Film - "Made in Hong Kong" series, 2007

(adapted from archive.org's June 21, 2007 archive of the Freer Gallery's film listings)

Twelfth Annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival

In recognition of the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China, this year's festival looks at how Hong Kong cinema has changed in the last decade. This series is cosponsored with the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office. All films are in Cantonese with Chinese and English subtitles.

After This Our Exile
Friday, July 13, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, July 15, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
In person July 15: Patrick Tam
A multiple award winner at the prestigious Golden Horse and Tokyo film festivals, this marks the triumphant return to directing by Patrick Tam, who had not made a film since the heyday of the Hong Kong New Wave in the 1980s. With sumptuous visuals, superb acting, and great tenderness, it delves into the troubled relationship between an abusive gambling addict and his son. 2006 / 150 min.

Infernal Affairs
Friday, July 20, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, July 22, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Andrew Lau and Alan Mak codirected this stylish police thriller that inspired Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning movie The Departed. Tony Leung and Lau star as an undercover cop and a gangster posing as a detective who find themselves on a collision course when a drug bust goes wrong. This irresistibly engrossing film adds an innovative twist to the classic action-movie formula that made Hong Kong famous. 2002 / 101 min.

House of Fury
Friday, July 27, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, July 29, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
A throwback to the glory days of Hong Kong's fun, freewheeling action movies, Stephen Fung's film stars Anthony Wong as a boring dad who embarrasses his kids with endless tales of his adventures as a secret agent. His children have to save him when he is kidnapped, and he gets to prove he is not so boring after all. Film writer Grady Hendrix calls it a "hard-hitting, emotionally alive, shamelessly mainstream crowd pleaser." 2005 / 102 min.

Crazy N’ The City
Friday, August 3, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, August 5, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Hong Kong movie fans will have a field day spotting the cameos by famous actors in this zippy, light comedy directed by James Yuen and Lambo Cheuk. In it, a streetwise cop and his female partner, whose usual routine involves rescuing cats and directing tourists, encounter real action when a murder occurs on their beat. 2005 / 93 min.

Election
Friday, August 10, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, August 12, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
One of the most acclaimed films of Johnnie To's long and prolific career, Election is a gripping yarn about the power struggle within a Hong Kong criminal syndicate when it tries to decide on a new leader. The plot follows the backstabbing, double-dealing, and occasional bloodletting that goes on among gang members as they try to avoid an all-out war. 2005 / 101 min.

Isabella
Friday, August 17, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, August 19, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Variety calls Isabella a "widescreen elegy to times past and chances lost." This neon-lit nocturne by Pang Ho-cheung is set in 1999, just before the former Portuguese colony of Macau is handed over to China. While the authorities crack down on corruption and smuggling in anticipation of the territorial transfer, a suspended cop meets a woman in a bar who claims to be his daughter - or is she? 2006 / 91 min.

2 Become 1
Friday, August 24, 2007, 7 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Sunday, August 26, 2007, 2 pm, Meyer Auditorium
Breast cancer might seem an unlikely subject for a romantic comedy, but director Law Wing-cheong makes it work. Striking a delicate balance between the serious and the comical, Law's film compassionately follows the life and relationships of a busy professional woman and the choices she must make after she discovers a lump in her breast. 2006 / 94 min.

This page created August 2010 - Last modified August 25, 2010