Hong Kong Film Awards 2022 nominations: Limbo, Anita, Drifting lead the race; Lam Ka-tung up for best actor in two movies

A visually striking, black-and-white crime thriller that tells a nihilistic tale of despair and redemption set in a city rotten to the ground, Limbo stars Lam Ka-tung and Mason Lee as a pair of police detectives on the hunt of a serial murderer.

Limbo has been one of the most critically acclaimed Hong Kong films in the past year, having garnered four nominations (and two wins, for best sound and production design) at last year’s Asian Film Awards. It also won best picture and best actress (for Cya Liu Ya-se) at the 2021 Hong Kong Film Critics Society awards, announced in January.

Cheang’s film is followed by Longman Leung Lok-man’s hugely popular Anita Mui biopic Anita (with 12 nominations) and Jun Li Jun-shuo’s gritty poverty drama Drifting (with 11), both of which are nominated for best picture.

The other best picture nominees are Zero to Hero, the wholesome sports biopic that was earlier chosen as the city’s submission to the Oscars for best international feature film, and Raging Fire, the final film by director Benny Chan Muk-sing, who died of cancer in August 2020.

While Lam Ka-tung cements his leading-man status with two best actor nods (for Limbo and Hand Rolled Cigarette), it is perhaps a sign of the rise of the next generation that all five nominees for best new performer have also been recognised in either the main or supporting acting categories they belong to, with Anita star Louise Wong being the stand-out candidate of the lot.