Made in Hong Kong

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