Elegies () is a 2023 Hong Kong documentary film directed by Ann Hui. Produced by PicaPica Media and distributed by , the film features interviews with various Hong Kong poets, most notably and , along with footage of the late Xi Xi and Leung Ping-kwan. The film dissects the daily lives of Hong Kong poets and examines their views on poetry, exploring the decline of Hong Kong's poetry culture.
Intending to create a documentary about classical Chinese poetry during her early filmmaking career in the 1970s, Ann Hui cited various challenges that hindered her progress. She revisited the project during the COVID-19 pandemic, and began writing the outline and conducting research starting in 2020. Principal photography took place from March to September 2021 in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Taipei, where she interviewed migrated poets Huang and Liu. Post-production lasted several additional months, with input from William Chang, who also handled the colour grading.
The film had its world premiere on 30 March 2023 as the opening film of the 47th Hong Kong International Film Festival, followed by a theatrical release in Hong Kong on 23 November. It received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature in the 60th Golden Horse Awards and garnered positive reviews from critics, who praised its subject matter, tone, and narrative approach.
Synopsis Elegies is divided into three parts: The first part includes interviews with poets Wai Yuen, Yam Gong, Deng Ah-lam, and York Ma, along with archival footage of the late Xi Xi and Leung Ping-kwan; the second part includes an interview with poet and translator , who migrated to Shenzhen to write poetry in seclusion; while the third part includes an interview with poet and university lecturer , who moved to Taiwan for a teaching position and started a family.Multiple sources:
In the first part, Wai Yuen defined the essence of poetry, stating that any subject, even mundane ones, can inspire poetic expression, while highlighting the unique and tangible qualities of local Hong Kong poetry amid the dominance of modernism in Taiwan and mainland China. Yam Gong suggested that the unpredictability of poetry reflects the poet's deeper thoughts about the current social state of Hong Kong. Xi Xi noted that, although she was not born in Hong Kong, she identifies local Hong Kong poetry with themes of everyday life and nostalgia, citing recurring imageries such as "Kai Tak Airport" and "lemon tea" as examples that evoke these characteristics. Leung Ping-kwan discussed the connections between contemporary Western poetries and the literary scenes in Taiwan and mainland China, including interactions with the Misty Poets. Deng Ah-lam examined the difference between concrete and abstract words in Cantonese, emphasising the importance of using native language in poetry, which reflects his intuitive approach as a poet. York Ma, known for writing topographical poetry, viewed poems primarily as a means to express his ideals, often using landscape imagery to convey deeper themes such as political views. Ann Hui also reminisced about the late Xi Xi and Leung Ping-kwan.
In the second part, the film showcased poet Huang Canran's life in Dongbei Village, Shenzhen, where he migrated to avoid the high cost of living in Hong Kong, describing himself as an "economic exile". He discussed the essence of being a poet with Ann Hui, emphasising the importance of poetry over commercial success and valuing the creative process itself, which inspired him to adopt a modest lifestyle. Despite facing depression in his early years, he found freedom in his writing, prioritising artistic integrity over publication. His profound perspective saw poetry as an essential pursuit that transcended monetary worth, which he articulated through his works, including the poem "In the Teahouse".
In the third part, Hui visited Liu Wai-tong in Taiwan, who migrated in 2018. In contrast to Huang, Liu led a multifaceted life, balancing roles in literature, music, social activism, and university teaching, while embodying a more conventional lifestyle with a stable family. The film featured some of his lectures, where he shared his views on the works of Paul Celan and Bertolt Brecht, and presented records of his past involvement in social movements, such as the Preservation campaign for Queen's Pier. The film traced his meetings with other Hong Kong poets who moved to Taiwan, including and Huang Run-yu. Huang Run-yu discussed the functions of poetry, citing her experiences of writing letters to friends imprisoned for the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests as an example. The film concluded with Ann Hui's monologue about her motivation for creating the documentary, and expressed how poetry provided solace and resonance through words.
Production Background
Filmmaker Ann Hui was introduced to poetry as a child, where her grandfather taught her the works of Li Bai. She continued to enjoy reading and developed a fondness for poetry during her secondary school years, particularly the 18th and 19th centuries poets like John Keats, and members of the Crescent Moon Society like Xu Zhimo and Bing Xin. She described poetry as "her protective talisman" that accompanied her through her youth. Hui then studied literature at the University of Hong Kong, majoring in poetry. She graduated with first class honours for her bachelor's degree and earned a master's degree in comparative literature. Her master's thesis originally focused on American poet Ezra Pound and his translations of Chinese poems, but during her studies, she developed an interest in film, prompting her to switch her research topic to French filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet. She continued her film studies in the United Kingdom and began her filmmaking career at TVB in 1975.
Around 1976, after completing the anthology series Below the Lion Rock, Hui intended to pursue two passion projects: one was an adaptation of Eileen Chang's novella Love in a Fallen City (1943), and the other a documentary about classical Chinese poetry. She decided to prioritise the novel adaptation and completed the film Love in a Fallen City (1984). However, despite her enthusiasm, she did not pursue her poetry documentary for several decades due to challenges in presenting it on screen, a lack of audience interest that made securing funding difficult, and a scarcity of time and interested fellow filmmakers to collaborate on the project. Hui was also interested in making documentaries throughout her filmmaking career but had limited opportunities, aside from creating a 45-minute piece titled Three Women (1992) for RTHK and co-producing a Handover-themed documentary As Time Goes By (1997) with Peggy Chiao. She cited the presence of many talented individuals in documentary filmmaking and her unfamiliarity with the equipment needed for filming and editing as reasons for her minimal involvement.
Conception During the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous filming projects were postponed or scrapped, prompting Ann Hui to explore alternative approaches to filmmaking, which she found to be more flexible in the realm of documentary. She came across the poem "Woman in Love" by , which she found rich in imagery and dramatic quality, and inspired her to revisit her previous poetry project idea. She selected Huang Canran and as the main features of the film due to her appreciation for their poetry. Hui was acquainted with Liu as a photographer prior to the shoot, having first met him in June 2007 when Liu was interviewing a group of cultural figures from Hong Kong. Although Hui did not know Huang personally before the shoot, she deemed him suitable for the film because his poetry often presents insights into time and dimension, which she found it rich in both poetic and cinematic qualities. The non-local backgrounds of Huang and Liu were not considered in Hui's decisions, which she described as a mere coincidence that she viewed as representative of the Hong Kong diaspora, reflecting that not every Hongkonger who left the place shares the same reasons and characteristics. Initially, she intended to interview just the two of them, but realised that focusing solely on them would lack context and relational depth, as their recognition alone was insufficient, which prompted her to interview several older and established poets, including Wai Yuen, Yam Gong, Deng Ah-lam, and York Ma. She was introduced to Wai Yuen and Yam Gong through acquaintances who praised their poetry, and she found a striking contrast between the modernity expressed in their work and their ages, which range from 70 to 80.
In mid-2020, Hui wrote an outline to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to apply for funding but was unsuccessful. She then sought funding from various art foundations and ultimately approached Ken Hui, the owner of PicaPica Media, to co-create the project. Hui described this outcome as "more pleasing", expressing concerns about censorship if they received funding from the Art Development Council, but sourcing funds from private foundations has no requirements on the content. Neither Ann nor Ken Hui received any compensation due to the film's limited budget.
Hui began advancing the project in late 2020, starting her research and reading works by different poets. She also required the entire crew to familiarise themselves with the poems of Huang and Liu. For each interviewee, she would select 20 of their poems, choose 10 to feature, and then narrow it down to six or eight for the final cut, discussing which ones to cut with the poets during the interviews. Hui used Elegies as the working title for the project, inspired by a suite of poems of the same name written by Huang Canran in the 1990s, which she found touching while reading during the film's pre-production. It ultimately became the English name of the film. However, the literal translation of "elegies" in Chinese, "哀歌", means "the song of sorrow", which Hui found inauspicious, so she chose to name it "詩" (poetry) in Chinese instead.
Filming Principal photography began in March 2021, with a crew of just five people. Hui found that larger filming crews often have overly specialised roles and shift responsibilities onto one another, resulting in inefficiency, prompting her to choose a small crew for Elegies to allow for greater flexibility. Hui briefed Huang and Liu about their filming plan and interview direction prior to the shoot, to respect their privacy and avoid discussing topics that the interviewees prefer not to address. She would draft a list of questions before interviews but allowed the discussions to flow freely once filming began. For instance, the parts where Liu read his own poems were not scripted and were improvised by him.