HK Observer | Don’t shoot the messenger

Robert Carroll

“Did you watch [the film] ‘Ten Years?’” “No… If I ever want low budget Dystopian Visions I watch Government announcements”
That was how SCMP cartoonist Harry’s characters laughed off the brouhaha about the film “Ten Years”;  2016 Hong Kong Best Film Awards winner and blockbuster here,  and…uh… “a thought virus” in China.
Having worked many years in television here and as a viewer squirmed at the really bad local official announcements, I think I can say authoritatively Harry’s got both dysfunction of how the government talks down to us via these inanities while taking a dig at the paternalistic attitude of our rulers. However the film raises more crucial issues.
Firstly the movie which is set in a dystopian Hong Kong in 2025 sent a clear and reasonable message: We are scared of the way you are squeezing us more and more. But it was disregarded by China. Secondly there seems to have been interference in freedom of expression. Thirdly such repeated over-
reactions from the mainland just serves to re-
remind people why they couldn’t stand living in fear under Chinese communist rule and fled to Hong Kong.
The reaction from China proved the film theme’s poignancy but there was more. When  “Ten Years” cinema’s screenings were abruptly stopped while it was in the middle of a runaway success, for spurious reasons, many rightly smelt a rat. It’s one thing to criticize a film, ban mainland viewing of this year’s Hong Kong Film Awards but another to censor what can and cannot be seen at Hong Kong cinemas. Freedom of expression is supposedly guaranteed under the Basic Law.
The logic seems like this. You had made a film which misrepresents Hong Kong people’s views and sheds a bad light on the relationship between the SAR and Beijing therefore regardless of freedom of expression it should not be shown.
This disregards salient facts. The film – although it was not of the highest artistic merit in terms of cinema art in the traditional senses – was a huge commercial success in the short time it was screened, touching a raw nerve among the people and certainly among industry professionals too. The proof of that was the awarding of Best Film; more, the crowd at the ceremony were united in enthusiastic applause when the winner was announced. The local naysaying counter-reactions criticizing the award to “Ten Years” came mostly from film moguls with big fingers in the mainland film pie. The voters for the award and audience knew too that this sort of film for local audiences would perhaps not be easily made again. In which case it was something of a last hurrah for what has become a dying industry; films tailored to local preoccupations, as opposed to those aimed at the mainland market.
Of course there’s no proof that the film did not continue to be shown by the direct intervention of mainland officials, or whether it was self-censorship but that’s immaterial. The same motivation would be at work in both scenarios – do not jeopardize your film industry collaborations with us.
Yes the shoe-string budget film could have been done much better; no one denies that. Moreover it’s been criticized for the highly exaggerated possible future it purports to show in 2025; for example with Red Guard kids policing here according to mainland politically correct values. But that’s not too far from the historical reality of many here before they left China and reflective of the fears of growing erosion of freedoms here and of ever-increasing mainland influence.
It’s long been said that just because you don’t like the message it’s no use shooting the messenger.