Two competing films about troubled Hong Kong teenagers opened on the same day in April 28 years ago. It was a David and Goliath affair. Of the pair, the Andy Lau Tak-wah vehicle, Once Upon a Rainbow, took in only HK$3 million in ticket sales. The other, Lonely Fifteen, a gritty production with an unknown cast, not only earned HK$10 million at the box office, but also received seven nominations for film awards. Others followed, including Lonely Fifteen sequels Everlasting Love (1984) and Midnight Girls (1986), and Lawrence Lau Kwok-cheung's Spacked Out.
Girl$, directed by Kenneth Bi, is the latest Hong Kong bad-girl movie. Addressing the rise of teenagers advertising their sexual services online, it features four independent-minded young girls with few scruples about what they have to do to fulfil their material desires.
'These girls are not dumb - they are out to exploit guys,' says Bi of his characters in Girl$. Yet, he did not set out to make a film to judge these women. 'The film has no moral position: that's the way I wanted it.'
Art-house films about poor, victimised Chinese women tend to be the productions that win awards at European film festivals, Bi says. 'I always hated this position - why do we have to play victims to get European sympathy? And here's a chance to look at these prostitutes that are not victims - that's why I'm excited to make this film.'
Bi says he's not worried about the reaction from conservative groups. 'The film is just a depiction of these girls. The truth is there are hundreds or thousands of these girls out there. How did it come to this? Is it because of films [about prostitution]? I don't think so. There are good movies about good people, but we don't see the influence. It's the value system in place from the 1970s and 80s; we are now seeing the disadvantages of this. In Hong Kong we always place money before everything - before morals and principles; these young girls are paying for their parents' sins or their misunderstanding of what life is about.'
Girl$ has barely figured in the mainstream media, unlike in 1982 when the release of Lonely Fifteen ignited widespread moral outrage for its depiction of schoolgirls dabbling in prostitution and drugs.