Top 5 films to watch in Hong Kong this week: January 7-13
An inspiring hit about a woman boxer, a searing immigrant drama, a manga adaptation, a legendary French thriller and Birdman director’s survival epic make up our must-see movies this week
Click on film titles for links to films we have reviewed.
1. 100 Yen Love
As Japan’s nominee for the 2016 best foreign language film Oscar, Masaharu Take’s indie hit goes from the utterly glum to the ecstatically stirring in its story about a reclusive woman who belatedly finds her worth in amateur boxing. (Opens on January 7)
2. Dheepan
A trio of immigrants who fled the Sri Lankan civil war form a surrogate family in Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winner, which powerfully reveals the emotional scars that remain in these new residents of a crime-ridden Parisian suburb. (Opens on January 7)
3. Bakuman
Japanese comics fans would find much to savour in this metafictional manga adaptation, which gives an informative yet exciting look at the fabled industry through the quest of two high-school kids to make it at a national magazine. (Opens on January 7)
4. Elevator to the Gallows
Marking French director Louis Malle’s feature debut, this 1957 detective thriller stars Jeanne Moreau as a woman plotting to kill her husband. Its jazz soundtrack, improvised by Miles Davis and his band, is the stuff of legends. (January 13, part of Hong Kong French Film Festival)
5. The Revenant
After the technical virtuosity of Birdman, made to look as it was shot in one continuous take, Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu goes to another extreme with this survival epic, shot in brutal conditions in British Columbia using only natural light. (Opens on January 8)