Even in its choice of Best Film, the Hong Kong Film Awards showed its distance from China by naming on Monday the crime thriller “Trivisa” the winner. The movie, directed by three young directors, Vicky Wong Wai-kit, Jevons Au and Frank Hui, is made up of three short films that revolves around three of the most famous criminals of Hong Kong.
Film Festival Opener
“Trivisa" opened the 40th Hong Kong International Film Festival on March 21, 2016. It originally premiered at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in Germany, Malay Mail Online reported. It is the third consecutive year that the Best Film winner were not shown in China. The winners in the last two years were “Midnight After” and “Port of Call.”
In a review of “Trivisa,” The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the movie is engaging, reflective and topical. The review gave the thumbs up to the three young directors for delivering a “pitch-black, noir-infused debut resembling their mentors’ fatalistic classics of yore.”
The movie’s lead actor, Gordon Lam Ka-tung, got the Best Actor award, Variety reported. But it was not a victory of serious films only. Stephen Chow, who directed the 2016 mega monster hit “The Mermaid,” received the Best Director award which he shared with Wong Chun, a first-time director for the movie “Mad World.”
It’s A Tie
The awards night is organized by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society which had three rounds of debate and voting on the Best Director award because Stephen Chow and Wong Chun both got the same number of votes from the movie critics that the society eventually declared it a tie. However, “Mad World” writer Florence Chan bagged the Best Screenplay award.
The Best Actress award went to Zhou Dongyu of “Soul Mate” which is one of the six movies that also received commendations from the critics. The five others are “Mad World,” “The Mermaid,” “Weeds on Fire,” “Snuggle” and “See You Tomorrow.”