Two long-postponed and star-studded films – Philip Yung’s Where The Wind Blows and Ng Yuen Fai’s Warriors Of Future – will open the 46th Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) in August. It was announced today (July 27) at a media event in Hong Kong.
Where The Wind Blows was selected as one of HKIFF’s opening films last year, but it pulled out just a few days before its world premiere due to “technical reasons”.
The crime drama features two of Asia’s biggest stars, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Aaron Kwok as two real-life corrupt cops from the 1960s. The film was aiming for a pan-Asian release around late 2019 and early 2020. It still remains undated to-date.
Hong Kong director Yung previously directed Port Of Call, which premiered as HKIFF’s closing film in 2015 and earned various accolades.
The second opening film, Warriors Of Future, is described as Hong Kong’s first mega-budget sci-fi blockbuster. The VFX-laden film is set in an apocalyptic near-future when a giant plant hitches a ride inside an asteroid to planet Earth, destroying everything in its path. Louis Koo, who is also the producer, Lau Ching Wan and Carina Lau head the cast of this directorial debut by award-winning visual-effects specialist Ng.
The film has been several years in the making. It is now set to open in China on August 5, followed by a Hong Kong release on August 25.
This year’s HKIFF has been extended to 17 days, running from August 15-31, mostly as an in-person event with 296 physical screenings and 41 online screenings. The line-up comprises 204 films from 67 countries and regions, including 38 world, international or Asia premieres.
Another three Hong Kong films will be presented as gala screenings, including the world premieres of documentary To My Nineteen Year Old Self by acclaimed director Mabel Cheung and Ho Cheuk Tin’s directorial debut The Sparring Partner, as well as the local premiere of Tales From The Occult, a horror omnibus directed by Wesley Hoi, Fruit Chan and Fung Chih Chiang.
The Sparring Partner will be in the young cinema competition (Chinese language), vying for the Firebird Awards, which also consist of the young cinema competition (world) and documentary competition sections. There are 24 feature films in total playing in competition – eight in each section, which has a separate jury panel.
HKIFF will mark the 20th anniversary of the Infernal Affairs trilogy with a marathon screening of all three films, now remastered in 4K. The first Infernal Affairs (2002), which stars Leung and Andy Lau as an undercover cop battling a triad mole, was remade by Martin Scorsese as the Oscar-winning The Departed.
Hong Kong actress Sandra Ng who has appeared in over 140 films during her long career has been selected as the filmmaker in focus. Best known for her comedic roles, the festival has curated a 10-film retrospective, from The Inspector Wears Skirts in the 1980s to the most recent Zero To Hero, a local box office hit from last year which she also produced.
HKIFF was pushed back from its regular March slot as the worst Covid surge led to cinema closures. But the new August timing allowed the programming team to take in fresh titles from Cannes, including Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne’s Tori And Lokita, which will be HKIFF’s closing film.
Further new Cannes titles include Emmanuelle Nicot’s Love According to Dalva and Maha Haj’s Mediterranean Fever, both in Firebird Awards’ young cinema competition (world), Saeed Roustaee’s Leila’s Brothers, and Albert Serra’s Pacifiction.
The Dardenne brothers, Ulrich Seidl and Chung Mong-Hong will each give a post-screening masterclass, while the 5thHAF Film Lab, a film training programme for emerging Hong Kong and Chinese-language filmmakers, will take place from August 24-27.
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