Adapted from a homonymous short story by director Sasha Chuk, produced by Stanley Kwan and Jun Li with funding from the Hong Kong Film Development Council's First Feature Film Initiative. “Fly me to the Moon” is one of the ambitious titles coming out this year from HK, and is now starting its festival run, premiering in Tokyo.
Fly me to the Moon is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival 2024
In 1997, 8-year-old Yuan moves to Hong Kong from Hunan with her mother in order to reunite with her father. However, their life is full of problems from the get go. The language barrier is quite difficult to overcome for Yuan, who is being bullied at school, while her father turns out to be a drug-addict and a thief, who frequently ends up in prison. Her mother is enraged with his behavior, and even more so when she finds out that Yuan is also stealing. Fights break frequently in the house, with Yuan and her little sister trying to make sense of what is happening, at least until their adulthood, when they start fighting back. Through the years, Yuan manages to “get out” but finds herself repeatedly attracted to men that resemble her father's character, despite the fact that she is eventually alienated from him.
Sasha Chuk directs a very entertaining family drama, which uses the usual trope of the story of a family through the decades, in order to make comments for the characters, but also for Hong Kong, and also to induce the narrative with a sense of nostalgia that works quite well here. Regarding the comments, the issues that internal immigration poses, particularly regarding the language barrier, is one of the initial ones, but the main focus lies with the consequences of growing up in a family that is not just poor, but includes a father who is actually a problem for the rest, if not a disaster.
Through this last concept, the narrative begins focusing on how her relationship with her father shapes Yuan, both in positive and in negative ways. The positive ones include her learning to be independent, to survive on her own, and essentially being tough, while the negative ones include that she ends up looking for people that resemble her father's behavior and that she harbors a bitterness towards him that is definitely not helping with her life. Her relationship with her mother, which eventually becomes a long-distance one, and her sister, for whom she cares for deeply but also fosters a kind of dislike for her not sharing her feelings about her father, are also shaped likewise, in a rather thorough portrait of the main character which emerges as one of the film's best traits.
The three actresses who portray Yuan are all quite convincing, but I felt the one who truly embodies her persona is actually Chuk herself in the third part, whose meaningful silences and few but rather significant words highlight the protagonist as thoroughly as possible. The second great performance comes from Wu Kang-ren in the role of the father, who is equally excellent as an aggressive petty criminal and as a broken, remorseful man.
Ho Yuk Fai and Chan Hok Lun's cinematography is quite good in the presentation of the three eras, while communicating the suffocating setting the protagonists inhabit in the first part in particular, in the most eloquent fashion. The editing results in a mid-tempo that is quite fitting for the story, while the transitions to the different eras are very smooth.
“Fly me to the Moon” is an excellent family drama, which manages to present a captivating story in the most entertaining way possible while also communicating a series of intriguing comments quite eloquently.
