Ann Hui

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Penned by renowned screenwriter Joyce Chan, The Secret (1979) is the first feature film of director Ann Hui. Based on a homicide case in the 1970s, it utilizes a non-linear narrative structure to unpeel layer after layer of secrets and illusions. Its clever use of visual contrast not only underscores the clashes between traditional and modern cultures, but also mirrors the psychological tension of characters. The film explores the dark side of the human psyche and experiments with innovative styles, heralding the Hong Kong New Wave.Read More »

Set in the early 1970s, it tells the story of a Chinese-Japanese student who returns to her native Hong Kong after graduating from a university in London. Once she arrives back home, she and her family begins to fight, largely due to cultural and societal conflicts between her mother and herself.Read More »

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A landmark of the nascent Hong Kong New Wave of the early ’80s, this melodrama — directed by Ann Hui — concerns the plight of Vietnamese peasants shortly after the fall of Saigon. The film centers on a Japanese photojournalist named Shiomi Akutagawa (George Lam Chi-cheung) who ventures to Danang to document Vietnam’s attempts at rebuilding after the war. At first he’s bussed around by government officials showing off quaint villages and happy, healthy children. Later, he manages to get permission to wander about the countryside without a government chaperon. Soon he happens upon a young lass named Cam Nuong (Season Ma Si-san) who is from a desperately poor family.Read More »

Set in a surprisingly minimalist San Francisco, Patrick Tam’s stylish slasher movie manages to evoke both Antonioni and Mario Bava in this tale of a ravishing young co-ed (Brigitte Lin) whose studly boyfriend (Chang Kuo-chu) turns into a demented stalker after the suicide of his sister.Read More »

The film tells the story of a young girl who travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong in pursuit of education, but ends up working for her aunt seducing rich and powerful men.Read More »

One of Hong Kong’s most influential filmmakers, Ann Hui, becomes a “star” for the first time in Man Lim-chung’s directorial debut. A forerunner of the New Wave, Hui’s tumultuous, forty-year career is an unequivocal testimony to her unyielding dedication to filmmaking, and her expedition into the metamorphic city. This biopic probes into the acclaimed director’s idiosyncratic world, where we witness her rashness and goofiness, as well as her humanistic concerns for the everyday nobodies which make her films so moving.Read More »

Ann Hui’s My Way—starring Francis Ng and Jade Leung—is about a pre-op transsexual man nervously waiting for his operation. It is a stylishly melancholic film, and defined by the moment when he goes to the hospital for the operation, goes to sleep in the male ward (next to a newspaper reading old man) and wakes as a woman in the female ward…and finally indulging in a smile of relief and happiness.Read More »

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It made me think of the Third Man, just the structure of how the story unfolds, like as if Rollo Martins was a married couple on their honeymoon stumbling onto the tail end of No Pockets in a Shroud.

I actually picked this up because I always love John Ireland’s villain in Railroaded. and he definitely didn’t disappoint as the he-man hero husband in this one. In fact everyone did a great job – keep a look-out for the sinister, serpentine woman & her hell-spawn spouting poison in the street, a grand single-scene supporting performance. Well I liked it anyway, I doubt she got any awards, but true artists never do! Actors like that lady prefer to live in the shadows…Read More »

Synopsis:
Critically-lauded but somewhat distant drama from Ann Hui.

Review by Kozo (taken from Love HK FIlm):
Award-winning political drama from Ann Hui treads on rich territory and results in a noble, but emotionally lacking effort. Using the work of real-life activist Father Franco Mella (played here by Anthony Wong) as a guideline, Ordinary Heroes moves from the plight of the boat people through the tragedy at Tiananmen Square with a sweeping view of political activism in Hong Kong.
The situations and storytelling are top notch but ultimately the film proves a better portrait than a story. The film doesn’t try to educate viewers about Hong Kong’s political history, and instead concentrates on a long-unrequited romance between Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-Sheng and Loletta (now Rachel) Lee. Sadly, that plotline proves of tenuous interest, which isn’t helped any by Lee Kang Sheng’s obviously dubbed acting. The relationships, while affecting, don’t truly reach a conclusion in the film, which is sad because it seems that Hui is reaching for one.Read More »