Previous Films Could Breach National Security Law

Hong Kong's struggling film industry will be at even more risk

When the national security law was going to be implemented, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the law would not be retroactive.

But now we are seeing the opposite, looking back past June 30, 2020 to prove a person was actively planning to something that would breach the national security law.

And this now applies to films as well.

Yau says new measures to close up loopholes

Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah made the announcement today, saying the Chief Secretary will have the authority to ban previously approved productions if they are deemed to be threats to national security.

If someone holds an unauthorized screening, the proposed maximum penalty will be three years in jail and a HK$1 million fine. Currently it is one year in jail and a HK$200,000 fine.

The amendment follows up on guidelines for censors in the film industry that was issued in June. At the time censors were to ban movies that were deemed to be supporting or glorifying acts that could endanger national security.

"The amendments this time are simple and straightforward. The aim is to consolidate our legal foundation regarding film censorship to prevent acts against national security," Yau said.

Will Ten Years be banned? Govt says no list yet

When asked by the media if this meant films like the dystopian series of shorts in Ten Years, or Stephen Chow's From Beijing with Love would be banned, Yau replied the government did not have a list of banned films yet. 

"We needed this provision to cater for circumstances where there might be chances that a film, which was graded or approved before, but given the new law enacted and the new guidelines issued, needs to be reconsidered," he said. "We need such legal power to cater for such circumstances."

Having a list or not is not the point -- it creates a chilling effect on the film industry which is already struggling to forge its identity in the shadow of China's colossal movie market.

And yet Yau said there's still room for filmmakers to make good movies as the government continues to communicate with the sector.

Productions need to be pre-approved before shoot

But who will want to make a film in Hong Kong now? Even if the story line may not seem political, a pro-Beijing loyalist may claim it to be otherwise. The risk is not worth it anymore. 

Books have already been banned and now films will be. Art is already on shaky ground, and will music be next?

Hong Kong was once derided as a cultural desert, then flowers managed to bloom fueled by a hot art market, but now it will wither away again, the desert sand too hot to the touch...

 

HK Censors Movies for National Security

The dystopian film Ten Years would be banned

 

The Hong Kong government has now focused its attention on censoring movies because of the national security law just to make things even worse for the local film industry.

Under the Film Censorship Ordinance, public screening of films will not be allowed if they are found to be "endorsing, supporting, promoting, glorifying or inciting" acts of subversion, secession, terrorism, or collusion with foreign forces.

This documentary was nominated for an Oscar

Films like Ten Years, which was made in 2015 that speculated what would happen to Hong Kong in 10 years (and some of it already came true), would be banned from being screened.

The latest move would ban films like this as well as documentaries like the Oscar-nominated Do Not Split and Inside the Red Brick Wall that covered the 2019 anti-government protests would never be allowed to be shown in Hong Kong.

This kind of censorship was seen earlier with M+, the contemporary art museum due to open at the end of this year was under pressure to now show work deemed anti-China.

Apparently films will be censored by a panel of 40 people appointed by the chief executive. They will review the films and then classify them based on depictions of sex, violence, crime, or any insult to race or religion, among other concerns.

Ai Weiwei's political art puts pressure on M+

The censorship guidelines are developed by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau.

While Tenky Tin Kai-man, chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers says movie professionals will need to seek clarification of the guidelines by the authorities, he said filmmakers would make sure they are not crossing any red lines if they wanted their movies to be shown across the border.

Crucindo Hung Cho-sing, chairman of the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association, said it would be in the best interests of filmmakers to not touch sensitive topics as their livelihoods are at stake.

"But I believe filmmakers in our association aim to make money. They definitely won't make movies endangering national security," he said.

This protest documentary will also be censored

Grace Leung Kai-kuen, a lecturer at Chinese University's school of journalism and communication, said few movies had been banned in the past, and if they were it was because it was related to pornography.

She worries this latest censorship salvo will further weaken the local film industry.

"Hong Kong movies are already dying. With this, it will worsen their challenges," she said.

Leung noted some local movies carried more critical perspectives than mainland ones.

"Now they will be the same," she said.

Plans to Resurrect Queen's Pier?

Remember this? Queen's Pier in Central before it was dismantled in 2008

I still miss Queen's Pier in Central. It used to be so convenient to take the Star Ferry from there to Tsim Sha Tsui and back.

But when I happened to visit Hong Kong in 2008, there were signs all over the pier area, and people protesting its demolition. It was surprising the government would move such an important landmark.

When I moved back two years later, the pier was long gone and you now have to schlep across a long blue walkway all the way to where all the outlying island ferries are just to catch a short Star Ferry ride to Tsim Sha Tsui.

People passionately protested the demolition but to no avail

You really do weigh if it's worth going all the way and take the MTR instead, and so it's not surprising why the Star Ferry keeps losing money. The government seems to want to make it more difficult for people to take cheap transportation that is a part of the local culture.

But wait -- the government hasn't completely killed it -- there are plans to resurrect Queen's Pier and place it somewhere around where piers 9 and 10 are now, which currently aren't being used for anything, except by photographers and anglers.

Yes -- it will not be an actual functioning pier, but a shrine to its former existence.

Why dredge up the past? It wasn't even a nice-looking structure. And more importantly why waste up to HK$305 million taxpayer dollars doing this when the money could be used elsewhere like helping the poor?

Several activists opposed the proposed plan and are calling for the pier to be restored in its original spot, though that could be costly too.

A drawing to show where Queen's Pier would be relocated

"If you put it closer to the original location, it has a much higher heritage value because Edinburgh Place will be complete. And, you have it closer to the old waterfront for tourists, students and children to come back here and realize the waterfront used to be here," says Southern District Councillor and co-founder of Designing Hong Kong's Paul Zimmerman.

Queen's Pier was opened in 1953 as a public pier, and the ceremonial location where Hong Kong governors would arrive and depart before 1997.

And now the structure is being stored in a warehouse...

First of all, why didn't the government listen to the people? And then second, why does it think that everything will be rectified by reassembling the structure for no good reason?

The Star Ferry Terminal has moved a much further distance

The government seems so completely out of touch with what is going on in the city, and thinks that it can spend taxpayer money on frivolous projects, when one in five people in Hong Kong are living below the poverty line and so many people are in need?

Even worse is that we residents have no recourse to vote them out.

After having watched Ten Years, I now see why the movie resonates with people so much. It really does capture the pessimistic mood, the sense of helplessness and frustration people have. Just like in the film, people feel the government is in cahoots with Beijing, and no one is looking out for them, so they have to defend themselves.

That's just a movie, but that's the sentiment people have in reality.

Reassembling Queen's Pier is the most absurd proposal I've heard since Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah's suggestion to bring in food trucks to Hong Kong.

Do they not care about the future of this city and what its residents want it to be?

Ten Years and Kennedy Town

About 200 people showed up tonight to watch a screening of Ten Years

In the last year or so there has been a protest against the redevelopment of a temporary garden in Kennedy Town and now it's starting to simmer.

The Cadogan Street Temporary Garden is by a bus stop and it's not a large area. It was previously an incinerator and before that an abattoir, where long-time residents remember hearing the squealing of the pigs...

And now the government is looking to rezone the area and put up residential blocks with 600 flats. The area seems small to squeeze that many people in, but hey, micro flats are all the rage these days.

They are protesting the development of the park into flats

Last year a developer tried to get a permit to build a hotel on the site, but it was soundly defeated. However, with housing a hot topic, can you deny others the opportunity to own their own home?

But before that even happens, the government needs to decontaminate the soil, and residents fear that turning up the soil will release contaminants into the air, which is another reason why they'd like the park to stay.

So far activists have collected some 2,000 signatures but it's obviously not enough of an impact to get the authorities' attention.

And so tonight they enticed people to come because they would be screening Ten Years, the film that won Best Picture in the recent Hong Kong Film Awards.

Many sat on the ground of the park while police watched

Over 200 people showed up at 7pm with blankets to sit on or on plastic bags from the protest tents that have been set up for the last few weeks. Apparently the organizers didn't get a permit to protest in the area, but the police didn't move in to shut things down, though they were monitoring the area all day and evening.

I'd read a lot about Ten Years, and finally got a chance to watch it. It's an interesting collection of five short films that are loosely related, telling their own story of what they think Hong Kong will be like in 2025.

The first story is called "Extras", where two men are caught up in a political campaign to implement a national security law in Hong Kong. They're just trying to get by working for a triad, but people higher up (Beijing) have other plans for them.

The pivotal scene in Extras about the national security law

It's sad to see their predicament, and also frightening to see how government officials don't mind having a few casualties to succeed in their political aims.

Next was "Season of the End", the weakest of the five films. It shows a man and a woman who are desperately trying to preserve anything that was left behind by bulldozers that demolished homes. The place they occupy to do their work seems bleak and bland, and towards the end they are in a desperate state of mind.

"Dialect" offers a bit of comic relief as a Hong Kong taxi driver shows how terrible his Putonghua is. Many in the audience couldn't help but laugh when he tried to tell his Mandarin-speaking app where he wanted to go but it couldn't understand what he was saying.

However, the need to speak Putonghua is a must in order to financially survive in the city. He cannot pick up passengers -- or rather passengers would rather communicate with someone who speaks Putonghua than Cantonese.

A taxi driver is frustrated not being able to speak Putonghua

He sympathizes with a local woman who has lost her job because she too cannot communicate in Putonghua, and he later gets penalized for not following the rules.

This vignette is practically what is happening now -- people must know how to speak Putonghua to increase their job prospects, and it's people in the taxi driver's age group, those in their 40s and 50s who are losing out. Even his son speaks to him in Putonghua in front of his friends to avoid ridicule.

The fourth one is "Self-Immolator", where a body was found burned in front of the British Consulate in Admiralty, and experts and commentators are all speculating as to who would have done that and why.

One young activist who fights for Hong Kong independence is the first to be convicted in the national security law and goes on a hunger strike and dies in prison. Everyone thinks it is someone related to the young man, and it's interesting to note one of the characters is a Hong Kong born Indian woman speaking Cantonese to show how ethnic minorities are treated in the city.

In the end it's an elderly woman who decides on doing the ultimate sacrifice, though we don't know what effect that will have on the future of the city.

A shopkeeper asks the difference between "local" and "HK"

There are localist groups who are pushing for Hong Kong independence now, though Beijing has completely dismissed them for even promoting this idea...

Finally "Local Egg" is a scary look at kids who are like little Red Guards, reporting on what is going on in shops to ensure they are politically correct. The word "local" should not be used in a sign saying "local eggs", but "Hong Kong eggs" is deemed kosher. The shop keeper writes "local eggs" because customers don't want to buy those from the mainland.

However, the last chicken farm closes in Hong Kong, and the shop keeper has to find other ways of giving his customers what they want. Meanwhile his son is being indoctrinated to become one of these Red Guards, though he seems to have a mind of his own.

Towards the end, the main character says we should not get used to these changes because if we do, then there will be more changes.

Will Hong Kong become like this, where quasi Red Guards will be spying on us and reporting our activities and we will all be speaking Putonghua?

Who knows? But these filmmakers have presented their visions of what 2025 could look like, and to say it's bleak is an understatement. They are definitely not drinking the Kool-aid, nor are they hinging their hopes on rule of law and politicians to save the city.

It's no wonder Ten Years has resonated with people; no one seems optimistic, and yet they can't think of another way to look at the future.

As for Cadogan Temporary Park, we'll have to see if the authorities back down. While the activists are trying to be realistic, they are trying to get as many people to sign the petition as possible to prove it's not just a small group of voices opposing development plans.

Beijing's Scare Tactics

Lee Po seems to praise the mainland whenever the media ask questions

We're all still shaking our heads over how the missing bookseller incident came about and how it ended is still a mystery.

Whenever Lee Po was accosted by local media, he would say such pro-China statements -- coming from someone who used to publish books criticizing the Communist Party -- that they were too bizarre to accept.

In the latest twist to the story, a publisher who knows Lee Po, has come out to say that mainland agents had visited him three decades ago when he went back into the publishing business.

Publisher Lau Tat-man says mainland agents visit regularly

And during the height of the missing booksellers incident, the same agents visited Lau Tat-man three times in the span of a month.

He claimed they were from the Guangdong State Security Department and were investigating his connection with Causeway Bay Books.

"They told me the public security department was very angry about the banned books business and that I could be the mastermind behind the five booksellers in question and take advantage of their downfall to expand my business," Lau said.

Lau says he's speaking out now because his wife has been detained by Dongguan authorities since October 24 -- the same day and place one of the booksellers, Cheung Ping-chi, went missing. Lau hasn't heard from her since, nor have the mainland agents given him any updates about her.

The connection between him and Causeway Bay Books is interesting. Gui Minhai, who allegedly returned to the mainland to stand for charges of drunk driving many years ago, used to write for Lau on a freelance basis.

Gui and Lee also poached Lau's distribution staff, Lui Por and Cheung.

Mainland agents asked Lau about Causeway Bay Books

"I told the agents, they [Lui and Cheung] took all my business contacts and distribution data when they joined Gui and Lee. How can you accuse me of being behind their business?" he said.

The mainland agents contacted Lau again in mid-January, saying the Causeway Bay Books sellers had revealed information against Lau, and that he had expanded his banned books business (because Causeway Bay Books was not in operation).

"I told them, 'why don't you kidnap me to the mainland to sort things out?'," he recalled, adding that he'd been banned from getting a wui heung jing or return home permit to go there.

Hopefully media pressure will help Lau be reunited with his wife. But what did he do to have mainland agents visit him regularly, and detain his wife up from late October until now?

These stories just confirm Hong Kong people's fears about the mainland, making them even more concerned and worried about their future in the city, while getting no reassurances from the local government nor Beijing.

Is it not surprising then that the film Ten Years won best picture at last week's Hong Kong Film Awards, that there are more localist groups running for seats in the upcoming Legislative Council, that people get sensitive when simplified Chinese is used in the city?

What is Beijing's strategy to win the hearts and minds of Hong Kong people? Scaring them is hardly effective...

Ten Years a Flicker of Hope

Andrew Choi, executive producer of Ten Years with the cast and crew

Last night it was a thrill to see the local movie Ten Years won Best Film in the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Not only was it made by five first-time directors, but also because it has become a political issue, as the five vignettes imagine what the city will be like in 10 years, or 2025.

There are scenes of children in uniform policing adults, harking back to the Cultural Revolution, a taxi driver who loses out on business because he cannot speak Putonghua, and even a self immolation in front of the British Consulate.

State media, in particular, Global Times denounced the film in an editorial describing it as a "thought virus", and as soon as Ten Years was nominated in the annual film event in January, Tencent and CCTV announced they would not be broadcasting the awards show on the mainland.

So it was in this backdrop that many wondered if Ten Years would have a chance at all, only being nominated in one category.

A scene from Ten Years that looks at Hong Kong in 2025

But those who voted gave Ten Years their approval.

The film's executive producer Andrew Choi said in his acceptance speech: "Thanks to the Film Awards for daring to give us this award. Ten Years has already gone beyond just being a film. There are so many possibilities in Hong Kong films.

"This award shows that Hong Kong actually has hope. This award tells us that we need to keep working hard. Thanks to all the Hong Kong viewers. This award belongs to you all."

However not everyone in the local film industry was happy with the result. Peter Lam Kin-ngok, chair of production company Media Asia complained Ten Years was not a top film.

"It was unfair to filmmakers. Politics has kidnapped the profession and politicized film awards," said Lam, who is also a local delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Peter Lam believes the film politicized the film awards

Media Asia's She Remembers, He Forgets was in the running for best picture, but won for best original film song.

Motion Picture Industry Association chair Crucindo Hung Cho-sing also said Ten Years' win was a "big joke".

"It was not nominated for the best actor, actress or cinematography, so it doesn't even match the standards of a best picture," Hung said. "I don't know if anyone was using the awards as a political tool."

Lawmaker Ma Fung-kwok, who is also Film Development Council chairman, thought the filmmakers of Ten Years might be "too worried" about Hong Kong's future.

Then why did the film that cost HK$500,000 to make went on to make HK$5 million in the box office?

It resonates with people, talking about their fears of what Hong Kong could possibly be, with some of the scenes already a reality. It may not have a star cast or have high production values, but the ideas are there.

A Hong Kong taxi driver can't speak Putonghua in Ten Years

So now Ten Years is dragged further into a political spat because the establishment isn't happy.

The city is so divided -- you're either on one side or the other -- reminiscent of the Occupy protests, the blues or the yellows.

When will these divisions end so that we can focus on making Hong Kong better?

But it seems like the establishment are only concerned about enriching themselves at the expense of the rest, and the rest are trying to scrape whatever opportunities are left to survive.

As Choi says, there is hope if we keep working harder. And that flame has flickered a bit brighter now.