My review of the 'I Shot Hong Kong' films

I Shot Hong Kong started in 2005 with just a few films screening in an underground venue. Now, three festivals later, I Shot Hong Kong has turned into a legitimate film festival with 40 submissions of a high grade quality, decent funding from big sponsors, celebrity backing and a huge premiere and wrap party at the W hotel. There was even a red carpet in front of the Grand Cinema where the movies were showing! Well, it was more of a ‘red rug’ than a red carpet but it still gave everyone an excuse to dress up.

I got to the Grand Cinema a few minutes early. Everyone was so decked out, I almost didn’t recognize some friends as they had transformed from looking ‘cute’ to looking ‘hyper-glam’. Craig Leeson and Lindsay Robertson, the founders of the film festival, had a few words to say before the press, the participants and the fans entered the theater for the screening.

2 Hours worth of short-listed films were screened one after the other. No film was longer than 15 minutes. First up was the artist series where a few Hong Kong celebrities were asked to make a 5 minute film in 48 hours. My favorite film from that selection was the one starring  Josie Ho and Simon Yin directed by Jason Tobin. In the film, Josie plays herself and kidnaps and tortures a reporter. There’s a ‘dark humor’ surprise ending. 

There was a strange pixelated effect on the corner of the screen during the interrogation scene. Originally, I had thought the effect was caused by the lighting challenges of using the red cam (as people had mentioned at the press conference when asked about the technical usage of the cameras), but the producer said something unexpected happened during the recompression of the movie. (Compression is something I've been frustrated with myself in the past making movies for the web) In any case, cinematography and post production is so important on the big screen (moreso than on an internet interface) and oftentimes people don't see all the work which goes behind creating a film.  In any case, the acting and the plot was what made this movie fun to watch. Who cares about a few pixels.

I’d have to say the dramatic films did not fare too well with the audience. Drama seems to be very hard to pull off unless you have a longer film length and perhaps years of experience. There were a few ‘visual-only’ movies which did not have any dialogue nor a proper plot and while beautiful to look at, those were not as well received either. At the end of the day, most audiences have no imagination. Most want a fast-paced comedic action story that has a plot.

This is a list of my personal faves:

-There was a hilarious music video by the CB Fresh crew called 'Where do we go- Where is home?’ It was about video game-playing slackers who were trying to decide what neighborhood to live in- Lan Kwai or Wanchai. Easily one of the biggest crowd pleasers!

-There was also another comedy in Cantonese directed by Lawrence Gray called ‘Gong Neui’ which poked fun at two stereotypes of Hong Kong women: the ‘princess’ and the ‘weak submissive girl’. It was entertaining and culturally eye-opening at the same time.

• 'Isle Be Damned- was a morbid comedy based on old zombie cult movies. Lamma Island is infested with the un-dead and gets nuked at the end of the film. Camp-cool.

-'Fin’ was easily the most professionally made film in the lot. It was a moving documentary about the murder of sharks around the world so people in Hong Kong and China can eat the prestigious shark’s fin soup at their weddings and celebrations. It demonstrated why sharks were necessary to keep the ecosystem of the ocean in balance. It also showed the ignorance of people selling shark’s fin and why Chinese people eat shark’s fin soup in the first place. The message was compelling and the movie got its point across beautifully.

-Another interesting music video- 'Love Song-Sing it' was created by director Lawrence Wong. In a ‘Nylon Mag meets Terri Richardson’ series of fast moving images, a girl (played by Shan Chen) fantasizes about murdering her boyfriend repeatedly. The chilling last shot is of her and him in the living room. He is dead and she snuggles happily up next to him. The ending loosely reminded me of macabre poet Edgar Allen Poe’s poem ‘Annabel Lee’. In this poem, he lays down next to his dead wife night after night. Apparently there was a lot of post production involved in this video. Thousands of photos were taken and put together to make up the sequence. Bravo! Very original.

While I prefer praise over criticism, in the interest of fairness, I will publish these comments I heard from others:

“We had to clap to get the guy that was snoring to wake up.”

“If the triads were not going to kill that guy (a character in one movie) I would have killed him myself. His character was so annoying.”

“I thought some of the movies were very film school.”

“A lonely girl commits suicide because she can’t find a man? WTF?! That’s sending out the wrong message to women.”

Anyhoo, the wrap party at the W Hotel on Friday will be really awesome! Come down and see the movies and hear R&B songstress Shairah sing at the wrap event. CB Fresh will also be performing their song from the video! Can’t wait to see that!

LOVED Joyce Hu's (one of the organizers) outfit! She was like a living Golden Globe statue from the '30s. The shorts were from Joyce and she built the rest of the outfit starting from the shorts.