Sunny Chan Wing-sun's melodramatic comedy Table for Six 2022 is a commercial success. At the industry trade event Filmart, which wrapped on March 16, film critic Thomas Shin moderated a panel titled Dialogue with Hong Kong Directors: The Spring of Hong Kong Movies? The concept was easy to grasp. After a record-breaking 12 months, which saw the release of more than a dozen local hits led by Jack Ng's all-time box-office champ A Guilty Conscience as of late March, the film has raked in nearly HK $115 million and $14.65 million.
The answer is a resounding yes given the success of Conscience, Sunny Chan Wing-sun s Table for Six which has grossed HK$79 million and Ng Yuen-fai's flashy sci-fi romp Warriors of Future HK $82 million - an impression further bolstered by the current Hong Kong International Film Festival opening and closing with local fare.
I think Hong Kongans are embracing locally produced movies. A Guilty Conscience 2022 by Jack Ng has shattered box office records. With recent projects including Last year's The Narrow Road Lam Sum, the recently released Lost Love Ka Sing-fung and Anastasia Tsang's upcoming A Light Never Goes Out, FFFI also helps with funding from programs like Create Hong Kong's First Feature Film Initiative FFFI. As Ng sees it, the FFFI demand for a completed script, practically optional in the old days, helps nurture better directors.
I don't count myself, I've been around for a bit, but things like the FFFI do help and provide more opportunities, says Ng, noting that more industry veterans are sharing their expertise with wannabe filmmakers. I am confident there will be lots of new directors coming soon. This is a good thing. Chan and Ng agree that working with a finished script, coupled with a willingness to put more of themselves into the films they make, will provide the best way forward for the industry and will help bring Hong Kong cinema to the international stage. That kind of status is still a long way down the road.
This is very much a beginning, concludes Ng. We need a little bit more time before we can say whether this is an actual spring, because we need to be a little bit more time, say, three to five years.