Filmmaker Mok Kwan-ling’s heart sank when the email from the government censors dropped.
In June, the authorities announced all films would now be scrutinised for “national security” breaches. Mok’s was the first known to have fallen foul of these rules.
For months, she had been putting together her debut, a 27-minute drama inspired by the many young couples she encountered during huge democracy protests two years ago.
It tells the story of a young woman meeting her boyfriend’s parents after he is arrested for taking part in the protests. The boyfriend’s mother is opposed to the movement, his father sympathetic.
The Cantonese title “Zap Uk” (literally “clean up the house”) is a reference to how friends and family would often remove any incriminating items once a loved one was arrested.
But Mok said Hong Kong’s film censors were not happy with what was submitted and ordered her to make 14 cuts.
Among the changes they demanded was removing a line from the father saying their son was a first aid volunteer who was “only out there to save the people”, as well as deleting a scene where the same character, a truck driver, charges protesters a discounted fare.
The censors also demanded the film be renamed and carry a warning that it showed criminal offences.
“I thought the story was rather balanced by presenting voices of two sides,” Mok said. “It turned out that one particular side is not allowed to be heard.”
Mok felt the cuts would leave her film “devoid of essence and sense”, so she put it aside for now. “My film happened to be the first but it won’t be the last,” she warned.
Gone are the glamour days
In the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong was known as the “Hollywood of the Far East”, with a cast of globally recognised stars like Chow Yun Fatt and auteurs such as Wong Kar Wai.
The golden age of Cantonese cinema has long been eclipsed by the rise of mainland Chinese and South Korean films. But the city maintained a vibrant indie scene, shielded by free-speech protections that allowed directors to tackle subjects untouchable on the authoritarian mainland.
Those days are now over. China is rapidly remoulding Hong Kong in its own image after the democracy protests, and films are just the latest in a long list of targets.
On top of the new scrutiny rules, a law making its way through the legislature will expand censorship to films previously given clearance as well as tightening the punishment for breaches.
Kiwi Chow was one of five directors who contributed short stories for “Ten Years”. The 2015 film painted a dystopian portrait of what Hong Kong might look like in a decade with Beijing stifling freedoms and the city’s Cantonese culture.
As well as being prescient, “Ten Years” was a commercial hit and won best film at the city’s annual awards. But it is unlikely a production like that can now be made – or even shown.
“They are trying to clamp down on our memory and imagination,” Chow said.
His latest project, “Revolution of Our Times”, is a 2.5-hour-long documentary on the 2019 protests. Organisers secretly added it to the Cannes Festival Festival lineup earlier this summer, but only once the mainland Chinese films had been shown.
Chow said he has given up any hope of showing it in Hong Kong.
“If it is dangerous and risky for filmmakers to touch upon social issues, then I can only screen it outside Hong Kong,” he said.
He predicts censorship will do little to change Hong Kongers’ desire for a greater say in how their city is run and smacks of weakness.
“The more that is banned in the name of national security, the less secure the state will be,” Chow said.