Starring: Buzz Chung Shiu-to, Aarif Lee Chi-ting, Simon Yam Tat-wah, Sandra Ng Kwan-yue Director: Alex Law Kai-yui Category: IIA (Cantonese)
Although heavily nostalgic in nature, the latest collaboration between Alex Law Kai-yui (here credited as writer-director) and Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting (producer) reverberates with Hongkongers' hunger for collective memory.
Set over four decades ago, this bittersweet look at a charmed - if materially meagre childhood - is strikingly contemporary in its ability to relate to an issue very much in recent headlines as rapacious developers and an acquiescent government destroy surviving echoes of what gave mid-20th-century Hong Kong its distinctive flavour.
The manner in which Echoes of the Rainbow recreates 1960s Hong Kong is precisely what gives this feature a distinction all of its own. Not that it's a particularly realistic rendition, or one that touches on 'major' events.
This is Hong Kong as seen through the eyes of Big Ears (Buzz Chung Shiu-to), a mischievous eight-year-old who lives in a ramshackle alley with his cobbler father (Simon Yam Tat-wah), harried mum (Sandra Ng Kwan-yue, above with Chung and Yam), and the boy's idol, his teenaged brother Desmond (Aarif Lee Chi-ting), a top student and athlete at the prestigious Diocesan Boys' School.
For more than half of the nearly two-hour running time, the director presciently paints a portrait of this hardworking family, their struggles, successes and sorrows. There is a true feeling of community on the small lane where they live, the street becoming a de facto dining room as the diverse households eat in close proximity and partake in each others' lives.