Among the Stars (Huo Xing Gui Ji)

(China/Hong Kong 2000, 35mm, 90 min)

Director: Chang Wai-Hung
Cast: Chan Shan-Shan, Wilson Yip, Ellen Yeow

Ling, unhappily married, wakes up next to a stranger, having just experienced her first one-night stand encounter. Shaken, she walks the streets of Hong Kong, meets up with her ex-lover and pretends a perfect relationship with her husband. The second part of Chang Wai-Hung's "Lunar Trilogy" is a silent meditation on the fragility and intensity of modern relationships. Most of the film is shot on the streets of Hong Kong and is infused with the flavor of the city at the end of the Millennium.

Director's Biography

Chang Wai-huang was born in Hong Kong in 1963 and has been writing on film since 1983. He started his career as a screenwriter in 1985 when he joined Jackie Chan's Golden Way Films Production. He wrote and directed his first feature, After the Crescent (97), with a grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Among the Stars (2000), also funded by the HKADC, is Part II of his Lunar Trilogy.

Critic's Corner

"The independent spirit continues. Chang Wai-hung, whose After the Crescent (22nd HKIFF) is the first feature financed by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, is back with the second chapter of his Lunar Trilogy. A quiet meditation on modern relationships, Among the Stars follows a few characters as they go through a period in which their emotions are at the weakest moments. Made again with HKADC funds, it's a story that, once again, happens mostly on the streets, capturing city flavours and situating it among the lives of ordinary Hong Kong people."
- The 24th Hong Kong International Film Festival Booklet

"Among the Stars is the second film of a trilogy series which explores such topics as the search for youth, wandering the city, the promise of life and unspoken gratitude. It took three individual films to capture my ideas on these particular themes and present them in a convincing way to the audience without repeating myself. In this second film of the series, I was fortunate enough to have encountered the images of the stars and the moon which gave me the room to fly..."
- Wai-Hung Chang