New Waves, New Shores: Busan International Film Festival presented by the Hong Kong Arts Centre

The Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) presents New Waves, New Shores: Busan International Film Festival, a moving image programme financially supported by the Film Development Fund, Create Hong Kong, with Festival Partner, the Busan International Film Festival, from 25 November 2021 to 16 January 2022. The full line-up has been announced!

In the past decade, Hong Kong has seen a growing number of first-time and emerging filmmakers. To help young film talents build a long-term sustainable career and meet the needs of an increasingly diversified audience culture and film industry, the HKAC sees a pertinent need to assist filmmakers to expand their professional and personal visions, enrich their crafts, network and be recognised on local and international levels. New Waves, New Shores: Busan International Film Festival aims to introduce the importance of BIFF as one of the leading film festivals in Asia and how it assists budding filmmakers from Hong Kong and South Korea. The programme includes an integrated series of screenings, talks, workshops and a masterclass. The screenings comprise a Hong Kong showcase curated by Maggie Lee (Asia Chief Film Critic, Variety; curator for Tokyo and Vancouver International Film Festivals), and a Korean showcase co-curated by Lee and Nam Dong-chul (Program Director, Busan International Film Festival).

The screening programme showcases 10 Korean films and 10 Hong Kong films, accompanied by after screening talks by local and Korean filmmakers. There are four thematic talks designed for those who aspire to pursue a career in film to learn about the industry's inner-workings. Film distributors, sales, producers, festival curators, funding bodies and filmmakers will share their professional experiences and insights through in-depth conversations. The programme also consists of two workshops and a masterclass: Film Project Pitching Workshop and Screenwriting Workshop with Chung Seo-kyung, and Masterclass on Screen Adaptation: A Conversation Between Chung Seo-kyung and Fruit Chan.

It is the HKAC's honour to welcome overseas guests to attend the events virtually to introduce and deepen discussions on film art and culture for the Hong Kong public, film industry professionals and students. The special guests include Chung Seo-kyung (Screenwriter for Park Chan-wook; her filmography includes The Handmaiden, Thirst, and Lady Vengeance), Fruit Chan (Hong Kong director of Dumplings and Public Toilet), Yang Ik-june (Korean director and lead actor, Breathless), Lee Hae-young (Korean director of Believer and Like a Virgin), and more film talents of the participating films. Local guests will attend in person.

Connie Lam, Executive Director, Hong Kong Arts Centre, expressed, “This programme will be an opportunity for us all to learn more about a great Asian international film festival, the Busan International Film Festival – its diverse and expansive vision of film programming, its many initiatives in bringing up new Asian filmmakers, its welcoming attitude for filmmakers from everywhere – all underlined by the desire for a brave new world of cinema. We are honoured to present this amazing programme in partnership with BIFF and our two wonderful curators.”

Huh Moon-yung, Festival Director, Busan International Film Festival, said, “I was thrilled to hear that outstanding works from previous editions of BIFF will be screened in Hong Kong. This programme reflects the cinematic friendship that Hong Kong has shown to Busan, and for that, I am deeply grateful. I sincerely hope that the cinematic friendship between the two cities will continue to develop for years to come.”

Kim Young-jin, Chairman, Korean Film Council, stated, “New Waves, New Shores heralds the birth of a new network in the Asian film industry, and KOFIC is fully supportive of this meaningful journey. Through this joint programme, the film industry can revisit the footprints that the Hong Kong and Korean film industries left on world cinema history. I also hope that filmmakers can explore new possibilities and draw inspiration from the programme.”

Maggie Lee remarked, “Since its inception in 1996, BIFF has become one of the most influential film festivals in the world, and contributes immeasurably to South Korea's film industry. This programme aims to show how BIFF launched the careers of new talents while introducing the achievements of established directors to international critics and programmers.”

Nam Dong-chul commented, “Over the years, the South Korean film industry and BIFF have grown and earned global recognition together. To hold a special programme of previous BIFF-screened films in an Asian metropolis like Hong Kong is one of the best proofs of that growth. Conversely, Hong Kong, as a film city, also played a big role in making BIFF what it is today. It is no accident that Busan and Hong Kong have become two defining cities in Asian cinema.”

Tickets are available now on POPTICKET
Internet booking: https://www.popticket.hk/biff
Online Booklet: https://bit.ly/NWNSBIFF_booklet

Screenings

A showcase of 10 Hong Kong films and 10 Korean films accompanied by after-screening talks by filmmakers and scholars, highlighting the mutual influence between Hong Kong and Korean film industries and cultures, and introducing the Busan International Film Festival's role in supporting budding filmmakers.

Hong Kong Showcase

Korean film director Chung Chang-wha was well-known for his consummate craftsmanship as well as gorgeous action sequences – both of which are evident in this work. The story follows the protagonist Chao Chi-ho (Lo Lieh) as he follows his master's order to further his martial arts training at another school in preparation for participating in a major tournament. He is later seriously wounded in an ambush but is rescued by a young female singer. As he recovers, Chi-ho masters the lethal art of the Iron Palm. Cleverly using the siren-like theme from Ironside (1967) to create tension, which complements the film's adroit editing to enhance the rhythm of the fight scenes. The scene in which a character is blinded with bare hands is especially memorable. Labelled “all too extravagant, too gratuitously wild” by American film critics, Five Fingers of Death was a favourite of Quentin Tarantino and served as an obvious inspiration for Kill Bill (2003).

While Hong Kong's action films swept across Asia and the rest of the world in the 1970s and 80s, one of the biggest Hong Kong films ever in Korea is actually this musical romance, a Hong Kong-South Korea co-production. Singer songwriter Chelsia Chan, who was cast in her acting debut after director Sung Tsun-shou recognised her potential, co-stars alongside pop singer Kenny Bee as an aspiring musician whose life changes after falling for a fellow musician, only for their romance to be cut short by a fatal disease. Not only did Chan amazingly nab the Golden Horse Award for Best Actress with her very first film role, her theme song for the film, “One Summer Night”, was such a hit in South Korea that even former Girl's Generation member Jessica has covered it. Even more than three decades on, Chelsia, My Love remains such a popular work in Korean pop culture history that fans enthusiastically flocked to the locally held 30th anniversary screening, which was attended by Chan herself.

It has been said that the age of 32 is a crucial junction in one's life, with every tick of the clock seeming to signal one's impending demise. Small-time gangster Gau (Sean Lau) visits a fortune teller to help him make an important life choice. Whether to go to the left or right is perhaps not the main point, for even if people can choose their fate, it is perhaps their character that determines if they would take a risk or lay low. Wai Ka-fai directed this distinctively creative and darkly humorous work on the eve of the handover of Hong Kong to China. With its 360-degree turning camera and upside-down framing, the film's duo ending is a reflection of the uncertain fate of the city and the absurdities of life.

The famous minuet of the title was believed to have been a present from Bach to his wife. The plot follows Chan Kar-fu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), an introverted piano tuner who encounters the womanising Yau Wing-fu (Aaron Kwok) while falling in love with his new neighbour Mok Man-yee (Kelly Chen) at the same time, but can only express his romantic longings through fantasy novels that he creates. This directorial debut by long-time production designer Yee Chung-man is an exquisite chamber piece with a script written by Ivy Ho. The story-within-a-story takes place in Vietnam, and uses the happy ending of a fantasy tale to contrast with the emotional regrets of real life. Wei Wei, the lead character in Fei Mu's classic film Spring in a Small Town (1948) appears in a cameo role as an old granny.

Public Toilet | Director: Fruit Chan
South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan | 2002 | 102 mins | In Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and English with Chinese and English Subtitles | Colour
Date & Time: 29/12/2021 (Wed) 7:45pm*
*Director Fruit Chan will attend the after-screening talk

An orphan born in a public toilet in Beijing searches all over the world for a miracle cure for his ailing grandmother who raised him. A young man from Busan discovers a mysterious girl in front of a public toilet by the sea and goes on a quest for a magical elixir to save her. Other characters that populate this film include a pair of Indian brothers who are caretakers of a Wan Chai public toilet and a hitman who completes his final assignment in a New York City public toilet. Fruit Chan met the investor for this film in Busan, an encounter which made possible this international collaboration. Chan fully took advantage of the flexibility of the digital format to let his imagination run wild with a tale that blends scatology with ruminations about life and death.

Long before her turn as a grieving lover in Zinnia Flower (2015), Karena Lam had played a woman struggling with lost love in Lai Miu-seut's The Floating Landscape (2003). Following the death of her boyfriend Sam (Ekin Cheng), Mann (Lam) goes to Qingdao in search of the childhood landscape that her lover had spoken of. There, she meets a young postman, Lit (Liu Ye), who helps Mann in her quest. Their love for each other grows steadily, but Mann is not ready to let go of Sam. This film boasts a formidable team behind the scenes including Wong Kar-wai's frequent collaborator Shigeru Umebayashi as music composer, Taiwan artist Jimmy Liao who provided the illustrations and Stanley Kwan as producer. Liu Ye and Su Jin, fresh from their participation in Kwan's Lan Yu (2001), were solid additions to the cast, while Arthur Wong's camera work won him the Best Cinematography Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Li Yueying, a young woman from an industrial town in north-eastern China, dreams of a better future by constantly searching for more promising work opportunities. She encounters a man who asks her to help him carry some goods to Shenzhen. Meanwhile Jenny, who was born in a rural area in China but went to Shenzhen to work, is now married to a Hong Konger. Her life, however, is less than perfect and she is in the middle of divorcing her husband. Li Yueying is a fictional character, while Jenny is a real person. Director Emily Tang fashions a partly fictional and partly real cinematic space film in which the two characters encounter one another. Jia Zhangke serves as co-producer on this film. The title is meant to be ironic while its narrative style that mixes fiction and reality is like two sides of the same coin that expresses certain fates and life paths of women.

Drug trafficker Choi Tim-ming (Louis Koo) crashes his car and is sent to the hospital, where he is arrested by police captain Zhang Lei (Sun Honglei) because of his connection with an explosion at a drug lab. In order to avoid the death penalty for his crimes, he agrees to act as an informant and help the police capture a drug ring. However, Choi plays one side against the other, initiating a high stakes and dangerous game with lethal consequences. Johnny To transcends the conventions of most Hong Kong-China co-productions with a script written by Wai Ka-fai, Yau Nai-hoi and others, incorporating variations of elements from his former films like the gang of seven from Mad Detective (2007), while the sharp observations of the changing era that was evident in the Election (2005) series continues with this work. Yet in keeping with the spirit of the times, the friendly rivalry between people on opposite sides of the law as seen in Running Out of Time (1999) is replaced by mistrust and suspicion here. The bullet-filled finale imparts the gloomy sense of predestination and black humor previously seen in Expect the Unexpected (1998).

The year 1997 when the Asian financial crisis engulfs Bangkok, Mutt flies back from New York to take care of his father's funeral, and in the process re-encounters his ex-girlfriend. At the same time, his younger brother experiences the pangs of first love. The juxtaposition between his relationship and that of his brother is symbolic of the contrast between Thailand's past and future. Lee Chatametikool is a well-known editor and a frequent winner of Best Editor awards at the Asian Film Awards. He worked with Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) and was the editor on his new feature Memoria (2021). His other works as editor includes So Long, My Son (2019), directed by Wang Xiaoshuai, the Thai horror film Shutter (2004), as well as the films of Anocha Suwichakornpong. Concrete Clouds was financed by Hong Kong company Far Sun Film and co-produced by Sylvia Chang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung) is an aging actress with a stalling career and a cheating husband (Tony Leung Ka-fai). To rescue her career, she turns to Aunt Mei (Bai Ling), whose famous dumplings are known for their rejuvenating abilities, for help. However, the horrifying contents and amazing effectiveness of Mei's dumplings drive Mrs. Li to take extreme measures for the sake of eternal youth. Originally made as a part of the Peter Chan-produced omnibus Three… Extremes (2005), which also features a short by Thirst director Park Chan-wook, this slow-burn adaptation of the novella by Rouge and Farewell My Concubine author Lillian Lee (who also wrote the script) is a chilling body horror film on human vanity about youth and beauty. For her creepy turn as Mei, Bai Ling won Best Supporting Actress at both the Golden Horse Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Korean Showcase

Comfort Women Trilogy | Director: Byun Young-joo
In Korean with Chinese and English subtitles | Colour
The Murmuring
South Korea | 1995 | 100 mins
Habitual Sadness
South Korea | 1997 | 57 mins
My Own Breathing
South Korea | 1999 | 77 mins
Date & Time: 4/12/2021 (Sat)
1:00pm – The Murmuring
3:15pm* – Habitual Sadness, My Own Breathing
*Director Byun Young-joo will attend the virtual after-screening talk

Filmed over roughly a decade, Byun Young-joo's landmark documentary series follows a group of Korean women who were sexually exploited by the Japanese during World War II. In The Murmuring (1995), the first Korean documentary to receive a theatrical release in mainstream Korean cinemas, Byun follows a group of survivors who demonstrates outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul once a week, demanding the Japanese government to apologise for the pain they endured. When one of the women in the group is diagnosed with cancer, the survivors asked Byun to make Habitual Sadness (1997) to document her last days and the women's effort to find solace as they face mortality. In the heartrending final chapter, My Own Breathing (1999), Byun brings in a former victim to interview fellow victims of Japanese sexual slavery. Not only is Byun's trilogy an important first-hand account of wartime atrocities, it has also helped build support at home in the fight for an official apology from Japan. Though daunting in length and emotionally harrowing at times, those who see the trilogy in its entirety will also feel the women's ability to spread joy to those around them, their loving friendship and their unwavering resilience even in everyday life.

Madonna's “Like a Virgin” is an unusual empowerment song for the hero of this offbeat sports comedy, the directorial debut of the screenwriting team behind Conduct Zero (2002) and romance Au Revoir UFO (2004). Dong-gu (Ryu Deok hwan) has been saving up for a sex change operation, but his low-paying part-time job and his violent former boxer father aren't helping at all. He joins a tournament for Ssireum, a form of traditional Korean wrestling not unlike sumo, to make a quick buck when the team's laidback coach realises that Dong-gu's love of Madonna can help him achieve victory. A rare mainstream Korean film with a LGBTIQ+ hero, Like a Virgin is a weirdly hilarious sports film anchored by a winning performance by Ryu Deok-hwan, who gained 20 kilograms to play the unlikely wrestling hero. Kusanagi Tsuyoshi, former member of popular Japanese idol group SMAP, also has a scene-stealing cameo as Dong-gu's teacher.

Actor Yang Ik-june makes an explosive directorial debut with this brutal and disturbing drama. Witnessing a major childhood trauma turned Sang-hoon (Yang) into a rage-filled creature who sees violence as the only solution to everything. One day, he meets a brazen high school student (Kim Kkot-bi) who dares to stand up to him, marking the beginning of an unusually beautiful friendship. Unrelentingly violent but ultimately hopeful, Yang's meditation on the root and the devastating consequences of domestic violence was the highest-grossing homegrown independent film for five straight years, as well as a major critical success around the world, winning awards in Rotterdam, Tokyo FILMeX, the New York Asian Film Festival and the Deauville Asian Film Festival. After its success, Yang became one of the most in demand actors in indie cinema, starring as voice actor for Yeon Sang-ho's The King of Pigs (2011) and The Fake (2013), Zhang Lu's A Quiet Dream (2016), as well as acclaimed Japanese films Our Homeland (2012) and Wilderness (2017).

After failing to make it big in Seoul, aspiring poet Sun-ho (Kim Young-pil) moves back to his countryside home to live with his parents. After an argument with his father, Sun-ho angrily takes the family bull to sell it. After he's unable to sell the bull, Sun-ho is forced to tow the bull home via the long way, with his ex-lover (Kong Hyo-jin), and the widow of his estranged best friend, along for the ride. Based on the novel by Kim Do-yeon, Yim Soon-rye's gentle and whimsical road movie is also a heartfelt story of a man on a pilgrimage in search of freedom from his past failures. As mellow as “500 Miles”, the Peter, Paul and Mary tune featured in the film, Rolling Home with A Bull will inspire your own journey of tidying up personal burdens and search for things that spark joy.

An assistant director on Lee Chang-dong's Poetry, actor-director Park Jung-bum began his career as one of the best and most uncompromising independent auteurs of his generation with this startling and powerful social drama. Park himself stars as Seung-chul, a North Korean defector living in a ramshackle flat outside of Seoul. He works a dead-end job as a poster layer, which often gets him beaten by rivals around the city; he doesn't have the guts to make friends, let alone approach the girl he likes at church; and his only friend is a stray dog. Based on the true experiences of Park's friend, a North Korean defector who died of stomach cancer only six years after defecting to South Korea, The Journals of Musan portrays a societal outcast seeking to bury his past in a rapidly modernising society where no one appears to be who they seem. The Journals of Musan premiered at the 15th Busan International Film Festival, where it won both the New Current Award and the FIPRESCI Award before earning over a dozen more prizes at film festivals around the world.

Before his live-action blockbuster Train to Busan, director Yeon Sang-ho used the art of animation to uncover the darkest parts of human nature. In Yeon's brutal, but gripping feature directorial debut, two former secondary school classmates reunite in their 30's and recount their time in high school, when they were sitting at the bottom rung of the social ladder (labelled as “pigs”) and ruled over by a ruling class of bullies (labelled as “dogs”). However, the school's social balance is disrupted when an outsider emerges as the “king of pigs” and fights back against the dogs with a brutality that would irrevocably change the students' lives. After its world premiere at Busan International Film Festival, The King of Pigs became the first Korean animated film to be selected for the Director's Fortnight sidebar programme in Cannes and helped Korean animated films gain legitimacy around the world.

“I'm more scared of my son getting fourth place than getting hit,” says the ferocious tiger mom in director Jung Ji-woo's captivating and equally terrifying exposé of Asian competitive culture. Tired of her son, Joon-ho, constantly getting fourth place in swimming competitions, a mother asks former Olympic hopeful Gwang-su for help. However, what she doesn't know is that Gwang-su would turn to the same abusive methods that broke him in his youth to ensure that Joon-ho achieves victory. Co-produced by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, this subversive sports drama is an anti-thesis to the clichéd “no pain, no gain” nature of typical films in the genre. Fans of Park Hae-joon's deceptively charming performance as a cheating husband in hit TV drama The World of the Married will be mortified by his sinister turn here as the swimming coach from hell, while young actor Jung Ga-ram impresses with his Daejong Film Award winning turn as the troubled young athlete.

To pay for her son's university tuition, 65-year-old So-young (Youn Yuh-jung) works as an elderly prostitute. While getting treated for an S.T.D., her doctor is attacked by his Filipina mistress over their illegitimate son. In a panic, So-young takes the boy to her home and ends up forming an unusual surrogate family with her amputee neighbour and transgender landlord while caring for the boy. Before becoming a globally recognised star with her award-winning performance in Minari (2020), Youn was already a five-decade veteran actress best known at home for her daring performances. An expert in drawing out incredible female performances with films such as Untold Scandal (2003) and The Actresses (2009), director E J-yong lends a humanist touch with an empathetic look at struggles faced by the elderly, sexual minorities, the disabled and immigrants in contemporary Korean society.

Like a Virgin co-director Lee Hae-young brings Johnnie To's acclaimed thriller Drug War (2012) to Korea with this breathtakingly suspenseful remake. Like the original, Believer follows a team of dedicated detectives, led by Won-ho (Cho Jin-woong), who thinks they have an once-in-a-lifetime chance to take down the notorious drug kingpin known as Mr Lee when they capture Rak (Ryoo Joon-yeol), a member of the drug ring. However, their obsession with stopping Mr Lee will cost them more than they can afford. Co-written by Chung Seo-kyung, longtime screenwriter for director Park Chan-wook, Lee's take on the award-winning police procedural thriller is even more morally murky and thrilling than the original film. With cinematographer Kim Tae-kyung (A Muse, The Throne) and music composer Dalpalan (The Wailing), Lee also creates a vibrant and visually stylish palate that makes this remake uniquely his own.

Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho) is a well-meaning Catholic priest who volunteers for a vaccine experiment in Africa. In the process, he receives a life-saving blood transfusion that also turns him into a vampire. As his thirst for blood grows, so too does his desire for Tae-ju (Kim Ok-bin), the abused wife of his childhood friend. Loosely based on Thérèse Raquin, Émile Zola's novel about a doomed adulterous love affair, the deliciously macabre script by director Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung plays with traditional vampire film tropes for a provocative and darkly comical story of a repressed man's carnal awakening and very bloody pursuit for eternal life. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Park's thrilling take on the horror genre is also one of his sexiest films.