The Withering

On 6th March 2011, 113 protesters in Hong Kong were arrested for "Unlawful Assembly" after they stormed the traffic lanes of Central during a demonstration against the budget proposal. Protesters were placed in the canteen of the police station for questioning in groups due to inadequate rooms. Three protesters and three police officers, six people with different political views sitting around the table. The copy machine is out of order; it's going to be a long night. So they started chatting.

On, a primary school boy, seeks guidance from a Chinese chess scammer, who sets up endgames in the park. The two lonely souls find solace in their mentorship as they lie their ways out.

The poignant drama centers on Mr. Chan, a passionate secondary school teacher dedicated to students with special educational needs (SEN). Adapting the approach of inclusive education by placing SEN students in mainstream schools, Mr. Chan's unwavering dedication is challenged by those around him including the largely indifferent principal who scoffed at the name of the symptoms, the vice-principal who is more a deal maker than an educator, fellow bullying students and the parents who face numerous hurdles with strength derived solely from their enduring motherly love. An unflinching look of Mr. Chan's and the mother of a SEN student raise the question: how to care for the SEN students without leaving them high and dry?

The city is no longer the same after the year of social unrest. How do those that remain make peace with the past and move on with their lives? After Nam’s good friend Man left the city, Nam is left behind to take care of Man's mother and motor bike, while struggling to live life as normal. A strange visitation one night by her grandfather brings Nam back to her ancestral village in mainland China, where she learns about her father’s painful past. Under the silent and long poetic gaze of the camera, the survivors of two generations, representing the past and the present, the country and the city, commiserate together in a shared moment of grief and solidarity.

They are frozen in place, stagnating without any direction. Around them, things change rapidly.

Four young lives were changed forever when they become involved in the 1967 Hong Kong Leftist Riot; half a century later, another four face similar challenges amidst the Mainland-Hong Kong conflict.

Although 15-year old Wing is bounced around in foster homes, he forms a genuine sibling relationship with 9-year old Hoi Lam and the mentally challenged Chi Yan. They are cared for by Chi Yan's grandmother who heads up this makeshift family. Occasionally full of teen angst and bordering on delinquency, Wing nevertheless showers Hoi Lam and Chi Yan with brotherly care. Cheerful Ho Lam dreams of reunion with his mother. Wing, more world-weary, ends up transferring to a youth hostel. In their brief days together, the trio formed a true family bonded by love instead of blood. The immensely likeable and talented trio of actors shines in this poignant and heartwarming tale on how children find strength in each other.

Pak-kiu works as a gaffer while waiting for his first break in front of the camera. An inviting target of ridicule, he remains unwavering that he will rise above the sordid realities of the glamorous world of film-making with his determination to be a proper actor rather than a star. So when he is offered a bit part as a cancer patient in a new film, he jumps at the chance to practise method acting, literally getting into his character and inhabiting him through claiming membership of a support group, which reunites him with an old classmate. However, the reunion, shrouded in a façade of altruistic motive, leaves him ill-prepared for a role in real life that is not so easily dismissed as a character in the script...

She is a teacher of Chinese literature, reciting poems and recounting the brilliance of ancient Chinese poets before a class of students whose common parlance is foul language. He is a hormone-charged teenager who makes a paper plane for the teacher from a torn textbook page doodled with drawings of the object of his fantasy. She is a divorcee whose husband was rumoured to have an affair with a student in his school. With partly fascination and partly curiosity, he starts making suggestive remarks in class and stalking her outside the school, rattling her with flirtation. Both carrying a heavy load of baggage, the teacher and her student are about to ignite a spark that will scorch them both.

In a night woven with mushroom soup and hallucinations, two brothers met in the mountain for camping – and burying their late father's body.

There are people and places that we used to hold dear in our hearts and gradually became sediments of buried memories. When Charlotte encounters a suitcase at the second hand shop she works at, her emotions are unearthed and bring her back to the days of innocence with Chan. Charlotte did believe that Chan, just like the neighbourhood in bygone times, would remain constant. Yet all old things are helplessly abandoned and crushed beneath the wheel of time. At the same time, Ling is depressed and lonely because of Chan's death. Sending Chan's things away to purge her negative emotions and to set herself free from the past, a treasured relationship reveals itself like ripples of emotions.

In the pitch-black night, a thread of light slowly appeared on the horizon, reflecting shimmering patterns on the waves; it was the dawn wandering and drifting across the ocean, illuminating the path for sailors returning home. Before navigation systems existed, those who went to sea relied on lighthouses to recognize each coastline. By the frequency of a lighthouse's flashing, sailors knew land was nearby, and home was not far away. With a glance, they could tell the direction of home. The lighthouse has stood on the island for over a hundred years, always lighting the way for those returning. To the wanderers far away, and to the lighthouse guiding the way by the shore.

GOOD TAKE is an omnibus of five short stories with 85 minutes duration, filled with suspense, surprise etc. The ending of each story is never what it seems….

A young girl who believes that the world will end in 2012 lives only for the present. Working in a bookstore, she spends her days on menial day-to-day tasks and sitting on a roof to anticipate the end of all things. One day, the bookstore owner tells the young girl that she can do more than just simply wait. In a world where the future appears bleak and hopeless, should we prepare for a painless end, or it possible for us to stand up and make a change?