GIVEN HOW Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) has been at odds with the administration since the handover - a tussle that reached a climax with the Audit Commission's report last month criticising the broadcaster's 'culture of non-compliance' with official regulations - a government minister seems unlikely to inspire a new series of Below the Lion Rock, one of its most popular and acclaimed television dramas.
Yet that's exactly the case. 'We'd been thinking of launching a new series for a long time,' says producer Elizabeth Wong Lo-tak, who directed several episodes in the last series in 1994. But financial restrictions stopped RTHK officials from giving serious thought to the idea - until the media-savvy former Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung artfully wove the series' theme song into his budget speech four years ago. However, the depression and Sars outbreak that subsequently hit Hong Kong further put back plans of a remake, and it wasn't until the beginning of last year that proposals were finally given the green light.
The result is a series of 10 half-hour episodes. Echoing the varied style and content that has defined Lion Rock since its launch in 1973, they're written and directed by an army of directors and screenwriters. They include some household names from commercial cinema, such as Derek Yee Tung-shing, Eric Tsang Chi-wai and Aubrey Lam Oi-wah.
In a nod to the series' working-class roots, several episodes zero in on the woes of the underprivileged. Lion's Head Dumpling, which will launch the series on Sunday, focuses on a single-parent street sweeper (played by pop singer Eason Chan Yik-shan) whose daily struggles are complicated by the return of his immobilised father (Wu Ma). In another episode, a family faces the uncertainty of impending relocation from the soon-to-be-demolished Shek Kip Mei Estate.
Those expecting a reprise of the sharp social criticism that marked Lion Rock in the 1970s, however, may be disappointed. The pioneering series - directed by leading lights of Hong Kong's realist New Wave cinema such as Ann Hui On-wah, Lawrence Ah Mon and Allen Fong Yuk-ping - helped expose the social schisms of the day. As they saw it, the city was beset by problems such as drug addiction, poverty and the dispersal of close-knit communities - all overseen by uncaring bureaucrats. Although the latest series is nearer to the grassroots than the previous instalments of 1994, those exposes of the city's dark underbelly are missing.
'People do see Lion Rock as overtly political because directors like Ann [Hui] came up with pieces like Bridge [about the decision to tear down a footbridge connecting a squatter district to the outside world],' says Wong. 'Back then, the common people had no way to air their grievances and directors would take it upon themselves to do exactly that. I remember the government making critical noises, asking why pieces like The Song of Yuen Chau Tsai [about poverty and drug addiction in a Tai Po community] would expose such a dark side of society.'