Hong Kong cinemagoers have a palpable love of nostalgia that’s helping — in part at least — to drive the box-office success of any number of local movies.

Think back to the hype over director Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In in 2024, and how it reimagined Kowloon Walled City, that infamous den of iniquity, and how it harked back — in terms of style and the archetypal characters in it — to Hong Kong cinema’s glory days of the 1980s and 1990s.

READ MORE: A cinematic journey in Yau Ma Tei Police Station

Look now to the people thronging to see the Louis Koo-starred Back to the Past — a record-setter for the most money ever taken over opening week by a Chinese-language film, with more than HK$45 million collected from Hong Kong and Macao. It’s a film that, like Cheang’s, also feeds into a fascination with the days gone by — this time picking up on a wildly popular television series from 2001, reuniting the same cast members who achieved stardom on account of the series.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has been quick to latch on to the trend. I visited the Old Yau Ma Tei Police Station recently to check out the results of one such endeavor. The building is a Grade 2 historic complex built in the Edwardian style. It served the community from 1922 to 2016.

But it is the building’s co-starring role in any number of Hong Kong crime movies that brought me here, and to the Yau Ma Tei Police Station: A Cinematic Journey exhibition, taking up much of its first floor.

Stepping through the doors that are still signposted “Police”, brought me into an imaginary criminal investigation department film set that includes a surveillance room, an armory, and an identification parade room that are all very selfie-friendly. An old holding cell has been turned into an artificial intelligence-driven photo booth that allows users the thrill of seeing their own faces replacing that of their favorite film stars in posters of iconic Hong Kong crime movies — John Woo’s The Killer, and the Andrew Lau-Alan Mak smash hit Infernal Affairs, for example.

The exhibition is a celebration of the crime genre that is distinctly Hong Kong, and takes its inspiration from those superhit films, as well as Jackie Chan’s Police Story, among others.

“Reenacting these elements and having them come to life was possible only after putting in meticulous research work,” says Debbie Lam, the exhibition’s project supervisor. “Through the exhibition, we hope to showcase the unique and exceptional creativity, and craftsmanship, that went into the making of films belonging to the Hong Kong crime genre and the filmmakers of different generations involved.”

Presented by the city’s Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, the exhibition was made with contributions from film-industry talents, including Wong Hoi, winner of Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Film Editing for his work on the thriller Cold War (2013); and art director Ida Mak (Papa, 2024).

For visitors, it’s a chance to feel like a film star on set — for a moment or two — as well as get a taste of the intricate details filmmakers attend to in an effort to ensure that make-believe feels like the real thing.

Since its opening on Jan 2, the show has been a sensation — tickets for the 25-minute viewing sessions are getting snapped up fast.

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“The exhibition has highlighted signature elements of the crime film genre, with the background set at a time when Hong Kong police and crime films had gained a strong foothold in local cinema as well as recognition outside Hong Kong,” says Lam. “I hope that through this curation we can share this special cinematic journey with our visitors, especially new generations of filmgoers.”

If you go

Yau Ma Tei Police Station: A Cinematic Journey

Dates: Tickets for February are available. For more updates, please visit: https://fpf.ccidahk.gov.hk/en/ymtps/ymtps.html

Venue: Old Yau Ma Tei Police Station, 627 Canton Road, Kowloon