Hong Kong’s triad past and present takes centre stage at city’s arts festival
- Gangsters of Hong Kong looks at the modern history of the triads with nostalgia, but without romanticising or glorifying its violent past
- Play focuses on how the city is adjusting to changes since its return to China more than two decades ago
There are many layers to playwright Loong Man-hong’s Gangsters of Hong Kong.
On the surface, the play is about three men who are, in one way or the other, connected to the triads. On a deeper level, this original commission for this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival explores how the city is adjusting and adapting to changes since its return to China more than two decades ago.
Liu Mila (Tsoi Wan-wa) is a graduate student from China researching Hong Kong’s underworld for a thesis. She befriends a crime reporter Man Wing-fat (Pang Chun-nam) who, she hopes, will lead her to interviewing “real” triad members.
Liu is subsequently introduced to veteran policeman Tsui Sai-hoi (Chan Wing-chuen) and Leung Kong-fuk (Lee Chun-chow, also the play’s director) who joined the triads in his youth, and the history of these three men and their relationship begins to unravel.
Meanwhile, Liu and her two flat mates, Coco (Yip Lai-ka) and Karen (Fung Hunt-sze), start to receive mysterious threats that eventually turn violent.