144 min. , 2020

第一炉香
Romantic drama
China, Hong Kong
Mandarin, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Ann Hui
Starring: Sandra Ma, Eddie Peng, Faye Yu, Janine Chang
Distributor: Fortissimo Films
Guest: Ann Hui

The screening will be introduced by the director Ann Hui.

The period melodrama tells the story of a young woman (Sandra Ma) who travels to Hong Kong in pursuit of education, but instead becomes charmed with the luxurious life of glamour girls accompanying rich and powerful men.

Love After Love represents Ann Hui’s recent work characterized by subtle stories of individuals against the backdrop of important historical moments. This film is yet another example of her latest filmmaking, together with works such as The Golden Era (2014) or Our Time Will Come (2017), mixing opulent mise-en-scène with a reduced camera motion and focus on delicate gestures. Love After Love is also a good illustration of contemporary Hong Kong, as well as Chinese, cinema at its very best. The renowned director adapted the novel by Eileen Chang, a prominent novelist, and in leading roles cast shining stars Sandra Ma and Eddie Peng. The costumes are designed by Emi Wada whose filmography includes such hits as Hero (2002) or House of Flying Daggers (2004). The cinematographer Christopher Doyle was responsible for the visual aspect, and the score was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Love After Love is not only a great film by Ann Hui, but also the collaboration of crucial figures of Asian cinema.

Boat People

109 min. , 1982

投奔怒海
Drama
Hong Kong
Cantonese, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Ann Hui
Starring: George Lam, Andy Lau, Cora Miao, Season Ma
Distributor: Edko Films
Guest: Ann Hui

TRAILER

The screening will be introduced by the director Ann Hui.

A Japanese photojournalist (George Lam) returns to post-war Vietnam to explore the country that is facing new challenges and, hopefully, a bright future. Or so he has been promised. But shortly after arrival he sees through official theses, propaganda slogans, and fragile peace. Vietnam is suffering. Taking photos of incidents without permission is prosecuted and reality cannot be further from government declarations.

This uncompromising portrait of post-war Vietnam is not only an important representative of Hong Kong New Wave, but of a global cinema, as well. Unlike filmmakers such as Tsui Hark or Johnnie To, Ann Hui’s picture is not a stylized genre film, it is rather a powerful socio-critical drama. She captures the misery of life in repressive regime and, above all, the power of people to resist it. Humanism is one of the most important issues in Hui’s work and Boat People is a great example of that – with empathy it shows human suffering, deconstructs political fabulations, and marks the path for Hong Kong social dramas in decades to come.

A Simple Life

119 min. , 2011

桃姐
Drama
Hong Kong
Cantonese, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Ann Hui
Starring: Andy Lau, Deanie Ip
Distributor: Distribution Workshop

TRAILER

The screening will be introduced by the director Ann Hui.

After suffering a stroke, housemaid Chun-To (Deanie Ip) is forced to retire and moves into a nursing home. Film producer Roger (Andy Lau) whose family employed Chun-To for many years is helping her go through this life-changing situation. Further medical complications allow them to come closer again. While Chun-to cared for Roger when he was a child, this nuanced drama shows us their roles being reversed as they age.

A Simple Life – based on actual life experience of a renowned producer, Roger Lee – is a story of care, trust, and relationships that transcend blood ties and redefine the concept of a family. There is an entire generation of adults living in Hong Kong who had been, to a large extent, raised by housemaids. Ann Hui opens this social issue with incredible sensibility without exaggerated gestures. The film is composed of a mosaic of conversations and silence, characters walking and sitting down, people holding hands or smiling gleefully – all the little things we take for granted. But Ann Hui’s subdued style highlights them to show that it is precisely these things that make emotional bonds with people around us stronger. A Simple Life showcases Ann Hui’s authorial style that is set to open difficult social issues and touches the hearts of her audience.

The Stunt Woman

95 min. , 1996

阿金
Action drama
Hong Kong
Cantonese, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Ann Hui
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Sammo Hung
Distributor: Paramount, Park Circus

TRAILER

The screening will be introduced by the director Ann Hui.

Throughout her career, Ann Hui has many times demonstrated her genre versatility. She perfectly comprehends the principles of war films, comedies, melodramas, and action films. What she never forgets is the central theme of her works – people stories and humanity. A great example of the director combining a genre experiment with a central theme is the life story of Ah Kam (Michelle Yeoh), a stunt woman.

In three chapters Hui brings three different films with a unifying theme – the status of women in Hong Kong society. The first chapter of The Stunt Woman is a conscious take on François Truffaut‘s Day for Night (1973) or Andrzej Wajda‘s Everything for Sale (1969). Using a great deal of introspection, it tells the story of stunt men and women and their status in the film industry. On the one hand, Hui describes their job as dangerous, sometimes underrated by directors or producers, and unexpectedly intimate on the other. Stunt teams form small families, little ecosystems in an otherwise pragmatic industry. Meta-cinematic narration is followed by a subversive melodrama and that, at last, changes into a refugee story. But at center stage of each story is Ah Kam, a woman who refuses to conform to social norms, whether as a stunt woman, a partner, or a mother. The Stunt Woman uses genre formulas primarily as motivation to explore the woman-society relationship.

Smugglers

129 min. , 2023

밀수
Crime
South Korea
Korean, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Ryoo Seung-wan
Starring: Kim Hye-soo, Yum Jung-ah, Zo In-sung, Park Jeong-min
Distributor: NEW Contents Panda

TRAILER

When a new chemical plant is built near a picturesque coastal village, the local haenyeo (female sea divers) see their livelihood threatened. One day they are offered a job, but it is not quite legal. This creates a game in the world of smuggling, whose players become entangled in an increasingly complex web of lies.

Director Ryoo Seung-wan has made a Korean summer hit, and not for the first time. Since the release of the action film Veteran (2015), each of his films has been eagerly anticipated by domestic audiences, whether it was the unsettling The Battleship Island (2017) or the thrilling Escape from Mogadishu (2021). As viewers of Korean films are already accustomed to, we can look forward to a unique mix of genres, this time with an action thriller set in the colorful garb of the vibrant seventies’ era. The fight choreography will not only please the Oldboy fan club, and the underwater scenes definitely don’t have to hide in Avatar’s shadow.

Concrete Utopia

129 min. , 2023

콘크리트 유토피아
Disaster thriller
South Korea
Korean, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Um Tae-hwa
Starring: Lee Byung-hu, Park Seo-joon, Park Bo-young, Park Ji-hu
Distributor: Lotte Entertainment

TRAILER

After a severe earthquake, Seoul lay in ruins. All but one apartment building collapsed. Compared to the nightmare that unfolds outside, it becomes a seemingly safe utopia for its residents. However, it doesn’t take long for more and more survivors to gather around the house. The original inhabitants feel threatened, and even among them, conflict is inevitable.

The Korean Oscar contender was directed by Um Tae-hwa, seven years after he won Best New Director at the Korean Grand Bell Awards. His social commentary with elements of disaster satire stands on the solid foundation formed by the outstanding performances of the acting ensemble, dominated by Hollywood-blessed Lee Byung-hun (The Magnificent Seven, 2016), rising star Park Seo-joon (Parasite, 2019) or popular series star Park Bo-young (Strong Girl Bong-soon, 2017).

Till Love Do Us Part

110 min. , 2022

盛极一时的爱情
Romantic drama
China, Czech Republic
Mandarin, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Ran Li
Starring: Liang Cuishan, Zhang Ninghao, Ren Bin, Zhang Qing
Distributor: Lonely Production
Guests: Film Crew

TRAILER

The screening will be introduced by the film crew and Q&A will follow after the screening.

A university lecturer, Shu (Liang Cuishan), goes on a work trip to Europe. Little does she know that the time spent away from home will radically change her life. In Prague, she encounters Fan (Zhang Ninghao), a theatre director, and forms an incredibly strong emotional bond with him. However, she is about to marry her fiancé Hu (Ren Bin), waiting for her back in China. Shu needs to make a crucial decision and choose between a conventional middle-class life and a spontaneous, yet affectionate adventure in Europe.

Ran Li, a debuting director, has created an empathetic woman story about choices that can be neither anticipated nor easily made. Till Love Do Us Part is a complex, duality-filled film offering an inspirational point of view. It is not a classic melodrama introducing two male opponents; this love triangle adds a social dimension to the mix because the two rivals represent two different ways of life as well as continents. This cleverly constructed debut constantly oscillates between conventions and passion, static and dynamic, different social classes, and does not ever come to a stop. But more than that, as a joint project of Czech and Chinese productions it combines two distinct filmmaking traditions. In all respects, Till Love Do Us Part brings a brilliant film experience and a peek into the future of international film production.

Godzilla Minus One

125 min. , 2023

ゴジラ-1.0
Kaiju
Japan
Japanese, English and Czech subtitles
Directing: Takashi Yamazaki
Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki
Distributor: TOHO, Piece of Magic Entertainment

TRAILER

Just one year before its seventieth birthday, Godzilla is back. This time the plot is set shortly after the end of World War II. What you can expect is a blockbuster filled with action and entertainment, but especially moments of pure horror.

It is obvious Japan does not ever want to abandon its radioactive villain and has a very good reason for that – Godzilla is simply universal, a cinematic tabula rasa. It can emerge in a post-war horror film shortly after the end of American occupation of Japan, or in a salaryman comedy, a spy thriller, an environmental drama or in a subversive experiment by the author of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Regarding the meaning, Godzilla may represent everything from the fear of the United States, horrors of a war, natural disasters, the clash between conservatism and progressivism, late capitalism or simply a little kid‘s friend, sweetly falling to sleep on a monster island. Godzilla Minus One merges the concept of kaiju eiga (a monster film) and a period drama and shows a new direction that the Japanese monsters of TOHO could pursue in the 21st century.