The now 81-year-old -- but still very lively! -- Teddy Robin Kwan
was the guest of honor at the Hong Kong International
Film Festival screening of the restored version of Cageman
Cageman (Hong Kong, 1992)
- Jacob Cheung, director and co-scriptwriter (with Ng Chong-chau and Yank Wong)
- Starring: Michael Lee, Roy Chiao, Teddy Robin Kwan, Victor Wong, Ku Feng, Liu Kai-chi, Wong Ka-kui, Lau Shun, etc.
- Part of the HKIFF's Chinese-language Restored Classics program
Cageman is a film I've known about but put off viewing for decades. It's not that I doubted that it was good. After all, it was named Best Film -- and won in three other categories, including Best Director for Jacob Cheung -- at the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards, a very competitive year in view of other Hong Kong films made and released in 1992 including Centre-Stage, Swordsman II, and Once Upon a Time in China II.
But it being a drama about people who live in cage homes -- which still exist in Hong Kong more than 30 years on, more than by the way -- makes for it having a reputation for not being easy to watch. Also, there has not been good home video versions of it available for decades now. Something that hopefully will be remedied in the near future now that there's a 4k restored version of it: which had its first ever public screening earlier this week; and at which one of its cast members, Teddy Robin Kwan, was the guest of honour.
And while director-co-scriptwriter Jacob Cheung was unable to attend the screening, he recorded a video message that was played before the start of this cinematic treasure of a film during which he sadly noted how many members of the cast are no longer with us (RIP, Michael Lee, Roy Chiao, Victor Wong, Ku Feng and Lau Shun, among others; and also the two youngest stars, Wong Ka-kui and Liu Kai-chi). On a happier note, Cheung recounted how he was so pleased about Cageman having been received positively upon its original release -- and that the award that gave him the most satisfaction was that for Best Ensemble received in Singapore.
After viewing this deservedly well-regarded offering, I understand why: as Cageman has an incredible cast, fully deserving of great acclaim, who infused their characters with humanity as well as worked together very well. Michael Lee was incredibly watchable as the elderly but spritely "7-11", who runs a grocery within the cage home complex with the help of the more physically mobile "Sissy" (portrayed with great empathy by the late Chinese-American actor Victor Wong).
Roy Chiao anchors the film as "Fatso", the manager of sorts of the cage homes who also lives in one along with his intellectually disabled son, Sam (essayed by Liu Kai-chi, who I'm more familiar seeing playing father figures in his later years). While Teddy Robin Kwan, Ku Feng, Lau Shun and Wong Ka-kui play other "cagemen" -- there are no (cage)women, by the way, but there's an ethnic mix in the film that, interestingly, is taken as a matter of course rather than made much of -- who stand to lose their homes after it's announced that the landlord has sold the building it's located in and the building will be demolished.
One of the biggest ironies and tragedies presented in Cageman is that while audience members will think that the living conditions of the "cagemen" are terrible, they -- a number of whom appear to have been (non-native Cantonese-speaking) refugees from China -- themselves think that there are much worse possibilities. (Though, strangely enough, there's a former cage home dweller who moved out onto the streets who seems to be doing better than his friends in the movie; more specifically, Charlie, the cheery character played by Joe Junior!)
Arguably even sadder to see, actually, is how the district councillors (a two-faced lawyer with Western ways played by Dennis Chan and a Chinese-opera-singing bow-tie wearer played by Chow Chung) use rather than help their cage dwelling constituents. Ironically, that might have been (looked upon as) a dig against the colonial British government back in 1992 on the part of this Sil-Metropole Organisation production. But 24 years on, the continued relevance of this invaluable social drama that might have been seen as (produced by) "leftist" by Hongkongers is a damning indictment on the post-Handover regime(s) (too).
My rating for the film: 10.
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