It examines the tumultuous thoughts and feelings of seven activists who were there at the heart of the struggle.

Yellowing

The turmoil that has overtaken Hong Kong since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 has spawned a new generation of young, passionately committed activist filmmakers; they want to tell Hong Kong's story with Hong Kong voices. And the best indie documentary to have emerged so far from the HKSAR is this year's Yellowing, by Chan Tze Woon, a 29-year-old with degrees in policy studies and film production. Hong Kong's fraught, tense relationship with its mainland Chinese overseers came to a head with the Umbrella Movement of 2014. A crowd of protesters stormed Civic Square on September 27. The next day police shocked most residents of the HKSAR by attacking the growing crowds with volleys of tear gas, whereupon a wide cross section of Hong Kongers occupied the streets in several areas and stayed for almost 6 weeks. Chan took his camera on the streets for 67 days during these events.

The Lovers and the Despot

Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.

Heromakers

Experience an action-packed, stunt-filled journey behind the scenes of the World-famous 'Hong Kong Action Cinema industry'. Join Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and the leading members of the 'Hong Kong Stuntman Association' as they reveal the secrets of their trade, and disclose fascinating anecdotes relating to their groundbreaking work in some of the most daring and innovative action movies ever made.

Rather Be Ashes Than Dust

Memories of his four-year journey focused on the Hong Kong protests. Narrated in the first person, is rich with reflections and contemplations, most intertwined with feelings of guilt.

Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower

When the Chinese Communist Party backtracks on its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his city. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents.

Pseudo Secular

They are frozen in place, stagnating without any direction. Around them, things change rapidly.

Made in Hong Kong

The film Made in Hong Kong allows glimpses on a Hong Kong shortly before the 1997 handover to China. But rather than focusing on the expected hysteria Luc Schaedler’s documentary debut works towards complexity by allowing six diverse residents to talk about their relationship to the colonial city. Their life stories beautifully mix with the images of the author. Made in Hong Kong is a very personal portrait of a city in transition and we learn about Hong Kong’s ambiguities and its political and social problems, as well as the uncertainties regarding the time after 1997.

Sunday Beauty Queen

Beneath Hong Kong's glittering facade, Filipina domestic helpers work in relative anonymity and for near-slave wages. In a beauty pageant like no other, five helpers give themselves makeovers for a day and gleefully reclaim their dignity.

Raise The Umbrellas

Four years later, Hong Kong’s 2014 democratic Umbrella Movement has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, yet political backlash against protesters has intensified. Repeatedly the target of censorship*, Raise the Umbrellas traces the lineage of the massive Hong Kong protest to the global Occupy movement, 1989 Tiananmen, and its democratic struggles since British colonial days. Highlights range from the Umbrella Movement’s eco-awareness and its burgeoning aspiration for independence, to its empowerment of women -- “umbrella mothers” -- and the rainbow-bridging activism of LGBTQ iconic artists. Incisive and intimate, driven by stirring on-site footage in a major Asian metropolis riven by protest, Umbrellas includes anti-Occupy views that lay bare the sheer political risk for post-colonial Hong Kong’s universal-suffragist striving to define its autonomy within China.

West Estate

West Estate spotlights the severe housing problems in Hong Kong, taking the spirit of resistance outside of the protest. The damaged walls in the cage-like tenements reflect the many forms of social injustice as well as Hongkongers’ widespread sense of rootlessness. Connecting three stories from different households like puzzle pieces, the film depicts people’s despair over issues of family, sexuality, love, and freedom.

A Hong Kong Farmer’s Lot

The documentary offers a glimpse into the life of a farmer who worked in the fields with his father when he was young. After spending time in the city as an adult, he returns to the countryside to take over the family’s business and learns the essence of making a living from the land.

The Fishermen's Discourse

Talking to two fishermen made me realize I have never looked at Hong Kong from their perspective. Urban Diary tries to look at Hong Kong and see our shoreline from the sea. We filmed the two fishermen in action, getting on their fishing boat, experiencing fishing and looking at the ongoing reclamation of the harbour with them.

Open Road After Harvest

In such a difficult situation in Hong Kong agriculture, to local farmers, before expecting a good harvest, they have to first overcome the problems caused by agricultural policy implementation, land policy and urban development in Hong Kong. This film is about three middle-aged local organic farmers and their farming stories: A peasant leader, who faces political infiltration in organization, decides to quit and focuses on his farming; a rural woman who fights against North East New Territories development plan and taking care of her sick husband at the same time, decides to combine family life with her home farming; a sixty years old truck driver who decides to have a career change, trying to live a fearless and free life as a farmer.

Be Water

The documentary “Be Water” records the clash in West Kowloon on 20th October, 2019. Police issued objection notice to the march protest organised by Civil Human Rights Front. The march eventually turns into a clash. Protestors flowed like water, disperse and re-assemble while contending the police.

Comrades

Young people are protesting on the streets of Hong Kong in order to bring about change. Air soaked with tear gas, the dark uniforms and loud commands of the police officers in the colourful umbrella sea of the protesters. In the midst of the action, the film documents a brand new protest movement.

Migrant Down the Rabbit Hole

The work documented the story of Yuli, a Hong Kong domestic worker from Indonesia. She is a novelist who won a literature award and also a journalist dedicated to writing. Between the social event that happened in June in Hong Kong, her thoughts and caring about the city are far more from what people used to imagine a narrative of a domestic worker. They are not only domestic workers but they also have other social roles, e.g. a citizen who lived in Hong Kong.

The Time of the Individual

Documentary "The Time of the Individual" records records the 7.7 demonstration at Tsim Sha Tsui. To say NO to the Extradition Bill (which is a mechanism for transferring fugitive to Mainland China), Hong Kong protester flooded the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui on July 7 2019. Youngsters use their “own ways” to delivery to mainland travelers the demand of democracy. This shows another peaceful side of the protest as not shown on traditional medias.

Diasporama: Dead Air

An average of 60,000 people emigrated from Hong Kong each year in early 1990s. An absolutely personal and biased sampling of this diaspora from an insider/outsider perspective just before the 1997 handover. Based on the personal experiences of individuals from Hong Kong in 1990s, Diasporama is an experimental documentary that addresses issues of the diasporic condition. In a series of intimate interviews that explore the relationship of the personal and the political, Yau Ching confronts notions of nationhood, identity, and post-colonialism. Inserting her own face and voice as a form of mediation, the artist herself becomes one of the subjects.