DIRECTOR: Ann Hui
PRODUCER: Xia Meng
PRODUCTION CO: Greenworld
SCREENPLAY: Dai An-ping
​PHOTOGRAPHY: Wong Chu-kei
EDITOR: Kin Kin
MUSIC: Law Wing-fai
WITH: George Lam (Akutagawa Shiomi), Season Ma (Cam Nuong), Andy Lau (To Minh), Mei-ying Jia (Le Van Quyen), Jun-yi Guo (Van Lang), Shu-jing Lin (Comrade Vu), Cora Miao (Nguyen's Mistress) 

FESTIVALS: New York

REVIEWS

“Criticized as sensational and opportunistic when it first premiered at Cannes, Ann Hui’s Boat People is now recognized as a masterpiece of the Hong Kong New Wave. Hui turns her humanist lens on the horrific conditions in postwar Vietnam, which led hundreds of thousands of people to step inside ill-equipped boats to seek safety in the late ’70s. A Japanese photojournalist on assignment to cover Vietnam’s progressive reconstruction discovers the truths of political repression and poverty, becoming entangled in the lives he documents — particularly a 14-year-old girl and her brother — and ultimately must decide to take action. At a time when Hollywood was building an industry on, and rewriting history through, filmic representations of ‘Vietnam,’ Hui’s film shed light on the humanity of those pushed to the margins of American cinema and history. Boat People stands as an important historical document of the Vietnamese diaspora.”

– Vinh Nguyen, TIFF Cinematheque
​
“Boat People is unquestionably one of the most important films in Hong Kong cinema, and yet it’s only with increasing distance that we begin to appreciate how infinitely evocative — as all great art is — this political thriller has managed to be… Irrespective of the political readings it attracted, Boat People remains first and foremost a masterful drama about the survival of people, who may be possessing even less control on their lives than they thought. Its tragic sense of fatalism is haunting.”

– Edmund Lee, Time Out Hong Kong

A scene from Boat People – Criterion Collection

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin
​Wednesday, 29 April, 7.30pm

​Whanganui
Monday, 25 May, 7.00pm

Nelson   
Wednesday, 15 July, 6.00pm

Timaru  
Monday, 18 August, 6.30pm

Tauranga  
Wednesday, 16 September, 6.00pm

Hamilton  
Monday, 28 September, 6.30pm​

​Auckland 
Monday, 12 October, 6.15pm​

​Palmerston North   
Wednesday, 21 October, 6.00pm

Wellington  
Monday, 09 November, 6.00pm

Wellington 
Monday, 09 November, 8.30pm
HONG KONG CLASSICS >>