ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW (Hong Kong, 2010)
Directed by: Alex Law
Starring: Simon Yam, Sandra Ng, Aarif Lee, Buzz Chung Shiu-tiu

It won a special award at the Berlin International Film Festival from the children’s jury, it saved the street on which it was shot from demolition, it heralds a return to filmmaking for 80’s New Wave filmmaker, Alex Law, and it won Simon Yam his first “Best Actor” prize at the Hong Kong Film Awards. And that’s as it should be, because ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW is the Hong Kong movie in excelsis, a celebration of the city and its film industry and of the scrappy, no-nonsense, deeply nostalgic but ridiculously hardheaded working class people who turned Hong Kong from a fishing village into one of the world’s greatest cities through nothing more than hard work. Even if you don’t know anything about Hong Kong, this funny and moving family drama speaks an international language.

Yes, it’s sentimental, but it earns every ounce of that sentiment, and every tear it wrings from the audience is 100% honest.

It’s 1966 and Big Ears (Buzz Chung) is a kid, running through the streets of Sham Shui Po with a fishbowl on his head pretending to be an astronaut. His big brother, Desmond (Aarif Lee), is a track star, plays guitar and moons over cutie pie, Flora. Their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Law (Simon Yam and Sandra Ng), work their fingers to the bone running a tiny neighborhood shoe store down the street from Mr. Law’s brother (Paul Chun) and grandma (Ha Ping). Their dream is simple: all they want is for their children to have a better life than they do. It’s an idyllic slice of working class heaven where no one has much, so they all look out for each other.

But the movie is based on Alex Law’s real memories of growing up, and Hong Kong in the late 60’s was about to become a city on fire. Rampant police corruption was already eating it away from within, the split between the middle and the upper classes was growing, and housing riots were just around the corner. The sunny tone soon darkens into shadow as the Laws become the victims of social humiliation, sickness, money problems, a slumping economy, the rising cost of living and even Hong Kong’s annual typhoons.

A throwback to the Cantonese tearjerkers of the 1950's, filtered through a kid's point-of-view, ECHOES has been passionately embraced by local Hong Kong audiences. Simon Yam and Sandra Ng are two of the city’s best-loved actors, and the cast features dozens of familiar faces, including six directors in cameo roles: Ann Hui (NIGHT & FOG), Vincent Kok (GORGEOUS), Alfred Cheung (HER FATAL WAYS), Joe Cheung (POM POM AND HOT HOT), Clifton Ko (I HAVE A DATE WITH SPRING) and Lawrence Ah Mon (GANGS). The movie manages to be sentimental without becoming syrupy thanks to Law’s sure-handed direction as he ends scenes on ambiguous, off-kilter notes and films familiar events from a skewed perspective. If you’re tired of the cheap irony that passes for hipness these days, or the thin cynicism that seems to infect modern life, the warm, beating heart of ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW will be like a restorative dive into the deep, life-giving ocean. Next to this movie, everything else looks as shallow and as soulless as advertising.