Directors Lo Yan-chi and Jason Yiu at a
post-screening Q&A for Keep Rolling
Keep Rolling (Hong Kong, 2022)
- Directors: Lo Yan-chi (Same Boat), Kingston Chow (Rubbish Bin), Erica Kwok (April's Interlude), Jason Yiu (A Letter from Prison)
Before anything else: No, this is a different Keep Rolling from Man Lim-chung's same-named documentary about Hong Kong filmmaker, Ann Hui On-wah. A short film anthology produced by Ying E Chi with the support of the Goethe-Institut, this Keep Rolling -- at the time of writing -- has no IMDB or HKMDB page devoted to it. So information on it is on the scarce side (so much so that, sorry, I can't supply the names of cast members here!)!
But while it hasn't had a regular theatrical run (even in Hong Kong), this cinematic offering has screened a number of times in Hong Kong and also is scheduled to be screened at least once in the US (in California on October 29th). And right off the bat, I'm going to say that those who have the chance to do so should consider viewing it; this especially so for those folks who really f**king love Hong Kong.
Taken as a whole, Keep Rolling provides positive proof that Hong Kong filmmakers are determined to keep on going even in (these) tough times, and there's significant promise in the young generation (who, unlike with the other Keep Rolling, are at the heart of this offering). To be sure, it is uneven in quality -- the way that's to be expected of anthologies -- as well as diverse in terms of its subject matter. But even that which I reckon is the weakest cinematically of its four components still is, at the very least, of ethnographic interest and invaluable for helping show that Hong Kong is more linguistically and otherwise complex than many people realize.
The short film that gets Keep Rolling going, Lo Yan-chi's Same Boat is documentary in style and possibly also in nature. It looks at the relationship between Yin (a polyglot who switches effortlessly between Cantonese, Hokkien, etc.) and her (solely) Hokkien-speaking nonagenarian maternal grandmother, both of whom appear much closer to each other emotionally than either are to Yin's mother. While Yin's mother has a full-time job, Yin doesn't; so Yin takes it upon herself to care for her beloved grandmother. Because the elderly lady doesn't have all her faculties intact, their conversations involve a lot of repetition. While this can feel wearying, this does hammer home the devotion Yin feels for her grandma along with the bond they have clearly established.
The segment that follows, Kingston Chow's Rubbish Bin, is a more story-based work with sections geared to make you smile and laugh out loud. Its protagonist is a young man named Genius but can come across as a loser: who gets dumped by his girlfriend early on his tale and is tasked by his boss to take a box containing something a feng shui master has deemed to bring bad luck and dispose of it far away from the shop. Along the way, the lack of rubbish bins in Hong Kong (in the wake of the government decided to hide away a number of them in direct response to their being used as obstacles by anti-extradition bill protestors) is highlighted in this tale. So even while his short film largely plays out as a comedy/farce, Kingston Chow actually does have serious things to say about the state of Hong Kong!
The mood gets more serious in Erica Kwok's April's Interlude, which, interestingly, its director has opted to film in black and white rather than color. So vivid is its story though that, in my mind's eye, I've added color to it. Its protagonist is a cosmetologist named Shan, whose beauty salon cum spa has to temporarily close during the pandemic and who consequently spends far more time at home (where she lives with her mother and their Filipina helper) than she usually does. Among the more interesting -- and affecting -- aspects of April's Interlude is the relationship Shan has/develops with the family helper. And, quietly, it says much that Shan has more of an emotional connection with her than Shan does with an old male friend who she meets up with and realises that she no longer feels she can really relate to; this not least because, unlike her, he was away from Hong Kong for much of 2019.
Saving the best for last, Jason Yiu's A Letter from Prison tells the very touching story of a film director (named James) and his friend, Man. When we first meet Man, he's an arts educator who James wants to star in a film he's making. We later learn that Man is in prison after having been a protestor during the anti-extradition bill-turned-pro-democracy protestors that was largely peaceful but also did have its violent elements. James writes to Man but, as is hinted at in the title of this section, it's Man's letter to James that contains the more important and affecting messages. Hearing Man's reading of the letter left lumps in this (re)viewer's throat; this not least because it got me thinking of the many political prisoners that Hong Kong currently has -- a few of whom I have been writing letters to, and one of whom I have got a letter from prison.
My rating for the film: 6.5 (for Same Boat) + 7.5 (for Rubbish Bin) + 8 (for April's Interlude) + 9 (for A Letter from Prison) = (i.e., evens out to) 7.75
N.B. Should you wish to support Ying E Chi, whose other productions include Taking Back the Legislature and Inside the Red Brick Wall, and government funding has been cut, you can buy Keep Rolling t-shirts (made by, and available at, Chickeeduck). And yes, I've got one!
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