Hong Kong director’s ‘Mad World’ among 92 Oscar hopefuls

Poster for Wong Chun’s Mad World
Poster for Wong Chun’s Mad World

Hong Kong director Wong Chun’s debut feature, Mad World, will compete against films from a record 92 countries for a chance at taking home the 2018 Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences yesterday released the final list of submissions for the category, which has long eluded Hong Kong filmmakers, who have not once taken home the prestigious prize despite decades of box-office success and birthing a raft of high-profile filmmakers.

If nominated, the low-budget family drama, which follows the story of a man battling bipolar disorder (played by Shawn Yue), would be just the third Hong Kong film to make the final group of five voted on by the Academy’s membership.

Made on a shoestring budget of just HK$2 million (US$256,000), the film was chosen from four titles shortlisted by the Federation of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong.

It has won a slew of awards since its world premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where it was an unexpected hit.




The film also surpassed expectations at the Hong Kong box-office, grossing more than HK$16.8 million (US$2.1 million) in the two months following its March 30 opening.

In a review, the Hollywood Reporter praised Mad World as a “modest and empathetic character study” and called Yue’s performance “strong and layered,” though it took issue with the film’s many flashbacks.

“While slightly unwieldy in its structure, Mad World is an audaciously unshowy indie drama that contemplates its character’s (and Hong Kong’s) problems without resorting to the excessive histrionics or simple sloganeering prevalent in supposedly socially engaged films from the city,” the trade paper wrote.

Interestingly, it wasn’t until 2013 that one of the city’s most renowned filmmakers, Wong Kar-Wai, finally made Oscar’s January shortlist, when his martial arts drama The Grandmaster secured a nomination.

His 2000 hit In The Mood For Love, considered one of the best films of the decade, didn’t even make the list of five nominees.

Hong Kong’s only other two Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film came in the early ’90s, with Raise the Red Lantern, 1991, and Farewell My Concubine, 1993.

Meanwhile, while Hong Kong has put up a low-budget indie drama as its contender, action blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2, a romp about special forces soldiers on a mission in Africa, will carry the flag for China, where a wave of big-budget war films are breaking box office records.

Another notable regional entry came from Cambodia, which submitted Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father,  the actress-director’s adaptation of the book of the same name based on the true story of a young girl’s escape from the country’s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

Three of Coconuts sister cities — Singapore, Bangkok, and Manila — are represented among the Oscar hopefuls.

Singapore offered up Pop Aye, a Thai-language feature film debut by director Kirsten Tanflick about a man and his long lost elephant, while Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong’s second feature By the Time It Gets Dark and Filipino director Mikhail Red’s Birdshot are also in the running.

Nominations for the upcoming Oscars will be announced early next year ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony in March.

A full list of submissions in the foreign-language category can be found on The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ website.



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