G Affairs film review: twisted portrait of contemporary Hong Kong brimming with anger beneath its art-house pretensions

3.5/5 stars

Less an involving story than it is a plethora of ideas and criticisms delivered with striking art-house pretensions, this brooding feature debut by director Lee Cheuk-pan, executive-produced by the socially conscious veteran Herman Yau Lai-to, deserves to be seen for being so different from anything that Hong Kong cinema traditionally has to offer.

Recognised with six nominations at the upcoming Hong Kong Film Awards (though noticeably absent from the best picture, director and screenwriter categories), G Affairs is the latest – and stylistically most accomplished – effort yet by the city’s new generation of filmmakers to vent their frustration and anger in the wake of the “umbrella movement” protests in 2014.

It begins with an enigmatic long take, which shows us a dimly lit room where a teenager plays Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 in G major, a prostitute arrives to have sex with a policeman and, finally, a human head breaks through the window and drops on the floor. The rest of this mystery drama, comprised of fragmented flashbacks and frequent voice-over monologues, explains how we get there.

The protagonist of this tale of depravity, scripted by Beijing-based Hong Kong filmmaker Kurt Chiang Chung-yu, is Yu Ting (Hanna Chan of Paradox ), a cynical top student in a prestige high-school and the daughter of a sensible but terminally ill education consultant (Griselda Yeung Cheuk-na) and an utterly corrupt policeman (Chapman To Man-chat).

Once her mother dies and her father’s lover, a mainland prostitute named Li Xiaomei (Huang Lu), is assigned to be her guardian, Yu Ting enters a sexual relationship with her class teacher Markus (Alan Luk Chun-kwong) despite amiable attention from two classmates, the autistic Don (Kyle Li Yam-san) and the cellist and bully victim Tai (Lam Sen).

With subtle echoes to Fruit Chan Gor’s allegorical youth drama Made in Hong Kong (1997), which painted a bleak picture of Hong Kong’s prospects under Chinese rule two decades prior, G Affairs likewise doesn’t hold back on its damning assessment of how the city’s authority figures have misplaced their moral compass and killed the dreams of today’s youth.

In the convoluted narrative, hypocrisy in both Hong Kong and China is revealed as a culprit of the gruesome death. Meanwhile, the young characters are forced by their demoralising surroundings to seek solace in the arts. It’s no wonder G Affairs quotes Alexandre Dumas, plays Bach often and even names a dog Gustav, after Klimt – there’s no one for the young to look up to but the dead.

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