Tin Shui Wai dik yat yu ye

Hong Kong 2008, 91 min.

Cantonese with English and Czech subtitles

director: Ann Hui On-Wah

starring: Pau Hei-Ching, Chan Lai-Wan, Juno Leung Chun-Lung, Ida Chan Yuk-Lin, Clifton Ko Chi-Sum, Mary Poon Lai-Tung, YoYo Fong Cho-Yiu

distributor: Mega Vision

Films produced in Hong Kong are not merely action movies and crazy comedies and the work of director Ann Hui is there to prove it. She has focused on portraying ordinary people and their dramas since the Hong Kong New Wave in the 1980s. The Tin Shui Wai residential neighbourhood is located in New Territories, aside from the bustling centre of Hong Kong, and is home to people from lower social class. The housing district with multipurpose towers is nicknamed the “City of Sadness” due to the frustrations of the locals which lead to a series of highly publicized suicides and violent crimes. This time, Ann Hui has deliberately turned away from these negative sides. Her optimistic melodrama about the everyday life of a widow and her teenage son is an ode to ordinary heroes and traditional values that still have significance even in the modern world.