Cover From left: Polly Yeung and Tommy Ng, the producer-screenwriter and director of ‘Another World’ respectively (Photo: courtesy of Polly Yeung and Tommy Ng)
From left: Polly Yeung and Tommy Ng, the producer-screenwriter and director of ‘Another World’ respectively (Photo: courtesy of Polly Yeung and Tommy Ng)
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Fresh from its selection at the Annecy International Animation Festival, ‘Another World’ positions Hong Kong animation on the global stage. Director Tommy Ng and screenwriter-producer Polly Yeung reveal the deeply personal inspirations, creative clashes and the quiet determination behind their seven-year journey to bring the film to life
When Hong Kong animated film Another World was named an official selection at the Annecy International Animation Festival, it was more than a career milestone for its creators; it represented a quiet revolution for Hong Kong animation. Long overshadowed by the region’s live-action cinema and visual effects industries, the local animation scene is rarely linked with full-length auteur works. Yet Another World, directed by Tommy Ng and written and produced by Polly Yeung, has defied the odds to emerge as a poetic reflection on life, death and human transformation, executed through the tactile grace of hand-drawn animation.
Yeung began conceiving the story a decade ago while living in Beijing, where she became fascinated by everyday conflict and unexpressed anger. “There was this crossroads with no traffic lights,” she recalls. “Every day, people were rushing to cross, shouting, fighting. I felt so much anger in the air that I had to move away. But it made me start thinking about forgiveness.”
That experience was fused with a personal loss—a young friend’s sudden death—and a philosophical curiosity about the afterlife sparked by reading psychotherapist Brian Weiss’s 1988 book Many Lives, Many Masters. “It made me wonder what we keep learning through our lives, and what happens when we don’t,” she says. From such reflections arose the story’s spiritual architecture: an intricate world where multiple narratives interlace to reveal they belong to a single soul.
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Above Tommy Ng, Polly Yeung and the crew of ‘Another World’ attending the Annecy International Animation Festival (Photo: courtesy of Polly Yeung and Tommy Ng)
Tommy Ng, Polly Yeung and the crew of ‘Another World’ attending the Annecy International Animation Festival (Photo: courtesy of Polly Yeung and Tommy Ng)
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Ng, a seasoned visual artist and animation director known for his cinematic flair, joined the project after Yeung saw his work on the 2017 horror film Zombie Fight Club. “I was astonished by his use of the camera,” she says. “I rarely saw an animator who worked with imagery as if he were directing live action.” Their eventual collaboration was, in Ng’s words, “like a game of ping pong”, referring to how it resembled an energetic exchange of ideas where writing and visualisation constantly bounced between them. But as Yeung wryly adds, “We fought. It was ‘bloody’. But in the end, it made the work more alive.”
Visually, Another World is a journey through fluidity and transformation. Ng explains that his team deliberately centred the design around movement. “Inside that world, everything is changing, like water or air, nothing really fixed,” he says. “We chose elements that flow, things without gravity.” The choice to work largely in 2D was both aesthetic and emotional. “I grew up loving hand-drawn animation. It carries a human touch that 3D can’t replace.”
Nevertheless, production was pragmatic rather than purist. Certain sequences, particularly fast-moving or action-heavy scenes, were created in 3D for flexibility. “We even had moments where we drew over 3D models or replaced heads,” Ng admits, laughing. “Sometimes it wasn’t about being purist. It was about surviving production.”
Above Polly Yeung, producer-screenwriter of ’Another World’ signing a poster for her fans at the Annecy International Animation Festival (Photo: courtesy of Polly Yeung)
Polly Yeung, producer-screenwriter of ’Another World’ signing a poster for her fans at the Annecy International Animation Festival (Photo: courtesy of Polly Yeung)
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That survival, across seven years of development and over two years of active production, demanded not only artistic stamina but persistence against structural obstacles. Fundraising, both agree, was among their greatest tests. “Convincing investors was incredibly hard,” Yeung says. “It’s not something people had done before in Hong Kong.” Once the production began, steep learning curves followed. “We knew how to make adverts or shorts, but not features,” Ng says. “We were learning as we went, finding people, solving gaps, arguing, then finally understanding what we were doing only near the end.”
The success of Another World at Annecy provided not only validation but a natural endpoint. “If we hadn’t got in, he would still be drawing,” Yeung jokes. The festival deadline, in her words, “cut the cord. It stopped us from endlessly perfecting.”
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Beyond their own film, Ng and Yeung speak passionately about the fragility and potential of Hong Kong’s animation landscape. “There are many talented and passionate people, but we lack funding and opportunities,” Yeung says. Ng echoes her sentiments: “We need more original productions, not just service work. Once there are more chances to create, the industry will form naturally.” Both call on local broadcasters to dedicate airtime and budgets to domestic animation projects to build an industry ecosystem.
Encouragingly, Another World is not intended as an isolated triumph. It is set to expand into a wider intellectual property with offshoots in multiple media. “It won’t end here,” Yeung says. “We’re turning it into an IP that can appear in other forms.” Ng, meanwhile, plans to mentor younger animators through new projects. “We’ve learned enough to help others find their voice in the international market,” he said.
As for collaboration, their dynamic of creative friction and mutual respect seems to endure. Yeung teases that after Another World, she “won’t see him again”, only to relent moments later. “We’ll keep working together,” she says. “There are too many strange stories we still want to tell.”
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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.
