桃姐 | A Simple Life

Based on a true story, the film centres on Ah Tao, an amah who has worked for the Leung family for four generations. She lives with and takes care of Roger, a film producer who is the only member of the Leung household still living in Hong Kong. Roger returns home one day and finds Ah Tao unconscious after a stroke. Convinced she has becoming a burden, Tao resigns and moves into a retirement home. But upon her arrival, she continues to be taken care of by Roger, who realizes just how important she is to him. He decides to do his best to watch after the person who has nurtured him all his life. But Ah Tao’s health is fast deteriorating. Hui has always excelled when telling stories of everyday life. In A Simple Life, she delivers a rich and heartwarming drama that not only deals with the many abandoned old people in Hong Kong, but also exquisitely captures the unique relationship between the amah and the family for which she cares. In an age when loyalty between employers and employees is fast disappearing, A Simple Life highlights a culture that has almost ceased to exist in Hong Kong: one in which a person devotes their life to serving a family, and in return is cherished as much as any other relative.

Directed by Ann Hui | Starring : Andy Lau, Deannie Yip, Hailu Qin, Fuli Wang, Paul Chun | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Okinawa Film Festival, Durban Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, Portland Film Festival

狄仁杰之通天帝国 | Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame

In 689 A.D., the Empress Wu Zetian is building a 66 m high statue of Buddha for her inauguration as the first empress of China under the objections and conspiracy of the other clans. When the engineer responsible for the construction mysteriously dies by spontaneous combustion, the superstitious workers are afraid since the man removed the good luck charms from the main pillar. There is an investigation of Pei Donglai and another investigator that also dies after withdrawing the amulets. Empress Wu assigns her loyal assistant Shangguan Jing’er to release the exiled Detective Dee from his imprisonment to investigate with Donglai and Jing’er the mystery of the deaths. They ride in a mystic and epic adventure to unravel the mystery.

Directed by Hark Tsui | Starring : Andy Lau, Carina Lau, Bingbing Li, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Chao Deng | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival, Nagaoka Film Festival

最后胜利 | Final Victory

Patrick Tam, director of the award-winning After This Our Exile, first made his name for creating artistically acclaimed movies with his daring 1982 work Nomad. His 1987 movie Final Victory is definitely worth re-visiting. Internationally renowned director Wong Kar Wai, yet to make his directorial debut at the time, co-wrote the script of Final Victory with Patrick Tam and Winnie Yu. Also a Hong Kong New Wave director, Tsui Hark stepped down from his director’s chair to take up the male lead alongside Eric Tsang, now one of the most representative actors in Hong Kong, and sexy actress Loletta Lee. Eric Tsang stars as the shy and timid Hung who has to choose between brotherhood and love. Tsui Hark portrays triad gangster Bo, who asks Hung, his younger sworn brother, to take care of his two mistresses, Ping and Mimi. But Hung soon falls in love with Mimi, and he realizes that their romance, if known to Bo, will end their brotherhood which he also treasures.

Directed by Patrick Tam | Starring : Eric Tsang, Loletta Lee, Tien-Lang Li, Hark Tsui, Lui Kam | Presented at N/A

英雄本色 | A Better Tomorrow

Two friends, Ho and Mark, are triads in a counterfeiting operation who end up doing ‘one more job’ and what do you know, this one more job gets messier than they had hoped. Mark returns as a cripple and Ho ends up doing some porridge. This is further complicated as Ho’s younger brother Kit is an aspiring young police officer. As the violence escalates, the lines between lawful and otherwise start to blur if favour of heroic loyalty between brothers.

Directed by John Woo | Starring : Yun-Fat Chow, Leslie Cheung, Lung Ti, Emily Chu, Waise Lee | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, AFI Film Festival, Torino Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival