Review | Drifting movie review: homeless in the spotlight in one of 2021’s best Hong Kong films
- In a great ensemble cast – there’s a cameo by activist priest Father Franco Mella – Francis Ng stands out as a homeless man on the mean streets of Hong Kong
- With this gritty and refreshingly unsentimental movie, writer and director Jun Li shows why he is one of the city’s brightest young filmmakers
4/5 stars
In an ensemble cast who play a range of wonderfully sketched characters, many of them deserving of a fuller account of their backstories, Francis Ng Chun-yu stands out with his best performance in years. He plays Fai, a grumpy middle-aged man fresh out of prison, who is welcomed back by his homeless and mostly drug-addicted friends with a complimentary shot of heroin.
Fai’s life with his pals is curtailed by the authorities when their makeshift street shelters are raided and their belongings confiscated, all without the legally required notice being given. As they take their case to court with the help of a kindly social worker (Cecilia Choi Si-wan, Beyond the Dream ), Drifting turns into a slice-of-life drama about this surprisingly watchable group of characters.