Roll Credits!
That usually signifies the end of the show, be it TV or movies. For me, right now, it means that I am departing Minneapolis and heading home to sunny Sarasota, Florida, later this morning,
While the TCFF will roll on for five more grand evenings (it closes on October 31st), I am so happy to have had an opportunity, for my personal closing night, to watch a super film called It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong.
The film was written and directed by Emily Ting. This was her first time at helming a narrative feature film. Her five other directorial credits were for Shorts, Documentaries, and Documentary Shorts.
In a nutshell, an American born and raised Chinese woman goes to Hong Kong on a business trip, In a fast and easy ‘meet cute’, she gets lost somewhere in the Midlevels – small streets, lots of people, and a tad confusing to a newbie like her. An American expat, who has lived and worked in Hong Kong for 10 years, happens to overhear her phone conversation as she’s telling another party that she’s not sure where the particular place she was to meet a group of friends is. He offers her the directions and, after a bit of hesitation offers to walk her to that place.
Of course she declines, and heads out on her own. Moments later she’s back and admits to being lost and unsure. Once again he offers to escort her there. After an initial and repeated refusal, she relents and off they go.
He’s Josh and she’s Ruby. Josh is played by Bryan Greenberg and Ruby is played by Jamie Chung. Josh works for a multinational financial services company, and Ruby designs toys. Likely there’s a lot more to each of them – but hey, they’ve just met – and he’s only helping out a person under the broad heading of How Do I Get To…
So the walk and talk begins – Hollywood Road, the Man Mo Temple, Ladder Street, the Mid Level Escalators all come into view. As Ruby and Josh do their thing, Director Ting is doing her thing which is to treat we viewers to the excitement and thrills of just walking around in Hong Kong at night.
Emily told me that she had lived in Hong Kong for five years and that she didn’t speak the local language called Guangdongwa, or Cantonese. But Hong Kong is a city that doesn’t present a language issue for English-speaking visitors. I had met with her for more than an hour before the screening, which was before she had to do the meet and greets and the red carpet and other things that filmmakers must do at a film festival.
If you’ve never been to Hong Kong, then you’re in for a treat. But if you are an old Hong Kong hand, like me, the film brought back a ton of warm memories.
The Arts - JustMeMike's New Blog 