Love in the Gaze of a Panopticon

A Hong Kong father and Chinese daughter live in different regions and speak different languages. With their identity and lifestyle antithetical to each other, family members who are supposed to be the closest are actually the most unfamiliar. CHAN Wing-keung, an elderly man who lives alone, is a security guard at a Kwun Tong park. One day, he accompanies his daughter Tsz-shan, who comes from Chinese Mainland, to renew her ID card and open a bank account in Hong Kong. They return home and go for a walk at the park where Wing-keung works. Faced with the gap between them, they are hesitant to speak and can only beat around the bush without making a move. The film gazes at the Hong Kong’s cityscape while ruminating sea changes between father and daughter with its shifting aspect ratio. Once again, Hong Kong Film Award-winning actor Tai Bo acts out the loneliness of elderly in a surehanded performance.

Three phone calls and three long shots connecting three seemingly unrelated characters, probing into the untold hardship of ordinary hustlers in the world’s most expensive city, Hong Kong, as her charm slowly fades.

Love is like a flickering lamp whose shades and shadows conjure up images that unsettle the mind. Barista Dawn met her elite boyfriend at a café in Hong Kong’s financial district. At his surprise birthday party, Dawn finds herself out of place among her boyfriend’s privileged friends. Among the birthday presents is a gold designer lamp. As Dawn ponders its reflection, a nightmare begins to take form in her head. On the next day, Dawn encounters a mysterious woman who is her mirror image. Dawn decides to follow her.

Two COVID-testing employees make out in hazmat suits. A blindfolded student sits on her bed, rhythmically reciting lines from a school textbook. Evocative scenes, rich in symbolism, are strung together to form this striking, wry portrait of Hong Kong’s current social turmoil. Arnold Tam commits to a daring visual style and doesn’t shy away from dashes of absurdity to get his message across.