No. 1 Chung Ying Street

中英街1号

Hong Kong, 2018, b&w, 2.35:1, 117 mins.

Director: Zhao Chongji 赵崇基 [Derek Chiu].

Rating: 5/10.

Two-part look at Hong Kong activism 50 years apart starts well but falls victim to inherent weaknesses.

STORY

Hong Kong, Shatoujiao [Sha Tau Kok] town, on the border with mainland China, May 1967. Childhood friends and neighbours Su Zhenmin (You Xuexiu) and Li Lihua (Liao Ziyu) attend the same school in the countryside, where their Chinese teacher teaches them radical anti-UK imperialism (reflecting the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution across the border) while their English teacher talks about pop songs. Su Zhenmin is among students who volunteer to support a newly formed trade union by pamphleteering. Meanwhile, Li Lihua, who has no interest in politics, and just dreams of graduating in architecture from Hong Kong University and travelling the world, is courted by rich kid Guo Zihao (Lu Zhenye), who lives in Kowloon Tong. Back home, in his uncle’s house by the sea, Su Zhenmin finds a Mainland refugee, Zhang Yongquan (Chen Jianlang), and lets him stay. On 24 Jun 1967, Su Zhenmin persuades a reluctant Zhang Yongquan to join an anti-UK protest. When the group’s meeting is raided by police, the pair go on the run. As a result, Su Zhenmin doesn’t turn up to escort Li Lihua home from a party at Guo Zihao’s family home; instead, Guo Zihao has her driven back by the family’s chauffeur. Su Zhenmin convinces Zhang Yongquan to cross the border back to the Mainland and ends up going with him. Later, Li Lihua manages to communicate with him by shouting across the border; he says her father (Lu Weili), one of many leftists who fled Hong Kong, is safe with him. More riots follow in Hong Kong, plus a shooting incident at the Shatoujiao border in early July. After three weeks Li Lihua’s father returns and tells her that Su Zhenmin has gone to Hong Kong island to help their political cause. Against her father’s wishes, and with the help of Guo Zihao, Li Lihua tries to find Su Zhenmin, with tragic results all round. 2019. Young activist Li Sihui (Liao Ziyu) returns to Shatoujiao after being released from prison. Her rich boyfriend Rilang (Lu Zhenye) is unhappy she never got in touch with him while she was inside. Meanwhile, student activist Zhang Yihang (You Xuexiu), who was involved in the 2014 Umbrella Movement, has been hiding out ever since in the home of old farmer Zhang Yongquan (Yang Xiuzhuo), helping him with housework; Zhang Yihang’s mother (Tan Enmei) is distraught at her son’s continuing disappearance, though Zhang Yongquan won’t comment on her suspicions. Li Sihui joins Zhang Yongquan in a protest against the building of a commercial centre on his land. Meanwhile, she bumps into Zhang Yihang – an old childhood friend – and berates him for running into hiding and giving up his activism. Out of loyalty to Zhang Yongquan, Zhang Yihang joins the protest. Meanwhile, Li Sihui is under pressure from Rilang to go with him to the US, where he is set to study, and get married to him there.

REVIEW

Now in his late 50s, Hong Kong film-maker Zhao Chongji 赵崇基 [Derek Chiu] returns after a five-year absence with No. 1 Chung Ying Street 中英街1号, a two-part look at socio-political activism in the territory via stories set a half-century apart. Despite its laudable ambition, some strong individual moments, and setting most of the action in a Hong Kong/Mainland border town, the film doesn’t really succeed as a whole, due to a structure and pointed casting that try to draw parallels between two very different periods (the 1967 anti-colonial riots and present-day activism) and a dramatically weaker second half that dilutes the strength of the opening hour.

Zhao started on the project in 2010, a time when, after more than a decade making solid (The Log 3个受伤的警察, 1996; Sealed with a Kiss 甜言蜜语, 1999; Brothers 兄弟, 2007) and occasionally notable movies (Mr. Sardine 沙甸鱼杀人事件, 1994; Frugal Game 悭钱家族, 2002) across all genres, he’d gravitated towards more political subjects funded by Mainland companies – Road to Dawn 夜•明 (aka Before the Sunrise, 2007), about the work of revolutionary leader Sun Zhongshan [Sun Yat-sen] from his temporary base in Malaysia, and 72 Martyrs 英雄喋血 (2011), centred on the 1911 Huanghuagang Uprising in Guangdong province, China. After the flop of his return to modern commercial fare – Beijing-set rom-com My Boyfriends 我的男男男男朋友 (2013) – Zhao retreated into producing jobs while continuing to find finance for Chung Ying.

Hong Kong’s 1967 unrest – like Taiwan’s anti-leftist White Terror of the early 1950s – is effectively a taboo subject in Chinese cinema and has only been referred to in passing in a handful of Hong Kong films, including Bullet in the Head 叶血街头 (1990), 2046 (2004) and Mr. Cinema 老港正传 (2007). Despite its modesty in production and scope – at times almost like a docu-drama than a full-scale feature film – Chung Ying is the first movie to deal with the subject in any detail, even though it makes up only the first half of the running time.

By setting the film in the border town of Shatoujiao 沙头角 [Sha Tau Kok], and using as a title the name of the road (literally “China-UK Street”) that separates Hong Kong from the Mainland, Zhao explicitly leads the viewer to expect it’s about relations between a famously apolitical territory and a famously political one. In fact, as the second half makes clear, it’s nothing of the kind.

However, Zhao has clearly done his research for the 1967 segment, which looks at events through the eyes of two young neighbours – a boy who joins the anti-UK protests inspired by the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution across the border and a girl who’s more interested in getting into university and travelling the world. (Rather more cliched, she’s also being courted by a rich kid who lives in Kowloon Tong.) The youngsters’ fathers are also involved in the demos and, after real-life events are intertwined in a modestly staged way, things end badly all round.

Though rather over-schematic, the 66-minute opening segment still manages to pack a modest punch, with the B&W photography conveying a period feel on a budget. Things start to go wobbly in the shorter second half, set in 2019, with the same trio of young actors portraying different characters, except that this time the girl is a convinced activist and her neighbour friend is a onetime activist who’s lost his idealism since the 2014 Umbrella Movement and has been hiding from his parents. Aside from the fact that these characters have very different goals from the 1967 ones, the segment’s main story is centred on social rather than political activism, protesting against a real-estate development.

The shakey parallel between the two periods might just have worked if the second half had been more strongly written. But Zhao and Hong Kong author/cultural commentator Xie Aoshuang 谢傲霜 seem to pull their punches when dealing with the present-day story – for a start, the viewer is never even told what the girl, first seen leaving prison, was jailed for – and the whole film ends with a woolly coda in which an aged farmer (who may or may not be the same-named Mainland refugee from the first story) tells her that change is still possible through activism. Even more than in part one, too much of the dialogue is simply taking positions and ticking boxes, rather than building character, with the activist friend in part two even walking round in T-shirts with natty slogans on the front. It’s all a long way from the 1967 unrest, in which over 50 people actually died.

Performances by the three leads are just OK, led by Malaysian Chinese actress Liao Ziyu 廖子妤 (Lazy Hazy Crazy 同班同学, 2015; Sisterhood 骨妹, 2016) in a typically photogenic but floaty performance. Young Hong Kong actor You Xuexiu 游学修 (who had a small role in agit-prop compendium Ten Years 十年, 2015) cuts no strong profile as her friend, and Lu Zhenye 卢镇业 (like Liao, in crowd-funded activist epic Pseudo Secular 风景, 2016) is routine as the rich kid in both stories. Supporting roles by the older cast are more strongly drawn, especially Yang Xiuzhuo 杨秀卓 as the old farmer who initiates the land protest in part two and Lu Weili 卢伟力 as the girl’s father in part one.

Zhao makes clever use of limited resources, and also includes a small amount of documentary footage from the 1967 protests and the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Major bonuses are the clean B&W widescreen images by still photographer Lai Yi’nan 赖忆南, some atmospheric musical moments by Hong Kong fusion band The Interzone Collective, and trim editing by veteran Hong Kong editor/post-production fixer Lin An’er 林安儿 [Angie Lam]), here pseudonymously billed in Chinese as Lin Jiu 林久.

CREDITS

Presented by Boundary Film Production (HK).

Script: Xie Aoshuang, Zhao Chongji [Derek Chiu]. Photography: Lai Yi’nan. Editing: Lin Jiu [Angie Lam], Deng Xuqian. Music: The Interzone Collective. Art direction: Huo Dahua. Styling: Gao Jialin. Sound: Chen Weixiong, Li Zhifeng. Visual effects: Yi Nuo (Herbgarden).

Cast: 1967: Liao Ziyu (Li Lihua), You Xuexiu (Su Zhenmin), Lu Zhenye (Guo Zihao), Chen Jianlang (Zhang Yongquan), Wu Guolin (Zhizhong), Lu Weili (Li Lihua’s father), Lin Qiqi (Li Lihua’s mother), Gao Hanwen (Su Jianfeng, Su Zhenmin’s father), Peng Xingying (Su Zhenmin’s mother), Liao Junxiong (Gu), Mai Yongnan (Fang Suqing, Li Lihua’s schoolfriend), Chen Ruiqiang (protest leader), Huang Shufen (old woman in house), He Qiuhua (English teacher), Pan Fangfang (Chinese teacher). 2019: Liao Ziyu (Li Sihui), You Xuexiu (Zhang Yihang), Lu Zhenye (Rilang), Yang Xiuzhuo (Zhang Yongquan), Li Yingtao (Zhizhong), Ke Weilin (Kai), Zhang Tongzu (Zhang Yihang’s father), Tan Enmei (Qing, Zhang Yihang’s mother), Huang Zhiming (Li Sihui’s father), Wang Yihua (Li Sihui’s mother), Xu Suying (Hao, old woman).

Premiere: Osaka Asian Film Festival (Competition; Special Focus on Hong Kong 2018), 16 Mar 2018.

Release: Hong Kong, 31 May 2018.