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Made in Hong Kong

Xiang Gang zhi zao
dir. Fruit Chan
Hong Kong 1997, 108’
Awards and festivals
Golden Horse FF 1997 - Best Original Screenplay, Best Director Hong Kong Film Awards 1998 - Best Picture, Best Director, Best New Performer
Credits
Hong Kong 1997
Duration: 108’
director: Fruit Chan
screenplay: Fruit Chan
cinematography: Lam Wah-chuen, O Sing-pui
editing: Fruit Chan
music: Lam Wah-chuen
cast: Sam Lee, Yim Hui-chi, Wenders Li, Tam Ka-chuen
producer: Andy Lau, Doris Yang Ziming
production: Nicetop Independent Ltd., Team Work Production House
language: Cantonese
colouration: colour

Film description

Rebellious Moon wanders among Hong Kong skyscrapers doing minor jobs for dubious characters from local underworld. His seriously ill girlfriend is waiting for kidney transplant and his friend’s life is not a bed of roses, either.

The trio would greatly fit a wild and romantic storyline, one resembling popular Hong Kong cycle about the Young and Dangerous with its alluring picture of gangster life. Chan, however, deconstructs such conventions and stays closer to dull reality – hardly impressive day-after-day operations of the gangs. The style of his film owes a lot to 1960s Japanese productions about young rebels and not less to Wong Kar-wai’s aesthetics. Powerful frames, dynamic editing and the air of melancholy and desperation turn "Made in Hong Hong" into an expressive urban poem, hypnotic and painfully touching.

The young filmmaker shot his film truly independently, with a kind of DIY method – he used the strips of tape remaining from the films on which he assisted. A crew of five, money borrowed for the equipment and only two months for production were enough to create a movie that soon became a legend: fresh, essential and perfectly reflecting the spirit of the times. Over 20 years after its premiere – and two decades since Hong Kong’s return under Chinese rule – a number of its threads remain relevant and a renovated copy offers a chance to appreciate its ferocious visual form.

Jagoda Murczyńska

Fruit Chan

Born in 1969 in China, from where his family emigrated to Hong Kong. A director, producer, actor and screenwriter, representing what is known as the Second New Wave of independent Hong Kong cinematography. Appreciated for films immersed in urban climate, for which he often engaged non-professional actors to show in a close-up the life of modern metropolis. Interested in social issues and fascinated with the Japanese 1960s avantgarde, for instance the works of Nagisa Oshima.

Selected filmography:

1991 Wu ge ji mo de xin / Five Lonely Hearts

1997 Made in Hong Kong / Xiang Gang zhi zao

1998 Najdłuższe lato / Hui nin yin fa dak bit doh / The Longest Summer

1999 Mały Cheung / Xilu xiang / Little Cheung

2000 Durian durian / Làuh Lìn Pìu Pìu / Durian Durian

2001 Hollywood Hongkong / Heung Gong you ge He Li Huo / Hollywood Hong Kong

2004 Pierożki / Jiao zi / Dumplings

2009 Chengdu, wo ai ni / Chengdu, I Love You

2015 My City

2016 Mou sha si shui nian hua / Kill Time

2018 Trzej mężowie / Sam fu / Three husbands

Festival guests

Fruit Chan

director

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