Cloud Atlas (2012), directed by Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, is a meditation on the consequences of human actions, told through six stories set in periods of the past, present and future that connect with each other in unpredictable ways. Based on David Mitchell’s 2004 novel of the same name, it stars an ensemble cast that includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant, who each play multiple roles. Raymond Mak Ka-chun, co-founder and CEO of Hong Kong mobile indoor urban farming start-up Farmacy HK, who is also a former Legislative Council candidate, tells Richard Lord how it changed his life. I saw the film in the cinema in 2012. I was invited by a friend who appears to know me quite well, who told me, “You’ll like this movie.” I must thank that friend: it was very inspirational for me. She didn’t expect it to be something that would be so fundamental for me afterwards, but it was. I was about to get promoted to another level of my professional career (as a consultant at accounting firm PwC), and I was about to turn 30 years old. At that time I was looking for some answers to my life questions: is this the way I want to go? Is there some purpose in my life beyond my career? This movie came along at the right time. There’s a statement that touched my heart and that is still a fundamental message for me. Adam (Ewing, the protagonist of the film’s earliest story, set in 1849, an American lawyer who becomes an abolitionist after witnessing the horrors of slavery) explains to his father-in-law why he was doing something that wasn’t seen as normal in that era, and he says (in response to his father-in-law’s assertion that “No matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean”), “What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?” He keeps challenging authority, no matter what it does to his career. In our lives, we often wait and doubt whether we should have a go, but when you try and search for truth, all sorts of things will change. The directors send us a very clear message: you can do it. Any contribution I’ve made is because of this movie. It directly made me determined to do something different and go back to my heart. It changed me completely. I quit my job in 2016 and never went back to my professional life. I had way more to do. It was the start of what became Farmacy. In 2016, when I stood for [the Legislative Council], it was because of this movie. I’d felt I was powerless to change society, that I was just a normal professional, but this movie gave me the courage. No matter how small the contribution, you can make your voice heard. I like every single detail of it. I’ve probably seen it more than 10 times, and I keep taking new messages away every time. Now I watch it to reinvigorate the passion: it’s good to be reminded of your purpose.