Top five films to watch in Hong Kong this week (August 24-30), from Lady Macbeth to Dangal
A Shakespeare tragedy gets a Victorian update, Bollywood wrestling women, vintage Maggie Cheung, a bruising Hong Kong thriller from Ip Man director, and a love story in an abattoir are among this week’s pick of the flicks
Click on film titles to read SCMP.com reviews
1. Lady Macbeth
Russian writer Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 short novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District receives an astonishingly brutal film adaptation in this period revenge thriller by British director William Oldroyd. Florence Pugh couldn’t have made a more striking impression as the cruel and amoral heroine. (Opens on August 24)
2. Dangal
A major box office hit in China until Wolf Warrior II stole the limelight, this Bollywood crowd-pleaser finds an uncommon women-empowering focus in its story of a former wrestling champion (played by Aamir Khan), who defies customs and family pressure to train two of his daughters for the sport. (Opens on August 24)
3. Last Romance
A perfect antidote to your nostalgia for 1980s Hong Kong, art-house auteur Yonfan’s 1988 adaptation of Yi Shu’s novel offers everything from the era’s best fashion, key plot turns relating to the 1987 financial crash, to screen icons Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Cherie Chung Chor-hung both at their prime. (Opens on August 25)
4. Paradox
Wilson Yip Wai-shun’s career has taken off since he directed three Ip Man films between 2008 and 2015. Action fans can rejoice to learn that the Hong Kong filmmaker has lost none of the bruising fatalism he displayed in the 2005 crime thriller SPL, here again channelled into an ultraviolent tragedy. (Opens on August 25)
A very peculiar romantic comedy which also happens to be one of the genre’s most engaging entries in recent times, this Hungarian Berlin Golden Bear winner finds an exquisite balance for its unusual setting (in a slaughterhouse) and mismatched romantic pairing to create a most lyrical cinematic experience. (Now showing)
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