Elisa’s Day, directed by Alan Fung. Starring Ronald Cheng and Hanna Chan. Hong Kong, 106 minutes, IIB. In cinemas. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Viewers weaned on cutting-edge effects and huge movie stars take endless pleasure in disparaging so-called “government-funded” films. More often they are brushed off as opaquely dull, money-losers before even a minute has been shot. 

There are shining examples of critical successes among public arts council-funded films — such as Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter (Telefilm Canada), Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster (BFI,  UK) and Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables (France’s Ministry of Culture agency CNC). And quick as audiences may have been to write off Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative (Commerce and Economic Development Bureau), its first four awarding sessions have produced Wong Chun’s Mad World, Chan Chi-fat’s Weeds on Fire, and Oliver Chan’s Still Human.

Adding to that strong track record are Alan Fung’s Elisa’s Day and actor-turned-director Chan Kin-long’s Hand Rolled Cigarette. A third film, Ricky Ko’s privately- produced Time, inadvertently supports the case for council-funded films. 

The first of these revolves around the cycle of under-education and lack of resources that have proved to be the bane of many Hong Kong women. The second focuses on crime as the last resort for those pushed to the margins, be it by circumstance, class or race. Ko’s film interrogates the connection between societal negligence and old age.

Hand Rolled Cigarette, written and directed by Chan Kin-long. Starring Gordon Lam and Bipin Karma. Hong Kong, 101 minutes, IIB. In cinemas. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In Elisa, a cop on the cusp of retirement, Fai (Ronald Cheng), picks up teenaged Daisy (Carol To) for drug trafficking. Daisy evokes the memory of Elisa (Hanna Chan), and her triad boyfriend Wai (Tony Wu) and the decade-old murder case they got entangled in. 

Cigarette pivots on the uneasy alliance and eventual friendship between former British military corpsman Kwan Chiu (Gordon Lam) and small-time Hong Kong pot dealer of Indian origin, Manny (Bipin Karma), after the two run afoul of the same triad gang. 

Time follows retired assassins Chau and Fung (Patrick Tse and Petrina Fung Bo-bo) as they fulfill elderly people’s wishes to end their lives, assisted by chauffeur Chung (Lam Suet), before crashing into the life of a pregnant teen, Tsz-ying (Chung Suet-ying).

The tragedies that ensue in all three films, which happen to be directorial debuts, aren’t particularly fresh or unexpected. However, all three demonstrate an ongoing willingness, possibly eagerness, by Hong Kong’s emerging generation of filmmakers to look within and explore their immediate worlds. And for the most part it works. 

Time, directed by Ricky Ko, written by Ho Ching-yi and Gordon Lam. Starring Patrick Tse and Petrina Fung Bo-bo. Hong Kong, 100 minutes, IIB. Opens July 15. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Where Fung’s structural ambitions can occasionally muddy Elisa’s narrative, his exploration of the legacy of female disenfranchisement, usually due to pregnancy, is a thoughtful one that could have been served just as well without the homicide subplot. 

Chan is blessed with an A-list of supporting players (Michael Ning, Tai Bo, Ben Yuen) who give Cigarette a starry sheen, but it is Manny’s marginalized status that lifts the film above standard crime thrillers. 

Ko has a harder time weaving together his two narrative threads, but his portrait of geriatric isolation (through Chung) is as heartbreaking as the bond the three fogeys share is heartening. It helps that the grim comedy (when it’s allowed to show) is pitch perfect. 

It’s almost as if the public films were no less successful in making their points. Who’d-a thought?