IN Christmases past, the yuletide season was a time for local movie merchants to bring out the Cantonese blockbusters. The growing inability for Hong Kong film-makers to produce entertainment is evidenced by Sea Root, a low budget drama which in years gone by would never have been given a Christmas release.
Paradoxically, this understated look at life among the colony's dwindling community of boat dwellers is one of the more interesting pictures to emerge in recent months. But with nary a high speed chase, side-splitting comedy scene, or scintillating superstar, it's hardly holiday fare.
The script by I Have a Date With Spring author Raymond To Kwok-wai, from a story by producer Michael Mak Sun-ming, is set primarily on an old houseboat, the home to a family that was once a force to be reckoned with in the tight-knit fishing community of Aberdeen.
The family fortunes have gone down considerably; two of three now-grown-up children have forsaken their sea roots, leaving the eldest son, Root (Lau Ching-wan), to keep up the traditions and look after a taciturn father and bitter, crippled mother (Yip Chun).
Of particular interest is the easy way in which these fisherfolk ignore international borders to go in and out of China. It is in a small mainland Chinese village that they 'purchase' a young woman, Lin (Alice Lau Nga-lai), to work on board as mother's helper. Lin jumps at the chance to go to Hong Kong. Of course, once in the colony it's risky for Lin to go ashore. Without an ID card, she stands the risk of deportation.
The film-makers are partial to flashbacks, with both Root and his mother constantly lost in reveries.
Root's daydreams concern a childhood sweetheart who emigrated to Canada. Mum, on the other hand, cannot forget the glories that once belonged to her family.
