Cover Raymond Lam in Soi Cheang's ‘Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In’ will be screened at Cannes Film Festival 2024 (Image: courtesy of Media Asia)
Raymond Lam in Soi Cheang's ‘Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In’ will be screened at Cannes Film Festival 2024 (Image: courtesy of Media Asia)
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AI, martial arts, a murder case and gay love—films from across Asia, including several from Hong Kong, shine through their bold and beautiful storytelling and filmmaking finesse at Cannes Film Festival this year
Asian films have been grabbing the limelight at the global stage recently, including the historic Cannes Film Festival.
The productions from this region—such as India, mainland China, Hong Kong and Japan—which are being screened this year vary in subject matter, genre and style. Tatler has selected seven productions; some are selected for competition and others are shown in the Cannes Classics category, which showcases remastered classics. All these movies, both new and classic, are considered significant milestones for modern cinema.
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1. ‘She’s Got No Name’ by Peter Chan Ho-sun
Above A scene from ‘She‘s Got No Name‘, which will be showcased at Cannes Film Festival this year (Image: courtesy of Cannes Film Festival)
A scene from ‘She‘s Got No Name‘, which will be showcased at Cannes Film Festival this year (Image: courtesy of Cannes Film Festival)
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Chinese film She’s Got No Name (2024), which is being shown at the Cannes Film Festival, is a murder mystery based on a real-life unsolved homicide case. Starring mainland Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, the movie follows the story of a woman accused of brutally murdering her husband, which subsequently sparked a revolution in women’s social rights in 1940s Shanghai. The movie is directed by Peter Chan Ho-sun, a Hong Kong director, producer and scriptwriter known for a number of box-office hits in Hong Kong since the 1990s. He was also a competition jury member at Cannes in 2012.
2. ‘Shanghai Blues’ by Tsui Hark
Another movie set in 1940s Shanghai is Hong Kong director and producer Tsui Hark’s Shanghai Blues (1984), the restored version of which is the only Chinese-language production to be screened at the Cannes Classics category this year. Starring Tatler’s November 2023 cover star Sylvia Chang and singer and actor Kenny Bee, the movie tells the romantic tale of a nightclub showgirl, played by Chang, and an aspiring songwriter, played by Kenny Bee, who develop feelings for each other without realising their past encounter during the Second World War. The movie is widely praised for showcasing life in post-war Shanghai.
3. ‘Seven Samurai’ by Akira Kurosawa
Seven Samurai (1954), which will be screened at Cannes Classics, is one of the most iconic films by Japanese filmmaker and painter Akira Kurosawa, a winner of Golden Lion who was celebrated for directing and editing most of his films—which is a rarity for prominent filmmakers. The film portrays seven masterless samurai who defended a Japanese village’s peasants against a gang of looters.
4. ‘Caught by the Tides’ by Jia Zhangke
Chinese director and screenwriter Jia Zhangke, one of the most eminent independent filmmakers in mainland China, comes up with an epic film that continues his experimental vision and will be a contender at Cannes Film Festival this year. Caught by the Tides (its previous working title was All Shall Be Well) is made up of footage shots with equipment ranging from 16mm film to 5D. He also experimented with AI in the making of this film. Starring Jia’s wife and muse, the story spans 20 years from the early 2000s and details the fragile but passionate love between Guao Bin, who moves to another province to try his luck, and Qiao Qiao, who decides to find him.
5. ‘Viet and Nam’ by Trương Minh Quý
Running in the Un Certain Regard category this year’s Cannes Film Festival, a category which recognises diverse visions, Viet and Nam is a gay drama about the gentle and fleeting love between two young coal miners Viet and Nam. The film is directed by Trương Minh Quý, a relative newcomer to Vietnam’s cinema, but one to keep an eye on—the 34-year-old won the Prize for the Best Emerging Director at Locarno Film Festival Awards in 2019 and was nominated for Teddy Award for Best Short Film in 2021.
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6. ‘All We Imagine as Light’ by Payal Kapadia
Payal Kapadia, Mumbai-born director and winner of the Golden Eye award for Best Documentary Film at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, came up with another new production which will run in the competition section this year: All We Imagine as Light. The feature film’s story revolves around a nurse who receives a present from her estranged husband, and her younger roommate, who struggles to find a place in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend until the roommates go on a trip to a beach town that changes their fate.
7. ‘Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In’ by Soi Cheang
Soi Cheang, who picked up Best Director at Hong Kong Film Awards this year, brings his latest work Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In to Cannes’ Official Selection (Midnight Screening) category this year. The action thriller tells the tale of a refugee seeking refuge in Kowloon Walled City, an ungoverned enclave that existed in Hong Kong in the late 20th century. The film is celebrated for its fight scenes’ choreography designed by famed martial artist Sammo Hung and its elaborate film sets that recreated the historic walled city with the help of CGI.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
