Echoes of the Rainbow

Awarded the Crystal Bear for Best Film by the Generation Kplus Children’s Jury of the Generations competition at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as the winner of four awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards, writer-director Alex Law’s Echoes of the Rainbow was one of Hong Kong’s biggest sleeper hits of 2010. Produced by director Mabel Cheung (An Autumn’s Tale), Echoes of the Rainbow is Law’s semi-autobiographical look at his childhood during 1960s Hong Kong. With a detailed eye for life of the period and an inspiring story about a resilient family in tough times, the heartwarming nostalgia drama attracted Hong Kong audiences to the cinemas in droves. After an extended run in Hong Kong cinemas, the film grossed an impressive HK$23 million at the box office, even outgrossing major blockbusters Bodyguards and Assassins and 14 Blades. The film proved to be so popular with local audiences that its shooting location in Hong Kong was spared government redevelopment after calls by the filmmakers to save it.

Told through the eyes of sticky-fingered eight-year-old boy Big Ears (Buzz Chung), Echoes of the Rainbow takes place in a close-knit grassroots community in 1960s Hong Kong. Big Ears’ mother and father (Sandra Ng and Simon Yam, in an award-winning performance) run the neighborhood shoe store, and his older brother Desmond (pop singer and HKFA Best New Artist winner Aarif Lee) is every family’s dream son – an outstanding athlete with grades worthy of Hong Kong’s best school. Their lives aren’t always happy, but the family sticks together through all the rough times, no matter how bad it gets. –yesasia.com