These are ten films you shouldn’t miss at the HK Cine Fan – Summer International Film Festival which will take place from August 15 – 30, 2023 in Hong Kong.

The murder of three pupils has rocked Jing Mu High School. The only witness is Tong, a mute student who is also a victim of the trio’s bullying. When Tong is taken by the killer, her mother will stop at nothing to save Tong and to protect a secret she has been harbouring. An ambitious venture exploring bullying, abuse and religious beliefs, this suspense thriller about the price of complicit silence showcases young director Sam Quah’s remarkable talent in building a chilling atmosphere while juggling a knotty narrative that carries surprising emotional weight by its shocking conclusion. (SIFF 2023)

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Amidst tranquillity and melancholy, a touch of playfulness prompted by balloons becomes an evocative thread that runs through this intimate family drama themed on birth-control. A sudden death, an unwanted pregnancy and the belief in reincarnation trigger a series of events that compels a Tibetan woman to face her life’s choices. Returning to the 1980s for this magic-realistic story, Pema Tseden quietly observes the emotional and sexual dynamics of family life on the Tibetan plateau, as he continues to critically explore the clash between spiritual faith and pragmatism in a fascinating, transcendental fashion. (SIFF 2023)

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Though he died at the young age of 37 in 1933, Miyazawa Kenji left behind a number of fantastical children’s stories and poetry that are beloved by readers to this day. This poignant biopic recounts the writer’s life from the perspective of his loving yet antagonistic father Masajiro, a pawnbroker who, despite wishing his son to inherit the family business, still undertakes to support his endeavors. Conveying Kenji’s intense passion for literature and religion with a gripping performance, Suda Masaki holds his own opposite the iconic Yakusho Koji, who brings plenty of gravitas and grace to Masajiro. (SIFF 2023)

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Traversing a seemingly endless road across the unforgiving vastness of the Kekexili Plateau, a long-distance trucker is upset by the prospect of bad karma when he accidentally runs over a sheep. His journey takes another existential turn when he picks up a hitchhiker on a request to avenge his father. Their soon-to-be entwined fates are signalled by a coincidence: they’re both named Jinpa. Recalling the gritty visual style of producer Wong Kar Wai, this parable-like story draws on the absurd and the dreamy, contemplating the metaphysical mystery about death and life, crime and redemption. (SIFF 2023)

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Forty years after leaving Japan for a boxing career in the U.S. that never panned out, Jin returns to restart his life with his old boxing buddies. When hotheaded young boxer Shogo asks for Jin’s help to get him back into the ring after an unfair loss, the two men decide to seize their final chance at glory. A boxing film so authentic that it inspired co-star Yokohama Ryusei to qualify as a pro boxer, Zeze Takahisa’s boxing drama is one of the veteran director’s most crowd-pleasing films thanks to the touching father-son bond at its core. (SIFF 2023)

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Drawing on her own history and culture in crafting this gorgeous, deft debut film, Korean-Canadian playwright Celine Song delivers an achingly romantic drama which has universal resonance in its acute understanding of inexpressible feelings and delicate rendering of undefinable relationships. Separated for over 20 years, two childhood sweethearts are reconnected in person in New York following a brief virtual reunion in between. By then, each has settled into their respective lives. Inexorably tethered to the past, the wistful souls still share a yearning for each other, but are left to contemplate on the paths not taken and the destiny of life. (SIFF 2023)

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Former Ultraman series director Konaka Kazuya creates an endearing ode to the old-school, no-frills style of amateur filmmaking of his student days. During the midst of Star Wars fever in the late 1970s, a cinephile high schooler teams up with three classmates to make his no-budget sci-fi masterpiece for a class project. Any aspiring or professional filmmakers will see themselves in Konaka’s pseudoautobiographical story as it traces the heroes’ long road to their magnum opus, taking a fun nostalgic glimpse into the fearless exploration from developing a script to creating special effects. (SIFF 2023)

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Newlyweds Hyun-su and Soo-jin share a happy marriage, but things go awry when Hyun-su develops a bad case of sleepwalking that goes from scratching to nearly jumping out the window. Soo-jin insists on finding a cure together with her husband, but her tenacity puts their marriage – and their sanity – on edge. Formerly an assistant director for Korean masters like Lee Chang-dong and Bong Joon-ho, first-time director Jason Yu deftly blends horror, dark comedy and a marital drama into a slick, unsettling, and wickedly fun thriller. (SIFF 2023)

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Transforming the wuxia genre with an unexceptional power of stillness and reserve, Hou scored his inimitably oblique and ravishing beautiful triumph, achieving breathtaking new heights of compositional elegance. The volatile power plays and political instabilities that marked the decline of Tang Dynasty are laid out with unobtrusive intricacy, as the assassin gradually changes from killing with matter-of-fact precision to commanding her own destiny. Drawn between menacing forest, mystic mountains and evocative water, this painterly portrait of love and honour is utterly mesmerising with its singular vision – not just aesthetic, but also moral. (SIFF 2023)

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A tribute to the rich tapestry of Tibetan people and culture, this discursive philosophical road movie follows a filmmaker travelling from villages to cities in search of actors for his adaptation of the Tibetan opera Prince Drime Kunden, a saint who gave away all his worldly possessions. Exercising formalistic restraint with a contemplative pace and poetic long shots in a filmwithin- a-film structure, Pema Tseden takes viewers through the spectacular landscape of a changing Tibet, raising penetrating questions of what love, compassion and self-sacrifice mean in the rapidly modernising society. (SIFF 2023)

For more information please visit: https://cinefan.hkiff.org.hk/period/2023/summeriff-2023