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Edmund Lee

4/5 stars
Fly Me to the Moon is a touching coming-of-age drama about a young immigrant from mainland China who must balance her quest for happiness with the reality of living with a drug-addicted father at home – as well as being an outsider in Hong Kong.
Screenwriter, director and actress Sasha Chuk Tsz-yin has, with this adaptation of a short novel partly based on her own childhood, announced herself as an exciting new voice of Hong Kong cinema – but her serene feature debut may not readily endear her to the city’s mainstream crowd.
The film is a wistful tale of family trauma that gradually reveals a range of emotions in three acts. It opens in 1997 when Hunan native Yuen (Chloe Hui Ho-yee) moves to Hong Kong with her mother to reunite with her father, Kok-man (Wu Kang-ren), who has smuggled himself into the city years earlier.


While the kid is happy to be joined by her younger sister Kuet shortly afterwards, Yuen’s everyday life is coloured by her experiences with poverty and discrimination against migrants from mainland China. And then there is the drug addiction of her father, who is in and out of prison.
When the story picks up again in 2007, Yuen (Yoyo Tse Wing-yan) is trying to find solace in a delinquent boyfriend, while Kuet (Natalie Hsu En-yi) is doing her very best to blend in with her classmates – but neither manages to completely escape from the influence of their father.

The second half of Chuk’s film jumps forward to 2017 and sees the filmmaker play the adult Yuen, now a tour guide who indulges in casual romantic relationships. Her fractured family’s chances for a reconciliation dim with Kuet (Angela Yuen Lai-lam) in legal trouble and Kok-man’s health declining.
Despite using a relatively green cast – she herself is acting in her first full-length film – Chuk captivates her audience with a fragmented yet extremely grounded narrative. The sparse use of music before the third act also reflects the confidence that she has in her material.
Both Tse and Chuk are effectively restrained as the teenage and adult versions of Yuen; it is Taiwanese heartthrob Wu – last seen in a Hong Kong film in 2019’s The Lady Improper – who anchors Fly Me to the Moon with a visceral performance that makes his character alternately despicable and sympathetic.

The greatest compliment I can give Chuk’s film is that it does not feel like an issues movie, even if it touches upon a litany of them – from Hong Kong-China tensions to the prevalence of toxic masculinity.
Her protagonist, hurt but no less valiant, simply gets on with life in the only way she knows.
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Fly Me to the Moon movie review: Hong Kong writer Sasha Chuk makes directing debut with wistful coming-of-age drama

Sasha Chuk in a still from Fly Me to the Moon.

Sasha Chuk in a still from Fly Me to the Moon (category IIB, Cantonese and Mandarin), which she also directs. Wu Kang-ren and Yoyo Tse co-star.


Yoyo Tse as an adolescent Yuen in a still from Fly Me to the Moon.

Angela Yuen (left) as Kuet and Wu Kang-ren as her father in a still from Fly Me to the Moon.

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Stephy Tang and Jasper Liu in a still from As It Burns.

Jasper Liu and Stephy Tang in a still from As It Burns (category IIB; Cantonesse, Mandarin), directed by Lee Po-cheung.

Jasper Liu and Stephy Tang in a still from As It Burns.

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Anson Lo in a still from We 12.

Keung To (left) and Alton Wong in a still from We 12 (category IIA; Cantonese), which stars their 10 fellow members of boy band Mirror. Berry Ho directs 

(From left) Frankie Chan, Jeremy Lee and Jer Lau in a still from We 12.

Anson Lo (left) and Lokman Yeung in a still from We 12.

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The Ho Chung village chief (centre) in a still from Winter Chants.

A still from Winter Chants.

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Eric Tsang (right) in a still from We Are Family (category IIA; Cantonese), directed by Benny Lau and co-starring Carlos Chan and Catherine Chau.





(From left) Carlos Chan, Alexandra Della Pietra and Catherine Chau in a still from We Are Family.

A still from We Are Family.

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Chung Suet-ying (left) and Sabrina Ng in a still from The Lyricist Wannabe.

Chung Suet-ying (right) as Law Wing-sze and Amy Tang in a still from The Lyricist Wannabe (category IIB, Cantonese), directed by Norris Wong. Eric Kot and Sabrina Ng co-star.

Chung Suet-ying (right) as Law Wing-sze and Sabrina Ng as her best friend in a still from The Lyricist Wannabe.

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Screenwriter, director and actress Sasha Chuk’s film Fly Me to the Moon follows a young immigrant from mainland China as she struggles to live life in Hong Kong
A stand-out performance by Taiwanese heartthrob Wu Kang-ren, his character alternately despicable and sympathetic, anchors the touching coming-of-age drama


Writer and director Sasha Chuk stars in her debut film Fly Me to the Moon, which follows a young immigrant from mainland China as she struggles to live life in Hong Kong.


Chinese language cinema

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Asian cinema: Chinese films

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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


Review

Review | Fly Me to the Moon movie review: Hong Kong writer Sasha Chuk makes directing debut with wistful coming-of-age drama