Opinion | Why Hong Kong director Dante Lam’s new movie highlights city’s inane attitude to cycling
Lack of hometown footage - in contrast to other locations in Asia - merely underlines government's boneheaded attitude to cycling in general and the wider benefits of sport
We won’t be adding To The Fore, Hong Kong director Dante Lam’s latest movie, to the extremely short list of great cycling films. Released this week, it revolves around three pro cyclists and features terrific race action scenes on the road and velodrome, but is repeatedly punctured by a Korean-soap-style, at-times-ludicrous plot.
Intrigued by the trailer – what’s this, cycle racing on Hong Kong streets? – we went along to the preview screening intending to pen a scoffing piece along the lines of "the only chance of seeing a bike race through Hong Kong streets is in a movie".
That didn’t pan out: the Hong Kong footage in the trailer is about all Lam was able to grab, evidently shooting the same tiny strip of road in Tamar from as many angles as possible in the hour or two he would have been granted, no doubt at the crack of dawn on a Sunday. But it still speaks to the government’s backward attitudes both to cycling in general and the power of sport for tourism and promotion.
See review: Dante Lam's action-packed cycling drama
Wu Kin-san, who competed for Hong Kong in the road race at the Beijing Olympics, was a technical expert on the film, training actors Choi Si-won, Eddie Peng and Shawn Dou and advising director Lam on how to shoot the race action.
He confirmed how hard it was to shoot in Hong Kong, in contrast to other locations in Taiwan, mainland China, and Korea. Wu and crew spent weeks shooting thrilling scenes up and down the mountains of Taiwan and through city streets in the likes of Shanghai and Busan, clearly with the full support of local authorities.