Urban Visions in Hong Kong Independent Film

The relationships in the film are fictional constructs that conform to the structure of a Chinese box—a story inside a story inside yet another story. The film begins with the main character Rabbit leaping through holes in time and transforming into the character Mei, which is an appropriate entrance into this extremely nonlinear tale.

A number of tragedies befall Mei, including her husband’s motorcycle accident and the murder of her mother, and to add to the intrigue, the perpetrator may very well be one of the story’s other primary characters, the plainclothes policeman Jing. During the investigation Jing recalls an earlier traumatic failure from another case, which appears to compel him to obsessively devote himself to clearing Mei as one of the suspects.

The harder that Jing tries to solve the case, the more past memories come flooding back, and all of the relationships grow inextricably entwined and cryptic. Throughout the film there is a genuine longing for effacing all of the relationships, a desire for forgetting and rebirth, fueled by a horrific state of being "dead slowly."

Mr. CHUI Wanshui, Vincent
Parttime Lecturer, Department of Visual Studies, Lingnan University and Artistic Director of Ying E Chi

Miss HUI, Nga Shu Rita
Instructor, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong

Dr. LEE, Vivian P Y
Associate Professor, Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong

Participating in the film-screening event were Mr. Vincent Chui, artistic director of Ying E Chi, Ms. Rita Hui, the film’s director and an instructor in the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and Dr. Vivian Lee, Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong.

The post-screening discussion covered such topics as feminist criticisms, color and layers of sound in Ms. Hui’s films, as well as her use of nonlinear, anti-narrative editing techniques.

Dr. Lee discussed the role of independent filmmaking in relation to the mainstream market and Mr. Chui spoke about the role of producers and distributors in Hong Kong when compared to the film industry in the US, China and Taiwan.

The discussion concluded on the broader challenges inherent in Hong Kong independent film making, due in part to the monopoly held by a few production houses, which greatly limits the number of screening venues for non-mainstream productions.