Old Running Men

Hong Kong's high-speed rail link, the demolition of Choi Yuen Village, the impending budget and the influence of the global Occupy movement are at the centre of independent filmmaker Lo's timely measure of the city's pulse. Ostensibly the third entry in a trilogy that began with 21 years after. (2010) and to be continued (2010), which also captured public reaction to watershed moments in Hong Kong's political life since 2009. The documentary was built upon the material used in its previous installment (to be continued, 46 minutes). It disproves the notion of a passive Hong Kong in a chronicle of a generation poised for massive social change.

After losing his son in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, a disillusioned old man chooses to stay silent and block out the noises of political bickering in the city. After all, nothing anyone does ever seem to make any difference. With the quick deterioration of freedom in Hong Kong, how much longer can the old man choose to stay silent before the oppression becomes too much? Amidst the noises from all sides, which side should we listen to, or should we simply stay apathetic and block out the noise altogether?

Behind Mongkok’s Portland Street where French music plays in cute little artsy cafés, the back alley is a totally different world. Sister Kam washes dishes in the alley every night. She fights with the workers at the rubbish collection point and proudly boasts to the waiters how she could slaughter a pig on her own. She works till midnight and gets up at 5:30am, day after day. In the thousands of alleys in Hong Kong, stories that speak of life’ struggles wait to be told.

The work documented the story of Yuli, a Hong Kong domestic worker from Indonesia. She is a novelist who won a literature award and also a journalist dedicated to writing. Between the social event that happened in June in Hong Kong, her thoughts and caring about the city are far more from what people used to imagine a narrative of a domestic worker. They are not only domestic workers but they also have other social roles, e.g. a citizen who lived in Hong Kong.

At the forefront of most of Hong Kong's demonstrations, 'frontliners' (aka 'the valiant', yung mo in Cantonese) are the black-clad, masked, often armed youth willing to use violence against the HK government and its heavily-armed police force. Willis Ho's remarkably revealing doc approaches from the inside, giving them voices and offering understanding, not judgment.