Hong Kong Four Trails film mixes beauty of city’s landscape with brutal nature of challenge competitors face
- Robin Lee’s documentary is a triumph, and a fabulous Hong Kong story that deserves to be told around the world
- You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll watch runners hurl as you follow their journey across 298km of trails and travails

If the story of the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge (HK4TUC) was brought to our screens by actors, we would be guaranteed a few shards of light to counter the brutal, dark reality of the whole thing.
The ubiquitous slow-mo shots, and main characters overcoming the odds for fairytale finishes.
The only visible beauty in director Robin Lee’s documentary, Four Trails, which captures the 2021 event in unsparing detail, is provided by the cinematography that does a huge favour for Hong Kong’s magnificent landscape.
But it is not only the city’s tourist board that should be thanking Lee, and producer brother Ben, for a film that does not shy away from the gruesome ordeal competitors experience as they traverse Hong Kong’s four major trails, MacLehose, Wilson, Hong Kong and Lantau.
This is a brilliant study of the human ability to withstand extreme mental and physical hardship.
The viewer becomes familiar with half of the 18 competitors, and it is a tribute to the skill of the storytelling that you quickly care deeply what happens to each of them.