China and Hong Kong have returned to Cannes with several titles in official selection and a wave of others including China’s answer to Top Gun.
After a strong selection of six features and one series at the Berlinale, China is maintaining momentum with five features at Cannes including Wang Bing’s documentary Youth (Spring) in Competition.
Remarkably, the official selection includes a second documentary by Wang, Man In Black, which plays in Special Screenings. Up-and-coming director Wei Shujun will premiere Only The River Flows as his third consecutive feature to play at Cannes and Singapore-born filmmaker Anthony Chen is set to present his first shot-in-China film The Breaking Ice, a decade after his Camera d’Or win for Ilo Ilo in 2013.
The Hong Kong Pavilion will return to the market in-person for the first time since pre-pandemic 2019. Both the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) and CreateHK will each host a Hong Kong Pavilion at the Riviera.
Through the HAF Goes To Cannes showcase, the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) is bringing five titles and their filmmakers from its recent edition, including Lin Jianjie’s Brief History Of A Family, Sasha Chuk’s Fly Me To The Moon and Hou Dasheng’s Hani. The showcase will be held on May 21.
Festival
The Breaking Ice
Dir. Anthony Chen
Director Chen returns to Cannes in Un Certain Regard with his first feature shot in China, starring Zhou Dongyu from 2021 Oscar-nominated Better Days, Liu Haoran and Qu Chuxiao. The Breaking Ice revolves around the blossoming relationship between three young people during a heavy winter snowfall in a remote border city. It is produced by Shanghai-based Canopy Pictures, the new outfit set up by Chen and Rediance’s Xie Meng, with Huace Pictures as a co-financier and the mainland Chinese distributor. It marks the second film from Chen this year, following his first English-language feature Drift, which premiered at Sundance.
Contact: Rediance
Man In Black
Dir. Wang Bing
Playing in Special Screenings, Man In Black is one of two films in this year’s selection from the renowned Chinese documentarian, the other being Competition title Youth (Spring). The eponymous “man in black” is 86-year-old Wang Xilin, one of China’s most influential modern classical composers as well as a target of severe persecution during the Cultural Revolution. The 60-minute documentary was shot at the Bouffe du Nord theatre in Paris with Wang undressed the entire time and contains excerpts from his symphonies as he revisits some of the horrifying events that still haunt him. It is shot by Caroline Champetier, edited by Claire Atherton and produced by Gladys Glover and WIL Productions as a France-US-UK co-production.
Contact: Maria A Ruggieri, Asian Shadows
Only The River Flows
Dir. Wei Shujun
The third consecutive film by Wei selected for Cannes will debut in Un Certain Regard and is adapted from Yu Hua’s short novel Mistake By The River, which forms the film’s Chinese title. The story follows the police investigation of a series of murders in a rural riverside town in the 1990s. The cast is led by Zhu Yilong from 2022 box-office hit Lighting Up The Stars and Zeng Meihuizi, who won the best actress award for Three Husbands at the 2019 Hong Kong Film Awards. Hangzhou Dangdang Film is a major backer, with CEO Tang Xiaohui as delegate producer. Director Wei was previously in Cannes with debut feature Striding Into The Wind (2020 Cannes label) and Ripples Of Life, which played in Directors’ Fortnight in 2021.
Contact: mk2 Films
A Song Sung Blue
Dir. Geng Zihan
Geng’s feature debut plays in Directors’ Fortnight and is a coming-of-age drama set over one summer. It follows a lonely 15-year-old girl who befriends an 18-year-old girl, not knowing she is being led into an unknown world. The cast features Zhou Meijun from Venice 2017 Competition title Angels Wear White and Kate Huang from Geng’s short film A Ray Of Sunshine. Producer Jane Zheng is best known for Golden Globe winner The Farewell, while actress Liang Jing serves as executive producer through Beijing-based The Seventh Art Pictures, which previously produced 2021 Un Certain Regard title Streetwise.
Contact: Totem Films
Youth (Spring)
Dir. Wang Bing
Wang makes his Competition debut with a 212-minute documentary that chronicles the lives of young people who come from rural regions of China to work in Zhili, a textile manufacturing centre near Shanghai. This France-Luxembourg-Netherlands co-production is produced by House On Fire, Gladys Glover and CS Production and is supported by a string of mostly European soft money including CNC and Eurimages. Les Acacias has acquired French distribution. Many of Wang’s documentary works have met acclaim, including Three Sisters, which took the best film prize in Venice Horizons, and Locarno Golden Leopard winner Mrs Fang.
Contact: Agathe Mauruc, Pyramide International
Market
100 Yards
Dirs. Xu Haofeng, Xu Junfeng
Set in 1920s Tianjin, this wuxia drama follows the rivalry between the son of an old martial-arts master and his top apprentice who face off on the street, breaking the community’s rule of settling disputes behind closed doors. The cast features Jacky Heung, who also takes the role of producer, Andy On and Bea Hayden Kuo. Beijing-based Lumen Art and Culture produces, with Duncan Leung of Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster as martial-arts choreographer. Director Xu Haofeng previously directed The Sword Identity and The Hidden Sword and is a co-screenwriter of The Grandmaster. Fortissimo Films handles international sales excluding North America and Southeast Asia.
Contact: Clément Magar, Fortissimo Films
Born To Fly
Dir. Liu Xiaoshi
This debut feature — seen as China’s equivalent of Top Gun — was a box-office hit during the recent Labour Day holiday, grossing almost $100m at press time. Starring popular singer Wang Yibo (who appeared in Hidden Blade), Hu Jun and Yu Shi, the film follows a group of pilots who strive to overcome extreme circumstances while testing the latest fighter jets. It has already sold to 20 territories, including North America, the UK, Japan and the Middle East. Director Liu began his career with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, shooting military trailers and documentaries.
Contact: Zhang Guanren, PMF Pictures
Fly Me To The Moon
Dir. Sasha Chuk
Produced by renowned filmmaker Stanley Kwan, this feature debut won five awards at the recent Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), including the HAF Goes To Cannes programme. It has previously received production funding from the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s First Feature Film Initiative. The story revolves around two immigrant sisters in the 1990s who move from China to join their drug addict father in Hong Kong. The cast is led by Wu Kang Ren of Netflix’s Copycat Killer, Wu Chien Ho and Angela Yuen. Director Chuk’s Taiwan-set short Plain Sailing won the gold award of the open category at Hong Kong’s ifva Awards in 2022.
Contact: The Flow Of Words
Gone With The Boat
Dir. Chen Xiaoyu
This debut feature follows a dying, elderly woman who spends her final months searching for the meaning of life in her village by the river. The cast includes Liu Dan, who is well-known for 2022 hit TV drama Reset and starred in Night Train, which played in Un Certain Regard in 2007. The cast also includes Ge Zhaomei and Wu Zhoukai. Gone With The Boat was selected for the CFDG Young Director Support Program, organised by the China Film Directors’ Guild. Director Chen graduated from Toronto Film School and has made several feature documentaries such as Let’s Go!, The Waves and Lakeside Life, winner of China’s Phoenix Documentary Awards.
Contact: Tina Bai, Beijing Hugoeast Media
The Invisible Guest
Dir. Chen Zhuo
This Chinese-language remake of Spanish thriller The Invisible Guest, which proved a success in China, stars Greg Hsu from recent time-travel romance hit Someday Or One Day, Janine Chang and Yin Zheng. The story follows a woman who works with a police officer to clear her name as the main suspect in the murder of her lover, who has been found dead in a locked room. Director Chen’s debut feature Song Of Silence won the Firebird award for best feature in the young cinema awards at Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2012.
Contact: Bryce Tsao, iQiyi
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