I Come Empty-handed

Ah Poon is a man of strong principles, and adopts Lu Xun’s quote of “Fierce-browed, I coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers” as his motto. When he gets into a fight with school authority because of something written by his daughter, he takes his daughter away in rage. Is Ah Poon right or wrong?

Wolf, born into a deaf family, embraces sign language with confidence despite obstacles in life; Sophie, having received a cochlear implant at a young age, continuously strives to be seen as "normal" despite having a "deaf accent." Alan, with a cochlear implant like Sophie, is capable of both spoken language and sign language; he advocates for diverse modes of communication within the deaf community. Bound by love and friendship, the three embark on a self-discovering journey that is not without its moments of pain.

A widowed gynecologist develops an online romance with a con artist who's posing as a French petroleum engineer.

A 16-year-old girl falls in love with a boy and gets pregnant. The boy wants nothing to do with the baby, and the girl's mother, believing she's doing the right thing, forces her daughter to get an abortion. This story may happen everywhere, and we may read about them everyday in the news. However, what sets The White Balloon apart from those stories is the emotional journey the girl and her mother take as they realize that they have no one in the world but each other.

At some point in life an age-old question will inevitably crop up: Do we swim against the tide or go with the flow? The band, Against the Tide, was doomed before it even started. A year later, the songwriter is selling his soul to catchy pop tunes and commercial music, hitching his wagon to else’s grand schemes while being hitched by a young music devotee; the bassist is venturing north across the border; the drummer is working as an insurance agent and all set for fatherhood. Before the factory building is demolished for a lucrative redevelopment scheme, the band members, bar one, return to their studio to clear out the place, contemplating making a final appearance for a farewell gig. The reunion takes place, albeit obliquely, each member putting their best foot forward to steer their own course.

The story of a failing relationship between a young man and woman intertwines with the story of an emotionally spiraling friend group, resulting in a series of intense and frenetic events.

'...is unsuitable for any man's love.' (Xi Xi, A Woman Like Me) Sum-yin patches up wounds, masks scars and performs other beautician services that, when done well - as she always does - bring comfort to her and appreciation from grateful families. But inside she's hurting. Her job as a mortuary cosmetologist makes her self-conscious about the smell of death that seems to be seeping through and under her skin and looming over her stagnant relationship with Kwan, her oblivious boyfriend. No amount of cigarettes and perfume and cleaning will rid of it. At some point, a decision has to be made.

Panning from a tour guide testing his microphone, to tourists deciding on a cafe, to a camera operator hurriedly scouting for locations, this comedic single-take filmed from a rooftop in Kowloon City, Hong Kong, moves between rehearsed, reenacted, real, and all the way back again. Who’s watching who, and if everyone is both watching and performing, who gets to frame the truth?