Man Lim-chung's Keep Rolling is a worthy -- and very watchable -- documentary tribute to Ann Hui (Film review)

Poster for the documentary on Ann Hui On-wah

 

Keep Rolling (Hong Kong, 2020)

- Man Lim-chung, director

 

At the Venice International Film Festival last month, Tilda Swinton and Ann Hui On-wah were honored with Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement awards.  The British actress made be better known internationally but there's no doubting the high degree of respect that the Hong Kong filmmaker has in her home territory and beyond.  We're talking, after all, of a six time winner -- more than anyone else -- of the Hong Kong Film Awards' Best Director prize and three time winner of the Golden Horse Awards' Best Director accolade, whose films have come away with major prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival along with the Venice International Film Festival.

 

Ann Hui directed her first feature film in 1979.  The Secret was a commercial hit as well as critically acclaimed.  The high regard with which it continues to be held can be seen by it having been chosen in recent years for restoration treatment by the Hong Kong Film Archive, and DVDs of it having gone out of stock (as in, have completely sold out).

 

More than forty years on, the 73-year-old filmmaker is still active in the film industry; with her latest offering being Septet, a joint effort with six other illustrious Hong Kong filmmakers (born in the 1940s and 1950s) that was the opening film at this year's Busan International Film Festival, which began earlier this week.  I hope -- and, actually, reckon -- that it will not be her last directorial effort by a long shot.  Even so, now seems a pretty good time to also see a documentary made about Ann Hui and her work.  And that's what Man Lim-chung's Keep Rolling is -- and more, actually, since, as he stated at its world premiere (also earlier this week), it's about "Ann’s career and work, it’s about cinema, and it’s about Hong Kong".             

 

Four years in the making (with it having been shot over the course of three years and editing work taking up another year), Keep Rolling is much more than just "talking heads" and choice film excerpts.  Rather, it also features such as "behind the scenes" on-location footage of Ann Hui directing the likes of Zhou Xun and Eddie Peng in Our Time Will Come (2017), and Tang Wei in The Golden Era (2014), as well as the Hong Konger in her home habitat, hanging out with friends and family members, and going about her daily life, walking her neighborhood streets and taking public transport (everyday actions which can hold a certain fascination when enacted by a famous individual some of us might expect to be more recognized physically!).  

 

Filmophiles will undoubtedly appreciate seeing Ann Hui in directorial mode and hearing other directors and crew members talking about her working style.  I also enjoyed getting personal insights about her from her siblings along with her own accounts of her childhood, her university experiences (which should bring to mind her Starry is the Night (1988)), and her views of her life and world.  And fans of Ann Hui will undoubtedly appreciate the chance to get to know her mother (some biographical details of whom had been shared in Song of the Exile (1990)) that Keep Rolling offers up.    

Ann Hui being Ann Hui, it probably was impossible for a documentary about her to be dull and uninteresting.  What is a pleasant surprise though is how much laughter there can be when watching what actually also is a very entertaining as well as informative film! 

 

Take the sequence which shows the film's subject trying out clothes to wear for a Golden Horse Awards ceremony, followed by footage of her at the Golden Horse Awards apologizing for not wearing those clothes, then an interview in which her co-presenter on the night, Sylvia Chang (the lead actress in The Secret as well an obvious friend), recounted how mad she had been that Ann Hui had not dressed up for the occasion like she had taken obvious pains to do!  It tells you a lot about the director and the affection that her fellow Hong Kong film industry veteran has for her; and, as with the rest of Keep Rolling, it makes the audience appreciate Ann Hui as as a fellow human as well as a much respected filmmaker who Hong Kong cinema has been blessed to have had in its ranks, and for so many years.  

 

My rating for the film: 9.0