With a city of 7.2 million people, you’re bound to get a few bad apples. We’re presenting an explosive new season of crime films from Hong Kong between February – April.
From noir-tinged thrillers, to tales of hardnosed gangsters, to entertainingly comic capers, CRIME: Hong Kong Style offers stone cold classics (Infernal Affairs, Election), cult movies (Police Story, As Tears Go By), forgotten gems (Too Many Ways to be No. 1, Portland Street Blues) and, with premieres of Dante Lam’s That Demon Within and the legendary Ringo Lam’s Wild City, the latest releases from some of the world’s most revered and stylish directors.
Join us to celebrate some of the greatest crime films ever made.
Click here to download the season calendar.
To help you navigate your way around the season, here’s a genre timeline of Hong Kong crime films.
CRIME: Hong Kong Style is presented with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from The National Lottery. This season is also supported by Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, London. With special thanks to Hong Kong Film Archive and North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Supporters:
The season will also tour venues across the UK throughout February, March and April. For full venue details, see below.
Tour venues:
- Broadway Cinema, Nottingham
- Crouch End Picturehouse, London
- Dundee Contemporary Arts
- Eden Court, Inverness
- Filmhouse, Edinburgh
- Fleet Film Society, Hampshire
- Glasgow Film Festival
- Glasgow Film Theatre
- Chinese Visual Festival, King’s College London
- mac, Birmingham
- Phoenix, Leicester
- QUAD, Derby
- Queens Film Theatre, Belfast
- Showroom, Sheffield
- Shrewsbury Film Society, Shropshire
- The Barbican, London
- The Cube, Bristol
- The Dukes, Lancaster
- The Poly, Falmouth
- Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
- Watershed, Bristol
In this season
We Preview CRIME: Hong Kong Style
Our new film season, CRIME: Hong Kong Style, offers stone cold classics, cult movies, forgotten gems and the latest releases from some of the world’s…
Previously in this season
Cinema
Infernal Affairs
Bringing together two of Asia’s biggest stars, Andy Lau and Tony Leung, Infernal Affairs became a world-wide hit upon its release and remains one of…
Cinema
Beast Stalker
With a string of successful and stylish films, director Dante Lam has established himself at the forefront of contemporary Hong Kong cinema. A muscular thriller…
Cinema
Portland Street Blues
A relative of the popular Young and Dangerous franchise, Portland Street Blues offers a significant lead role for Sandra Ng who takes the opportunity to…
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As Tears Go By Intro
This screening will be introduced by Gary Bettinson, author of The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai.
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Once a Gangster Q&A
This screening will be accompanied by a post-screening Q&A with director Felix Chong.
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Infernal Affairs Intro
This screening is introduced by Felicia Chan, Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of Manchester.
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Overheard 3 Q&A
This screening will be accompanied by a post-screening Q&A with director Felix Chong.
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Portland Street Blues Intro
This screening is introduced by Sarah Perks, Artistic Director: Visual Art at HOME.
Cinema
Too Many Ways to Be No. 1
Released on the eve of Hong Kong’s handover to the PRC in 1997, this darkest of dark comedy centres around a seemingly minor decision which…
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Wild City Intro
This screening is introduced by Andy Willis, season curator and Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford.
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Overheard Intro
This screening is introduced by Andy Willis, season curator and Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford.
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Overheard 2 Intro
This screening is introduced by Andy Willis, season curator and Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford.
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The Pilferers’ Progress Intro
This screening will be introduced by Fraser Elliot, University of Manchester.
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Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 Intro
This screening will be introduced by Tamara Courage, University of Reading.
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The Boxer from Shantung Intro
This screening is introduced by Andy Willis, season curator and Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford.
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The Killer Constable Intro
This screening will be introduced by Robert Hamilton, Manchester Metropolitan University and founder member of the Chinese Film Forum UK.
Cinema
To Be Number One
Ray Lui’s performance as mobster Ng Shek-ko majestically leads this epic, and highly influential, crime drama that in true crime film style follows the rise…
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One Hour Intro: Crime from Hong Kong to Hollywood
In this talk, CRIME: Hong Kong Style curator Andy Willis will assess the influence of Hong Kong crime films on Hollywood filmmakers from Sylvester Stallone…
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One Hour Intro CRIME: Hong Kong Style
CRIME: Hong Kong Style curator Andy Willis offers an introduction to the season that will explore the development of the crime film within Hong Kong…
Cinema
Overheard 2
Another huge box-office success, Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s sequel to Overheard brings back the original’s stars Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, Daniel Wu. Here the co-writer and…
Cinema
UK Premiere: Wild City
Ringo Lam, the director of one of the most influential Hong Kong crime films City on Fire (1987), returns to the crime genre with this…
Cinema
That Demon Within
The new Hong Kong action maestro Dante Lam is behind this taut and ultimately unsettling psychological thriller. Truth, reality and imagination begin to blur in…
Cinema
Police Story
Following his disappointment with the US produced The Protector (1985), Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan wrote and directed this crime story vehicle to showcase his…
Cinema
The Swallow Thief
A great, energetic, early example of the Hong Kong crime film, The Swallow Thief tells the story of a young woman, Yinniu, the grand-daughter of veteran crime…
Cinema
The Boxer from Shantung
With The Boxer from Shantung legendary Shaw Brothers director Chang Cheh infuses a classic crime tale with his own inimitable Shaw Brothers’ style martial arts…
Cinema
The Pilferers’ Progress (AKA Money Crazy)
Ricky Hui and Richard Ng star as a pair of criminals who join forces to help a young woman retrieve her family’s jewels from Rich…
Cinema
The Teahouse
The Cheng Chi teahouse is a pivotal place within its community, providing local citizens with a respite from the encroaching criminality that increasingly seems to…
Cinema
The Killer Constable
A period set crime film; The Killer Constable bridges the gap between the Shaw Brothers studio films of the early 1970s and the more cynical…
Cinema
UK Premiere: Once a Gangster
In his solo directorial debut, Infernal Affairs co-writer Felix Chong playfully subverts the expectations of the gangster film. Here two gangsters Sparrow (Ekin Cheng) and…
Cinema
The Departed
Martin Scorsese’s remake of Hong Kong crime film Infernal Affairs transposes the action to Boston and focuses on the city’s Irish mob. The film was critically acclaimed…
Cinema
UK Premiere: Overheard 3
Another free standing film, the third instalment of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s Overheard series focuses on corruption and land acquisition in Hong Kong’s new territories. Again…
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Election Intro
This screening will be introduced by Roy Stafford, freelance film educator.