Metrograph

The first independent film released in post-Handover Hong Kong, Chan’s atmospheric shoestring-budget character study is a rough-and-ready piece of work shot on grainy leftover 35mm short ends in the city’s overcrowded subsidized housing projects. The result is a tough, pessimistic film, a portrait of a city on the brink that follows the drifting of high-school dropout and wannabe Triad tough Autumn Moon (Sam Lee, in a star-making role, opposite a largely nonprofessional cast), who sees little hope for his future or that of his home as a newly created Special Administrative Region within China. A raw, groundbreaking drama and portrait of nihilistic youth in the same vein as Rebel Without a Cause, My Own Private Idaho, and The Doom Generation, the film poses questions that remain burningly relevant as tumult engulfs Hong Kong.

Distributor: Metrograph Pictures