''Mr. Cinema'' also known as ''Call Me Left'' (老港正傳) is a 2007

Hong Kong film The cinema of Hong Kong ( zh, t=香港電影) is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of pol ...

starring Anthony Wong,

Teresa Mo Teresa Mo Shun-kwan (born 5 November 1960) is a Hong Kong actress. Background She started her career at RTV in the 1977, and joined TVB in 1981. She became famous for being cast in ''The Justice of Life'' (他來自江湖), which was based on ...

Ronald Cheng Ronald Cheng Chung-kei (born 9 March 1972) is a Hong Kong singer and actor. Life and career Ronald Cheng was born in Hong Kong. Originally intending to work behind the scenes as a songwriter and a producer, Cheng did odd jobs at his father (Dire ...

and Karen Mok.

Plot

The story is about a pro-communist

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...

Zhou Heung-Kong ( Anthony Wong) who grew up in the pre-1997

British colony The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

starting from the 1950s. He lives with his wife Ying (

) who mostly raises the family by herself. Zhou has fantasies of going to

Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananm ...

, but has always been too poor to do so. They eventually find themselves in a HK transferred over to the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. In the end Zhou realised he sacrificed everything for the communist cause, and his family is left with nothing.

Cast

* Anthony Wong as Zo Heung Kong *

as Chan Sau-ying *

as Zo Chong * Karen Mok as Luk Min *

Paw Hee-Ching A paw is the soft foot-like part of a mammal, generally a quadruped, that has claws. Common characteristics The paw is characterised by thin, pigmented, keratinised, hairless epidermis covering subcutaneous collagenous and adipose tissue, ...

as Lee Choi-ha *

John Shum John Sham Kin-Fun (born 1952) is a Hong Kong actor and film producer. His English name is sometimes written as John Shum. Whilst known primarily for his comedic acting roles in Hong Kong cinema, he also spent time as a political activist. Biogra ...

as Luk Yau

Production note

The film has been criticised for its "selective history" for covering a long period of HK's history, but does not mention the

1989 Tiananmen Square Protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

.Lovehkfilm.com.
Lovehkfilm.com
" ''Mr. Cinema.'' Retrieved on 2010-03-12. The

Hong Kong 1967 Leftist Riots The 1967 Hong Kong riots were large-scale anti-government riots that occurred in Hong Kong during British colonial rule. Beginning as a minor labour dispute, the demonstrations eventually escalated into protests against the British colonial g ...

was only covered briefly, and China's support for its HK-based loyalists is never addressed. The name of Anthony Wong's character Zhou Heung Kong is pronounced similar to "Left(ist) Hong Kong".

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews. One of them, by Vivienne Chow of ''Muse'' magazine, applauded Chiu for 'initiating the idea of telling a Hong Kong story from the perspective of the leftists for the first time,' but deemed the movie 'ultimately overambitious'.

References

External links