Kiwi Chow’s Beyond the Dream examines love in the time of mental illness. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Make no mistake: there is nothing “good” about COVID-19. We know the coming months and years will be a challenge, nonetheless silver linings are lurking. Do you know anyone who’s had so much as a head cold since diligent hygiene and precautionary behaviors became standard? When was the last time the sky was so blue for so many weeks? Or work so flexible? 

The pandemic’s been good for the local film scene. At this time last year, Hong Kong’s cinemas were teeming with Hollywood tent poles (Spider-Man: Far From Home, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbes & Shaw, anything with Disney above the title) that demanded little of viewers and said little about the world, yet took the lion’s share of space. There’s plenty of room for splashy, escapist entertainment, but not every screen needs space lasers of death or gooey creatures or anthropomorphized animals gracing them for four months. Their absence this summer, and the modest success of indie films, suggests audiences are looking for something different.

French director Ladj Ly’s unfettered portrait of race and brutality in Paris, Les Misérables. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Data is a tricky beast that can be manipulated to support any argument, but regardless of that quirk the summer box office data seems to support the notion that Hong Kong people will indeed try something outside the mainstream — and they’ll watch themselves. With cinemas going in and out of lockdown since March and embattled American studios delaying their big ticket items (Mulan, Tenet, No Time to Die, Wonder Woman), the field is wide open for alternatives.

Among the first films to enter this brave new world defined by cancellations was Ladj Ly’s incendiary French social drama Les Misérables, and it pulled in a surprising HK$3.4 million (US$439,000) on limited screens; it’s an art-house film and it stayed in art-house venues. But the combination of subject matter and availability created strong word of mouth that gave the film extra life. That could have been seen as a fluke, but when cinemas reopened after four weeks of shutdown in April, the phenomenon repeated. 

Hong Kong-South Korea-Japan coproduction, The Murders of Oiso, is an unconventional thriller. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Cynics will claim that minor hits like Ray Yeung’s gay romance Suk Suk (which earned over HK$3 million) tapped a built-in audience for its success, but that would be dismissing how the film transcended space, age and sexuality. Buzz drew new people to it, and they saw it because they could. That was followed by Norris Wong’s resonant My Prince Edward (closing in on HK$5 million) and Kiwi Chow’s mental health romance Beyond the Dream (HK$8 million and counting). Just before cinemas closed again, Hong Kong’s first independent international co-production, the unconventional The Murders of Oiso, found a home on local screens — something that would have been unheard of under normal circumstances.

Norris Wong’s My Prince Edward has resonated with people grappling with relationships and migration. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Are these hits along the lines of Oliver Chan’s Still Human, which earned HK$20 million in 2019? No, but that film’s ticket sales weren’t subject to social distancing. Hong Kong is reinventing its cinema as an independent creature, and audiences are beginning to re-embrace it. We all want COVID-19 conquered, and many of us want to see the next James Bond film, but surely there’s room for alternative movie voices on a post-pandemic landscape. Audiences would seem to welcome the change.