Letters to Ali

A filmmaker and a piano student, who first meet in Australia, try to make sense of a past imbued with mystery in Macau and an uncertain future in Hong Kong.

Clara Law's debut feature deals with her common theme of emigration as two people, man and woman, from separate couples, have to room together while their spouses are in America to finalize the Canadian citizenship process.

Li Hung is a desperate mother who tried for years to obtain an American visa to study to create a better life for her husband Nansan and her son. But after a short time, she loses contact with her family, and her husband, Nansan smuggles himself to New York to find her.

In the early 1980s, director Clara Law Cheuk-yiu left her position as a producer at Radio Television Hong Kong’s TV division and became the first Chinese student at the National Film and Television School in the UK. Her graduation project, They Say the Moon Is Fuller Here, became a feature-length film and won the Silver Plaque award at the 1985 Chicago Film Festival.

An aging Hong Kong couple move to Australia with their two youngest sons. They stay with a daughter who has already begun a successful career. Meanwhile their eldest daughter lives in Germany and their eldest son remains in Hong Kong. The film explores the different ways the family members cope with isolation and alienation.

A rich, young businessman travels to Australia with the intention of buying a 1967 Citroën DS. Once he arrives, things do not go to plan, and he must drive the DS into the outback alongside a blind young woman in order to track down its seller.

Five young men threw themselves with heart and soul into the work force. They have different approaches and different life styles.

A Japanese tourist, Tokio, meets a 15-year-old Hong Kong girl and her grandmother left behind in Hong Kong while their family emigrates to Canada.

An exceptionally beautiful Chinese woman falls prey to violence and social control. After remembering how her previous reincarnation followed a similar path, she tries to break free of the mould.

Near the beginning of the Tang dynasty, in 7th century China, General Shi Yan-sheng is tricked into leaving the crown prince unguarded. The crown prince is murdered by one of his brothers who then becomes emperor. Shi retreats to a monastery, perhaps to hide, perhaps to plan a coup. When his loyal troops as well as the princess he desires are slain, he seeks refuge in a remote, abandoned monastery where an aged abbot schools him with practical, earthy teachings. The emperor's forces pursue Shi: first a woman, then a general seek to overpower him with lust and might. Over the course of the film, the reds of battle give way to blues of meditation.

Private investigator Jacky Cheung is adrift. He has separated from his wife (Kathy Chow) and misses his young daughter. His next assignment seems fairly simple: he must track down a troublesome teenage girl (Mavis Fan) and return her home to China. Powerful behind the scenes forces soon become apparent, however, and plunge our intrepid hero into greater trouble than he's ever known.

Fan Ruyi, a detective, finds himself framed after getting a top secret mission. Along the way he meets a blind performer and a powerful warlord's daughter that further complicates his quest to clear his name.

While on a business trip in Shanghai, a man sees a woman he has had recurring dreams of.

The sexual fantasies of women are explored by four female directors.

Wai leaves Hong Kong without telling anyone and drift across Taiwan, reconnecting with old friends. Ling flies from Hong Kong to Australia to bring her deceased friend home, trying to piece together her state of mind before her death. The two journeys converge, bearing witness to a young generation's struggles while holding a glimmer of hope for the present time.

Adrian is a Chinese Australian visiting his Hong Kong girlfriend Ann. The relationship is already in deep trouble because both are suffering from an identity crisis. Adrian is "yellow on the outside but white in the middle." The solution he thinks is a crash course for Adrian by his uncle on lovemaking techniques using a thousand-year-old Chinese sex manual. Naturally, Adrian's newly acquired skills do not work. The problem, as it turns out, is not that Adrian is "not Chinese enough" but that, according to Ann, he does not know "wonton soup does not exist in Hong Kong." The young couple's real problem, Law seems to suggest, is that they live in an eclectic and transnational cultural environment yet they are not aware of its implication for their mosaic identities. Wonton Soup is Law's contribution to the omnibus film Erotique, a collaborative effort by four women directors from four continents that bills itself as "women's erotica."