Changing culture in Hong Kong around 1997 handover captured in Fruit Chan’s films The Longest Summer and Little Cheung

Fruit Chan Gor’s Made in Hong Kong, The Longest Summer and Little Cheung formed a trilogy about daily life in the city around the time of the handover in 1997

Collectively, they present a complete picture of working-class life, from childhood to old age, and show changes in Hong Kong culture and identity beginning

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A still from Little Cheung. Fruit Chan Gor’s Made in Hong Kong, The Longest Summer and Little Cheung present a complete picture of Hong Kong working-class life at the time of the territory’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Published: 4:15am, 26 May 2024

Fruit Chan Gor’s Made in Hong Kong, a low-budget, realistic depiction of life in Hong Kong’s triad-infested public housing estates, quickly established the director as an auteur in 1997.

Although intended as a stand-alone film, Chan followed it with two films, The Longest Summer (1998) and Little Cheung (1999), which collectively form a trilogy about daily life in Hong Kong around the time of the territory’s return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, or handover.

The Longest Summer takes in events that occurred before, during and just after that event. Although the celebrations figure prominently in the film – the Chinese title is There Were Many Fireworks Last Year – it is not political in the sense that it takes either a pro-democracy or pro-Communist Party stance.

Instead, Chan depicted how the return to China was changing Hong Kong’s culture and identity. He showed this by filming the small daily occurrences he saw around him. “None of it relates to my political stance. I just try to project what is happening every day on to the big screen,” he told the Post in 1999.

The director structures his film cleverly so that it takes a middle way, by making his protagonists Chinese former members of the British Army in Hong Kong. When their unit is disbanded in March 1997, this group of ex-soldiers suddenly find themselves unemployed.