, who tells her that her late husband Bill had one great unfulfilled final wish: to renovate one of his favourite designs before it fell victim to the Chinese government's sign-clearing scheme. (In reality, more than 90 percent of these gorgeous symbols of Hong Kong's identity have been torn down in the last 20 years under new Chinese-implemented planning laws.) Maps and technical sketches in hand, Heung and Leo head out into the city to try to determine which of Bill's remaining signs he wanted to restore, so they can complete the work on his behalf. There are amusing but also exasperating confrontations with government job){kind=link}
Starring veteran actress Sylvia Change, this sweet drama is an elegy to Hong Kong’s lost neon signs – and its independent soul
Whatever happened to Hong Kong cinema? The short answer is this: the same thing that happened to Hong Kong itself. Since the 1997 handover, the Chinese regime has systematically dismantled what was previously the most exciting national film culture on the planet. Talent has been lured to the mainland to work on vapid ‘main melody’ films, while dissident artistic voices have been snuffed out.
Hong Kong films, these days, tend to be anonymously produced protest documentaries, like last year’s Revolution of our Times, which chronicled the 2019 clashes between police and pro-democracy protestors with sweeping drone shots and jittery digital footage. But the world of Wong Kar-wai – all that intoxicating, neon-drenched mystery and desire – is tragically now a thing of the past.
This quietly courageous debut feature from Anastasia Tsang, which had its world premiere at this year’s Tokyo Film Festival, is an elegy for that lost Hong Kong – and suggests that in certain corners of the city, its old spirit still fizzes and glows. The prolific Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang stars as Heung, the widow of one of the highly skilled artisanal neon sign-makers whose creations gave the city’s streets their rainbow shimmer in the 1970s and 80s.
When visiting his workshop, Heung discovers he had started training an apprentice, the slightly hapless Leo (Henick Chou), who tells her that her late husband Bill had one great unfulfilled final wish: to renovate one of his favourite designs before it fell victim to the Chinese government’s sign-clearing scheme. (In reality, more than 90 percent of these gorgeous symbols of Hong Kong’s identity have been torn down in the last 20 years under new Chinese-implemented planning laws.)