Literary Hong Kong 文學香港 will welcome an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter to UBC’s Point Grey campus. Dr. King Fai (Ben) Wong will speak after the free screening of his documentary, Liu Yichang: 1918 on Saturday (September 21). It revolves around a celebrated Hong Kong writer, columnist, and editor who died in 2008.
Liu Yichang: 2018 will be shown with English subtitles at 3 p.m. in AERL 120, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory (2202 Main Mall). Wong will respond to audience members’ questions starting at 4:45 p.m.
The Shanghai-born Liu wrote The Drunkard (1963), which was initially published as a serial in a Hong Kong newspaper. It’s been described as “one of the first full-length stream-of-consciousness novels written in Chinese”. More than four decades after publication, The Drunkard was adapted into an award-winning film.
In addition, Liu wrote many other books, including Intersection (1962), Island and Peninsula (1975), and Heaven and Hell (1951). A workhorse who wrote more than 10,000 Chinese characters per day, Liu also edited 13 newspapers, founded Hong Kong Literature monthly, and mentored countless writers. He died in 2008 at the age of 89.
Meanwhile, Wong also directed the documentary Boundary, which was about another writer, Leung Ping-kwan (Ye Si). In addition, Wong served as chief editor for the Literature and Cinema series (Hong Kong University Press). In 2018, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council awarded him its Best Artist (Arts Criticism) award.
Watch the trailer for Liu Yicheng: 1918.
Poetry and literary adaptations
Moreover, Wong shared Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Critics Society screenwriting awards in 2012 with Kin-Yee Au for Life Without Principle. The Johnny To–directed tale of financial crime starred Ching Wan Lau, Richie Jen, and Denise Ho. Ho, a Hong Kong-born Canadian, plays a mutual-fund salesperson who’s worried about being fired when she can’t close a sale with a criminal. Meanwhile, Lau plays an assistant to a triad leader and Jen is a police inspector.
Wong’s documentary and speaking engagement is one of three free Literary Hong Kong 文學香港 events this month.
The curator of the Voice of Verse poetry preservation project, Dr. Keith Liu, will speak at 4 p.m. on Thursday (September 19) in the Peña Room (301) in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. His team recorded readings by Hong Kong poets from different generations in a professional studio. Then, they uploaded the recordings and poetry text on the Voice of Poetry website alongside the works of visual artists.
Then at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday in the same location, Literary Hong Kong 文學香港 entitled Let’s Get Together Sometime: Hong Kong Cinema and Adaptation (1914-2024). The guest speaker will be Dr. Mary Shuk-Han Wong, an associate professor in the Chinese department at Hong Kong Lingnan University.
Wong will speak in English about the relationship between Hong Kong literature and its film industry by focusing on how often novels are adapted for the big screen.
“The relationship between Hong Kong cinema and adaptations (particularly Hong Kong literature) in the past one hundred years is worthy of our deep thought,” Wong writes in an abstract of her talk.
Wong has edited many essays on film and literature. She’s also the author of Feminine Writing: Cinema, Literature and Everyday Live (2014) and Hong Kong Cinema: Writer, literature and cinema (2013).
Event details
Visit the Hong Kong Studies Initiative website to register for the free Literary Hong Kong 文學香港events. Follow Pancouver on X @PancouverMedia.
