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European cinema
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Different sides of Hong Kong shown in Tran Anh Hung’s critical flop I Come with the Rain

Radiohead songs, visual poetry and Shawn Yue and Josh Hartnett in Vietnamese-French director’s art-house thriller shot mostly in Hong Kong

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Josh Hartnett in a still from Tran Anh Hung’s art-house film I Come with the Rain, which was shot mostly in Hong Kong.
Matt Glasby

This is the latest instalment in a feature series reflecting on instances of East meets West in world cinema, including China-US co-productions.

Sometimes an outsider’s perspective can tell you more about a place than you might expect. This is especially true for Hong Kong – a city of endless comings and goings – and the filmmakers who chose it as a location.

Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung made waves with his 1993 debut The Scent of Green Papaya, which won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for best foreign language film at the Oscars. His follow-up, 1995’s Cyclo, co-starred Hong Kong’s own Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
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Having established himself on the world stage, Tran attracted some big names for his fourth film, the 2009 art-house thriller I Come with the Rain, which stars Josh Hartnett (Oppenheimer) alongside Japanese pop icon Takuya Kimura, South Korean star Lee Byung-hun and Hong Kong’s Shawn Yue Man-lok.
Shot mostly in Hong Kong, the film joins outsider efforts such as Code 46 and Push – both by UK directors – in capturing something ineffable about the city.
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