First Takes at LYIFF: The Entrepot - Cantonese cinema takes over the Lowther Pavilion

SYNOPSIS: In the midst of a changing Hong Kong following political unrest and the Covid pandemic, three thematically linked shorts weave together the stories of a departing couple, a defiant teacher battling Orwellian policies, and three friends seeking meaning amid uncertainty in their lives.

One of the hallmarks of the selection of this year’s Lytham International Film Festival was to bring ‘new, surprising, moving, thought provoking, occasionally shocking but always entertaining’ features and shorts to the Lowther Pavilion. And the second feature of day 1 did just that, by taking a North West audience to a very unsettled Hong Kong.

 

For a first time writer/director, Hoi Kit Cheung - who prefers to be known as Jacky Cheung - uses his background in journalism and documentary to turn in a 1 hour 19 minute film which delivers a critical insight into his homeland, one which, if his answers at the LYIFF Q&A are anything to go by, won’t see the light of day in Hong Kong due to its heavy use of archival footage which showcases the reality of life over there. Politics is at its core too, with the cinematography deliberately having blue and yellow - their equivalent of the UK’s red and blue - in its pallet, something which was noted by audience members in the Q&A as well.

Onto the cast then, and across the 3 shorts, we have different characters, with some of them - notably Deshui Lai as the taxi driver - popping up in multiple stories, and with Wing Yan Cheung, Chun Kit Chau, Yik Yu Leung and Ho Man Tam supporting him, there were moments that reminded me of a French film that had cast relative unknowns just to add to the authenticity of what was being showcased on screen - and it worked. Even with a language barrier the message of the film landed very well here in the UK, and again, if that Q&A director Cheung had with LYIFF head honcho Ed Greenberg was anything to go by, it got people talking.

THE VERDICT

The Entrepot played fairly strongly as part of LYIFF on Friday afternoon, and I am glad - making a film like this on a budget of around $25,000 is not easy, even with the restrictions Cheung was under at the time. He’s already writing his first 'true’ feature film, that’s how much he learned on his first foray into narrative cinema.

RATING: 4/5