Local film Weeds On Fire retells story of inspiring Sha Tin youth baseball team
Established in 1983, the Sha Tin Martins was one of Hong Kong’s first youth baseball teams
Baseball was not a typical sport among Hongkongers in the 1980s.
It was precisely because of this that Leo Lu Kwong-fai, then principal of Kei Kok Primary School in Sha Tin, decided to set up one of Hong Kong’s first youth baseball teams in 1983. Called the Sha Tin Martins, it went on to win little league matches against strong foreign rivals – victories that resonated with locals at a time when the city’s uncertain future rested in the hands of foreign players.
“I wanted to make something special,” said Lu, now a 76-year-old retiree, adding that no one thought the team could be successful at the time. “This was a sport dominated by the Japanese. And we stepped right into it.”
Now a new local film entitled Weeds On Fire or “0.5 Step” in Chinese has breathed new life into the team’s story. The HK$2 million low-budget production is loosely based on the Sha Tin Martins and will be released on August 25. It depicts a ragtag team of disadvantaged youth learning to believe in themselves through playing baseball, eventually winning a match against a powerful Japanese team despite the odds.
The plot unfolds in 1984, a tumultuous time in Hong Kong history. It was the year Britain and China signed a declaration stating that Hong Kong would be guaranteed a high degree of autonomy for 50 years after 1997 – the date of the city’s handover to China after over a century of British rule.
The film chronicles the fictional lives of two teenage members growing up in one of the district’s oldest public housing estates. It also touches on a real-life anecdote that the team was founded with the support of then Sha Tin district officer Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, who would become the city’s leader 20 years later.