Chongqing Hot Pot (Photo : YouTube)
A comedy film and a crime thriller are the opening movies for the 40th Hong Kong International Film Festival. A thriller is the closing movie.
There are 240 movies from 66 nations and regions. During the two-week run of the filmfest, there would be 63 Asian and world premieres, reported China Entertainment New.
On the opening day on March 21, the movies scheduled to premiere are "Chongqing Hot Pot" and “Trivisa.” The former is a comedy directed by Yang Qing from China, and the latter is a crime thriller set in Hong Kong, produced by Johnnie To.
The stars of “Chongqing” are Bai Baihe and Chen Kun, the second movie of Yang who also directed “One Night in Supermarket.” Three notorious criminals, who organize a heist, are the subjects of the crime thriller whose time frame is prior to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The film has three directors – Jevons Au, Vicky Wong and Frank Hui – all proteges of To.
It’s the turn of Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi to shine as his masterpiece, “Creepy,” a thriller, ends the film festival on April 4. The star of the movie is Nisjima Hidetoshi, whose role is a former detective who suspects that his neighbor is part of a missing person case.
A day before its exhibition, the festival holds the awards night. However, mainland viewers – for the first time since 1991 – would not be able to watch the program.
The reason is that China Central Television and Tencent would not air it after they found that the movie "Ten Years," is one of the nominees for the best film category. The movie, a futuristic dark political drama – produced at a cost of $75,000 only – features five short films with the time set in 2025, looking at different scenarios of how bad life would be in Hong Kong after Beijing takes control over the Special Administrative Region.
Other films to watch include 14 masterpieces by Hong Kong director Won Kar Wai, including to films that has never been exhibited in Hong Kong yet, “Eros: The Hand” and “The Grandmaster 3D.”
