Hong Kong is the 74th unhappiest nation on Earth. A startling fact that shocks Josie Ho (Popular HK singer/actress), so much so that she decides to spearhead an effort to teach Hongkongers how to be happy again. She would gather a group of music students, fellow instrumentalists, and singers of the local rock scene and they would travel to Iceland-a country known to be one of the top five happiest in the world, to learn a thing or two. “Finding Bliss” details their efforts and compiles all that they learn in bite-sized sections, aiming to rekindle the spark of happiness in everyone.
Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice-The Director's Cut is screening on New York Asian Film Festival
The first act introduces us to a myriad of entertainers in the Hong Kong musical scene like MC Yan (a renowned street artist and rapper), Jimmy Mak (guitarist), Ceung Yee-sik (drummer), Jan Lo(singer) and a host of other artists. Most importantly, it gives us our first encounter with Josie Ho and her bandmembers, including guitarist Dee Lam, who co-directs the project. Josie Ho explains how Hong Kong is in a dire state of being too depressing and stressful a place to live in. Young people are getting increasingly jaded and uninspired, and the cost of living has escalated through the roof. As a result, she plans a learning journey to Iceland with her clique of rockstars to not only have a music jam with the Icelandic folk but also learn from them the true essence of happiness.
Ho invites the eloquently brilliant Jim Chim (motivator and entertainer) along on the trip while throwing a curveball at her troupe of rockstars. Unbeknownst to them, their music jam session is not the true aim of the project, instead, Jim's gruelling masterclass inspired by the teachings of Philippe Gaulier-is to be the basis of the journey. The cast members take part in a series of activities and games that see them gradually loosening up and not taking themselves too seriously. That is as fun to watch as being a participant in the event might have been. The comedic short videos and takeaways from his antics drive the picture along its 96-minute runtime, providing many endearing moments that will be sure to elicit a smile even from the most hardened audience.
The part-travel, part-participatory documentary ambles along with cuts between the picturesque scenery of Iceland and snippets of the happenings in the holding room of Jim's hilarious workshop. Also peppered throughout the film were moments where the cast encounters the local folk which includes a church organist, a music storekeeper and a nature guide that teaches them about lava. These stray events stick out as travelogue-esque and disconnect from the flow of its narrative and train of thought.
However, it is interesting to note that “Finding Bliss” started out as a personal pet project of Josie Ho, with the pictures and videos of the journey shared on her website. It only became a feature film when Kim Chan and fellow ‘Josie and the Uni Boys' bandmember, Dee Lam (in his directorial feature debut) integrated it into a documentary forming a director's cut. While there is much to take away from its nine succinctly curated sections, the film is essentially just a behind-the-scenes look at the masterclass. This makes it not adequate to hold up as a feature-length film and you can feel your attention waning as it moves along. Perhaps explaining the inclusion of the touristic material to beef up its content.
Will Dee Lam and Kim Chan's documentary solve the unhappiness pandemic in Hong Kong? Probably not. But it does serve as a cinematic version of a self-help book that offers them and the viewer, some tips to find bliss within themselves, and to exuberate the gusto outwards, colouring the greys of the mundane world we live in. If anything, the triumphant mega jam session in the third act drives the point across with its roaring marriage of Icelandic and Cantonese musical textures that tear the roof down. Enticing us to grasp onto the joie de vivre, to live our best life.
