Off-Sets: Photographies of Hong Kong Cinema -- a very cool exhibition that helped me to chase the blues away (Photo-essay)

Yesterday saw the conclusion of the trial of the ex-trustees and former secretary of the now defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund.  To be sure, Cardinal Joseph Zen, lawyer Margaret Ng, former legislative councillor Cyd Ho, activist singer-actress Denise Ho and co did not stand trial for breaking the national security law (despite their initially being arrested on suspicion of having done so back in May) but, rather, the much lesser offence of failing to register the fund as a society.  Even so, their having been found guilty of this -- the first time this had happened to anyone in Hong Kong, as Margaret Ng pointed out -- is something that's troubling and upsetting.    

 

After reading about this, I felt a need to get out to get some fresh air and, also, things to help me to continue loving Hong Kong.  And I found that by way of a visit to the very cool Off-Sets: Photographies of Hong Kong Cinema exhibition put on by the Hong Kong International Photo Festival and featuring the works of Academy Award winning art director and costume designer Tim Yip, art teacher cum film magazine photographer Lo Yuk-ying, photo journalist Louie Wong, Man Lim-chung (the director of Keep Rolling (2020)), celebrity photographer Wing Shya, cinematographer Christopher Doyle, photographer-film person Jupiter Wong, and stills photographers Fong Ho-yuen,  Justine Yeung, Okazaki Hirotake and the idiosyncratically named Karen Cloudy Tang and Sharon Salad. 

 

How good is the exhibition (which I emotionally connected with not only because its subject, Hong Kong cinema, is what drew me back to Hong Kong as an adult but also because I (now) actually have met and interacted with a number of the people who appear in the photos!)?  Hopefully, you'll be able to get a sense of it from the following photo-essay -- and by my telling you that I not only ended up spending some three hours there yesterday but returning again today to view it again.  And I'm tempted to visit again -- its final day.  Truly! :)

 

Just a few of the many, many photos that make up this exhibition

 

We literally are talking of wals and walls of photos here!

 

With Man Lim-chung as the exhibit designer, the photos

are displayed in more artistic and creative ways than usual

 

Karen Cloudy Tang's photos of Yasuaki Kurata (from  

The Empty Hands) on display in a part of the Jockey Club 

Creative Arts Centre where weeds have been allowed to grow :)

Tim Yip's photograph taken on the set of Rouge (can you spot 

leads Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung?) caught my eye

soon after I entered the main exhibition space :)

 

A much clearer photo of Gor Gor; this one by Louie Wong

 

Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia dominates the section devoted to

Fong Ho-yuen's photos of Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain :)

 

And there are a number of photos in the exhibition of Tsui Hark,

the director of that film (and many more, including Peking Opera Blues)

-- like this one taken by Lo Yuk-ying of her friend ;D