Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in Oliver Stone’s Snowden.

Top 5 films to watch in Hong Kong this week: October 6-12

A biopic and a documentary on the dangers of government surveillance, an action-packed thriller, a wuxia masterpiece, and a quirky Woody Allen project make up our must-see list

Edmund Lee

Published: 8:15am, 6 Oct 2016

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1. Snowden

Mindful that an Oscar-winning documentary, Citizenfour , has already done a marvellous job at capturing the emergence of the national security whistle-blower, Oliver Stone instead opts for a humanising biopic, boosted by a charismatic turn by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (Opens on October 6)

Blake Lively (left) and Jesse Eisenberg in Café Society.

2. Café Society

The bad reviews for Woody Allen’s new sitcom for Amazon, Crisis in Six Scenes, at least serve as yet another reminder that we should no longer take his odd good films for granted. And this nostalgic romance, set in the 1930s, is certainly one of the best of his recent films. (Now showing)

Zhang Hanyu in a still from Operation Mekong.

3. Operation Mekong

Hong Kong director Dante Lam Chiu-yin brings his fully loaded action filmmaking repertoire to this exhilarating crime thriller, a fictionalised and testosterone-drenched account of China’s pursuit of a Myanmese drug lord who murdered 13 Chinese nationals in the Golden Triangle. (Opens on October 6)

4. The Swordsman in Double Flag Town

A swordsman settles a blood feud with bandits in He Ping’s 1991 masterpiece, a film so stylish and unclassifiable that it’s been labelled as the first wuxia film to be made in China since 1949, as well as the country’s first ever Western. (October 9, part of Chinese Film Panorama 2016 programme)

5. Democracy

Giving surprisingly cinematic treatment to a most dreary subject, David Bernet’s insightful documentary chronicles the European Parliament’s drafting of a law to govern data privacy within the EU. This makes a perfect double bill with Snowden. (October 9, part of KINO/16 Film Festival)

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