Isabella

Since his debut in 2001 with You Shoot, I Shoot Pang has become one of Hong Kong’s most acclaimed young directors. Isabella, which was chosen to open last year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival, is set against the reversion of Macau to China in 1999. A young woman climbs out of the bed of a callous and corrupt cop and announces that she is his daughter. This startling premise is used to get at the feeling of a cultural moment in which a sense of belonging is suddenly thrown into a state of flux. Slowly the pair must fumble their way toward a relationship based on love, friendship and trust—feelings that have played little part in their lives thus far. Pang has always been interested in men who are cheats but who form deeper bonds despite themselves. In the relationship between Chapman To’s Shing and Isabella Leong’s Yan, he has found the materials for his richest and most mature work yet.

Isabella Leong is a Guest of the Festival

The beauty of filmmaking is its ability to present subtle changes of the world, studying each incident from different angles and leading the way into a maze, a dead end or what is sometimes nothing but a game.

Pang Ho-cheung