Keep Rolling, directed by Man Lim-chung. Featuring Ann Hui. 112 minutes, IIB. Opens Dec 3. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Ann Hui is one of Hong Kong’s most important filmmakers. Regardless of whether or not one enjoys her films — typically methodically paced and deliberately constructed dramas with deep social undercurrents and not always cheerfully distracting — there’s no doubt she has earned her place in Hong Kong’s cinema pantheon after a 40-year career, starting with The Secret in 1979 and her searing breakout, Boat People, in 1982. 

With her newest film, Love After Love, on the horizon and freshly bestowed with a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement by the Venice International Film Festival, the 73-year-old Hui finally gets the documentary treatment from local production designer, art director and now director Man Lim-chung (Wong Hing-fan’s i’m livin’ it, Pang Ho-cheung’s Dream Home) in Keep Rolling. 

The film spans Hui’s life, from birth in northeast China to the red carpet in Venice this past September, capturing the low-key, workaday, unfussy spirit defining Hui’s life and art along the way. This isn’t some superstar auteur with a superstar ego sitting at a table in a sprawling millionaire’s mansion, rather a Hong Kong citizen living in a recognizable flat with her mum and a cat.

Man has worked with Hui on several of her films — July Rhapsody (2002), A Simple Life (2011), The Golden Era (2014) and Our Time Will Come (2017) — and claims her down-to-earth approach was the foundation for the documentary, besides the fact that Hui was among the critical New Wave of the 1980s that reenergized the film industry in Hong Kong but has remained relatively unnoticed. 

The resulting portrait is a clear-eyed one, free from idol worship, yet teasing out the links between her personal life and the over 30 films she has made so far. It turns out Hui’s films are as influenced by her background as Martin Scorsese’s are by his Catholic upbringing.

Hui is remarkably candid, allowing Man to capture the kind of moments many filmmakers would probably prefer to keep under wraps: vocal, on-set frustrations, comments about her struggles with funding and moments of creative uncertainty among them. Contrary to making Hui look like a temperamental artist, however, the documentary humanizes her in a way that makes us want to explore her work, or re-explore it, depending on how steeped one is in her oeuvre.

In addition to the link between the personal and the public, Hui’s lifelong embrace of literature, her affinity with Hong Kong’s singular East-meets-West character and the recurring themes of identity come into relief. They go some of the way to illuminating the roots of Hui’s poetic side, which probably peaked in The Golden Era, based on the lives of the writer couple Xiao Hong and Xiao Jun. Her body of work is held together by a literary sensibility.

Hui’s dedication to her craft is clear, her authenticity is never in question, and her connection to Hong Kong is unshakeable. Some of Keep Rolling’s best moments are when Hui wanders around in the city’s streets like a tourist, or rides the MTR, finding deep veins of narrative observation in the seemingly mundane.