Hong Kong 2012 Diary: Festival Highlights

Love in the Buff, a quirky romantic comedy by director Pang Ho-Cheung opens the 36^th Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF). The film takes up from Pang’s 2010 hit Love in a Puff with its chain-smoking couple, Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie (Miriam Yeung), calling it quits and going their own ways. Like many modern Hong Kongers, the two find themselves moving to Beijing to seek career advancement. At the Mainland, the two find new love interests –but they can’t seem to shake off each other’s memories. The 111-minute film will be screened on 21 March 2012 at 8:30 PM, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Theatre 2.

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Closing the festival on 5 April 2012, at 7:15 PM at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre is White Deer Plain, a period epic by Wang Quan’an. Based on a controversial 1993 novel, the close to three-hour film is set during the twilight of the Qing Dynasty at the start of the last century. The story centers on the bloody struggle between two prominent dynasties vying for supremacy in the Shaaxi Province’s White Deer Plain –as well as for the heart of a mysterious young beauty. The film stars Zhang Fengyi, Zhang Yuqi and Wu Gang.

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After the HKIFF AwardsCeremonies on3 April at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre, a special screening of the omnibus film 10+10 will be held. Commissioned by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, this collection of five-minute shorts celebrates “the uniqueness of Taiwan” on its 100-year anniversary. The outstanding director/writers participating in this grand venture include (The Ritual) Wang Toon; (Bus Odyssey) Shen Ko-Shang; (The Orphans) Chu Yen-ping; (100) Ho Wi-ding; (A Grocery Called Forever) Wu Nieh-jen; (Destined Eruption) Wang Shaudi; (The Debut) Chen Kuo-fu; (Green Is

land Serenade) Hou Chi-jan; (Debut) Wei Te-sheng; (Hippocamp Hair Salon) Chen Yu-hsun; (Sparkles) Chang Tso-chi; (Key) Leon Dai; (Old Man & Me) Cheng Wen-tang; (The Dusk of the Gods) Sylvia Chang; (Unwritten Rules) Cheng Yu-chieh; (Reverberation) Chung Mong-hung; (The Singing Boy) Yang Ya-che; (Something’s Gotta Give) Hsiao Ya-chuan; (Lane 256) Arvin Chen; and (La Belle Epoque) Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Other highlights of the 36^th HKIFF are the Gala Presentations of Beautiful 2012, another omnibus –four meditations on the subject of Beauty- by Chinese directors Gu Changwei (Long Tou), Tsai Ming-Liang (Walker), Ann Hui (My Way) plus South Korea’s Kim Tae-yong (You Are More Than Beautiful); France’s Declaration of War by Valérie Donzelli, a “quasi-musical” about a couple who discovers their child has brain tumor; and The Look by Angelina Maccarone, a Germany/Franch co-production, an honest and insightful documentary on the life and works of actress Charlotte Rampling.