How filming Four Trails, about 298km Hong Kong ultra run, was almost as hard as the race
Director talks about the stress of making the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge documentary and telling its runners’ stories
It is not exactly a holiday blockbuster but Four Trails, a documentary about a Hong Kong ultra-running challenge held over the three-day Lunar New Year holiday in 2021, has been quietly selling out a number of its limited showings since its December 6 release.
The team wanted to “film as much as we could”, the film’s director, Robin Lee, says. It made editing very time-consuming and with the high-pressure event taking a few unexpected turns, the crew wanted to have accompanying footage to tell the most complete story.
“The filming process was extremely intense and started well before the actual event,” Lee says. “We interviewed as many participants as possible, with some interviews lasting up to three hours. We also had opportunities to film their training sessions, family interactions, at work and more.”
Four Trails follows half of the 18 competitors, who were required to run all four of Hong Kong’s major trails – MacLehose, Hong Kong, Wilson and Lantau – totalling around 298 kilometres (185 miles) in under 72 hours.
