Septet: The Story of Hong Kong

七人乐队

Hong Hong/China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 105 mins.

Directors: Hong Jinbao 洪金宝 [Sammo Hung] (I), Xu Anhua 许鞍华 [Ann Hui] (II), Tan Jiaming 谭家明 [Patrick Tam] (III), Yuan Heping 袁和平 (IV), Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] (V), Lin Lingdong 林岭东 [Ringo Lam] (VI), Xu Ke 徐克 [Tsui Hark] (VII).

Rating: 7/10.

Quirky collection of vignettes by name Hong Kong veterans has no unifying theme but is never boring.

STORY

Hong Kong. I: Exercise 练功. Hong Jinbao reminisces, in voiceover, about his days at a Peking Opera School in the 1960s, starting every day at 07:00 under their master Yu Zhanyuan (Hong Tianming), with endless exercises and flips. When a teenager, Hong led the training when their master was not there, though he was still punished for disobedience. He still bears the scar on the top of his head from one punishment. II: Headmaster 校长. At a primary school during the 1960s the headmaster (Wu Zhenyu) punishes three boys for playing around in the class of Wang Shaofang (Ma Sai). In 2001, at a pupils’ reunion dinner attended by the now-aged headmaster, everyone reminisces about those days,and especially about Wang who sadly died. The headmaster always had a secret liking for her, and later visits her funeral niche. III: Tender Is the Night 别夜. During the 1980s two teenagers fall in love despite the odds: she, Yu Yanfei (Yu Xiangning), 18, is at an elite school, while he, Ye Jialin (Wu Jingtao), isn’t. When she is forced to move with her family to the UK, they arrange a final meeting. He’s been avoiding her all week, and she thinks he no longer loves her. IV: Homecoming 回归. In 1997 a grandfather (Yuan Hua), who was a martial arts champion back in 1955, still practises at home while watching old b&w Huang Feihong movies on TV. His son has emigrated and asked him to look after his grand-daughter Xiaozhu (Lin Kailing) until she finishes her school exams and the family gets settled abroad. In fact, the son really wants Xiaozhu to look after her grandfather for a while and eventually convince him to join the family abroad. But the grandfather is a proud man who loves his native Hong Kong. V: Bonanza 遍地黄金. In 2000 a young couple (Wu Yongshi, Hu Zitong) have HK$3,000 to invest in shares so they can make enough to afford to buy a flat. They ask the advice of an entrepreneurial friend, Fats (Xu Haochang), who rhapsodiese about the future. The couple watch as SARS hits the territory, property prices crash and refugees arrive from the Mainland. In 2007, amid talk of a wave of investment about to come from the Mainland (the so-caled “through train”), the couple have more money to invest as local stocks boom in anticipation. They are advised by Fats again, who makes a happy mistake. VI: Astray 迷路. After a long time away from Hong Kong, an old man (Ren Dahua) can’t even find his way around Central, as everything had changed so much. As he tries to meet up with his wife (Gong Ci’en) and son (Lin Yuxuan), he remembers how the city used to be, as well as episodes from his earlier life when he was all in favour of the city “westernising” in the name of progress. VII: Conversation in Depth 深度对话. At a mental hospital in the present day, psychiatric doctor Zhang (Zhang Jincheng) interviews a male patient (Zhang Daming) who claims to be female film director Xu Anhua. The increasingly bizarre session is watched by two observers (Lin Xue, Liu Guochang). But who is really mad and who isn’t?

REVIEW

The first things to underline about Septet: The Story of Hong Kong 七人乐队 are that it isn’t the story of Hong Kong nor is it a work by seven artists working in concert with each other. Instead, it’s a collection of seven short films, ranging between 10 and 17 minutes in length, by a group of local names working in very different personal styles with vignettes randomly set during the past 60 years. There isn’t a dud in the bunch, though some are more trenchant than others. Notably it features the swan song of Lin Lingdong 林岭东 [Ringo Lam], who passed away on 29 Dec 2018, aged only 63. Apart from the now-67-year-old Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To], who co-ordinated the whole project over several years, the other directors are now all in their 70s. Despite being a Hong Kong-centred prestige project, Septet managed to pull a tiny but face-saving RMB16 million last summer in the Mainland.

The genesis of the film dates from 2014 and was originally planned to bring together eight veterans (under the title 八部半, literally “Eight and a Half”) until Wu Yusen 吴宇森 [John Woo] withdrew for health reasons. Reportedly, Xu Anhua 许鞍华 [Ann Hui] was the first to shoot her segment (one of the longest), around early 2015. Part of the original conception was to shoot all segments on 35mm film, as a tribute to the tradition in which all the directors had grown up. Portmanteau collaborations of this kind have become more common as Hong Kong has lost its place as an East Asian powerhouse, and Du already teamed up with old pals Xu Ke 徐克 [Tsui Hark] and Lin in the movie tag-game Triangle 铁三角 back in 2007.

One might imagine that the septet would be united by a sense of nostalgia, but that’s far from the case. The opener, Exercise 练功, by Hong Jinbao 洪金宝 [Sammo Hung] – the shortest, at only 10 minutes – is a hard-nosed look back at his days in a gruelling opera school run by an unforgiving master (played by Hong’s own son, Hong Tianming 洪天明), from which he still bears a physical scar, while Xu Anhua’s episode, Headmaster 校长, centred on a secret passion by a primary-school head (an almost unrecognisable Wu Zhenyu 吴镇宇 [Francis Ng]) for a female colleague, could be set in any era, as it draws most of its quiet emotional power from Wu’s performance, not from any nostalgia.

Lin’s segment, Astray 迷路, with Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] playing an old man now lost amid the city’s urban modernisation, is the most nostalgic, though more for times lost with one’s family than for the city itself. After his disappointing final feature, Sky on Fire 冲天火 (2016), it’s nice to see Lin go out with such a successful, melancholic epilogue to his career. Similarly, action director Yuan Heping 袁和平, with Homecoming 回归, a nicely observed, light two-hander between a feisty martial-arts grandfather (Yuan Hua 元华, no relation) and his teenage grand-daughter (Taiwan-born Lin Kailing 林恺鈴), two distant generations who learn lessons from each other.

The most surprising inclusion among the directors is Tan Jiaming 谭家明 [Patrick Tam], who made a name during the 1980s (The Sword 名剑, 1980; Love Massacre 爱杀, 1981; Nomad 烈火青春, 1982) but hardly has the same rep-in-depth of the other veterans. However, it’s his segment, Tender Is the Night 别夜, that is the most stylistically striking, a two-handed dialogue piece between teenage lovers that’s shot through with references to the 1960s French New Wave (especially Jean-Luc Godard) in its use of colour, editing and fractured, declamatary dialogue.

Equally nostalgia-free is Du’s own episode, Bonanza 遍地黄金, a lightly comic play on Hong Kongers’ fascination with making money as, across several years, the market rises and falls – and how it’s all just an unscientific game anyway. Way more scurrilous, however, is Xu Ke’s closing segment, the ironically titled Conversation in Depth 深度对话, in which he pulls the rug out from beneath the whole enterprise, sending up the industry, as well as himself, in a comic interplay set in a mental hospital where it’s not clear who’s sane and who isn’t. It’s a lovely end to a quirky collection of vignettes that have almost nothing in common but are never boring for a moment.

CREDITS

Presented by Media Asia Film Production (HK), China Film Media Asia Audio Video Distribution (CN). Produced by Milkyway Image (Hong Kong) (HK).

Script: Hong Jinbao [Sammo Hung] (I); Ou Jian’er [Au Kin-yee] (I, IV, V); Lv Xiaohua (II); Tan Jiaming [Patrick Tam], Lu Miaohui (III); Yuan Heping (IV); Du Qifeng [Johnnie To], You Naihai [Yau Nai-hoi] (V); Lin Lingdong [Ringo Lam] (VI); Xu Ke [Tsui Hark], Situ Huizhuo [Roy Szeto] (VII). Photography: Chen Jianli, Pan Hengsheng [Poon Hang-sang], Tan Yunjia. Editing: Hong Tianxiang (I); Xue Meilian [Mary Stephen] (II); Tan Jiaming [Patrick Tam] (III); Liang Zhanlun (IV); David Richardson (V); Zhang Jiajie (VI); Xu Ke [Tsui Hark] (VII). Music: Bak Weon-tak [Woody Pak], Chen Sile, Zheng Minghui, Thomas Lloyd Freeman, Li Ye. Production design: Pan Yisen, He Jianxiong [Cyrus Ho]. Art direction: Yang Chuanxin, Huang Minxuan, Ye Shuhua [Sukie Yip], Liang Shiyun, Li Zifeng. Costumes: Liu Shouxiang (I); Chen Yunwen (II); Zhang Shijie [Stanley Cheung] (III); Ye Shuhua [Sukie Yip] (IV); Luo Peisha (V); Zhang Zhaokang (VI); Deng Ruhao (VII). Sound: Du Duzhi. Action: Hong Jinbao [Sammo Hung], Hong Tianxiang (I); Yuan Heping (IV).

Cast: I: Hong Tianming (Yu Zhanyuan, martial-arts master). II: Wu Zhenyu [Francis Ng] (headmaster), Ma Sai (Wang Shaofang). III: Yu Xiangning (Yu Yanfei/Ivy), Wu Jingtao [Ian Iskandar Gouw] (Ye Jialin). IV: Yuan Hua (grandfather), Lin Kailing (Xiaozhu/Samantha). V: Wu Yongshi (wife), Hu Zitong (husband), Xu Haochang (Fats, their investment advisor). VI: Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (old man), Gong Ci’en (old man’s wife), Lin Yuxuan (old man’s son), Zhong Jinghui. VII: Zhang Daming (psychiatric patient), Zhang Jincheng (Zhang, psychiatric doctor), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (observer), Liu Guochang [Lawrence Ah Mon] (observer), Xu Ke [Tsui Hark] (himself), Xu Anhua [Ann Hui] (herself).

Premiere: Busan Film Festival (Opening Film), 21 Oct 2020.

Release: Hong Kong, 28 Jul 2022; China, 29 Jul 2022.