In 2023, the director’s farewell film “Naked Nations – Tribe Hong Kong” has been filmed, written, directed and starred in by Scud, and is his only performance in the big screen. The film is shot in a semi-documentary format and is dedicated to all the performers from different parts of the world and different cultural backgrounds over the years. The “Naked Nations – Tribe Hong Kong” is a film about the life in Hong Kong over the past three unusual years, about “how some people live their lives to the fullest, and how some people go against the grain”. Scud describes the film as an “absurd comedy” and believes that it is not difficult for the audience to resonate with the absurd and bizarre stories in the film. In fact, Scud had already written a script with the same title “The Naked Nations” many years ago, which not only talked about the “Chinese nation”, but also recounted his own family history. However, due to the difficulties in filming such a subject in Mainland China, he finally had no choice but to change his plan, narrowing down the geography and the scope of the subject matter, and the work is still titled “The Naked Nations”, which he believes the viewers will understand the hidden meaning of the title.

Running Time: 161mins
Written, Produced & Directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Kira Fung/ Art Direction by Irving and Kalin Wong/ Costume Design by Choi On Ni/ Music by Beatrice Wong/ Edited by Pierre Mui/ Sound Design by Nip Kei Wing

Main Cast
Adonis/ Beatrice/ Chris/ Derek/ Fung/ Gabriel/ Jeff/ Joe/ Kelvin/ King/ Kingie/ Kong/ Peter /Rauv /SCUD/ Tank/ Will

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam – Official Selection and Focus Director

“Almost leaving filmmaking behind after Utopians(2016), and then after Apostles (2022) and again after Bodyshop(2022), incessantly stubborn Scud ended up fulfilling his prophecy jokingly uttered to Osman Hung when he was casting him as the lead of Permanent Residence(2008): Naked Nations – Tribe Hong Kong is Scud’s tenth film leaving no doubts it is his goodbye to filmmaking, and his last dedication to the art, the place and the people he loves.

Produced over the past three or so years, Naked Nations functions as a drama, a making-of, a documentary and an act of defiance. It is a film about people who have lost and re-found hope, and those who managed to always hold on to it. Scud invites his collaborators from previous films, states his case and faces the final curtain, and this time he’s the one stripping down, confirming once and for all that this attitude was never merely pretence.

Naked Nations is a deeply human, joyful, poignant and heartbreaking film about freedom and its many manifestations, fragility and limits, a film about life, depression and difficult decisions. But above all, a film about love.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

The ghost of a young soldier sexually assaulted by his Lieutenant says goodbye to his mother and travels the world to see his transgender sister. He is a charming ghost and by possessing living bodies, he meddles with romances of his unfaithful lovers along the way in Taiwan, Japan, Spain, Thailand. He meets a “soul mate” amid the massive protests of today’s Hong Kong. They take shelter in a disguised garage where human bodies are treated in a way beyond moral limits.

Running Time: 89mins
Written, Produced & Directed by SCUD
Cinematography By Meteor Cheung (HKSC) / Production Design by Irving Cheung / Music by Yu Yat Yiu / Edited by GJames Cheung

Main Cast
Adonis He/ Simon Athena/ Christopher Tsang/ Lina Tsai/ Tank Liu/ Karen Huang/ Daniel Benjamin/ Eriks Nguyen/ Nicky Bunyarit/ Invanz/ Joe Leung

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam – Official Selection and Focus Director
• 52^th International Film Festival Rotterdam – Official Selection
• 33^rd Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival – Official Selection and Focus Director
• Reeling: The 40^thChicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 26^th PinkApple Queer Film Festival – Official Selection

“The horny ghost of a young man traverses the globe, stalking and debating with his past lovers.

Scud is interested in the overlap between tradition and modernity, and the ways of spirituality vis-à-vis technology. He uses clips from his previous works, mainly Thirty Years of Adonis (2017), to blur the ever-so-fragile line between documentary and fiction, the actors and their roles. The characters, ghostly and living alike, carry their stories and in them, we hear powerful statements about the lingering effects of personal, social and political trauma.

Bodyshop is a work of subversion that takes scenes of uninhibited sex and musical interludes as its tools to dare us to think the unthinkable. It doesn’t shy away from suicide, violence or love expressed cannibalistically, calling out issues from the spheres of intimate relations to politics at large. Scud conjures a type of cinema that intermingles Pier Paolo Pasolini, Peter Greenaway and John Waters.

On the one hand, Bodyshop is defiantly offhand and proudly camp at its narrative core. On the other, the film is as slick as a TV commercial, thanks to an unmistakably digital sheen and a syrupy soundtrack.

– Adrian Martin and kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

The exploration of death.

A noted scholar claiming to be an apostle to Socrates and Plato finds it hard to face his eventual ending. With the accomplices of his wife and his ex-woman’s family, he recruits 12 young men into his secluded manor to pursue a project which encompasses; bondage, sex acts, even living sacrifice.

Philosophical discussion abound throughout the film making it a thrilling experience.

The story leaves everybody involved with life changing revelations.

Running Time: 82mins
Written, Produced & Directed by SCUD
Cinematography By Meteor Cheung (HKSC) / Production Design by Irving Cheung / Music by Yu Yat Yiu / Edited by GJames Cheung

Main Cast
Adonis He/Amanda Lee/ Adrian Heung/ Bank Chuang/ Canto Zhou/ Christopher  Tsang/ Jay-Todd Chih/ Katashi Yugo/ Lew Voon Khong/ Owen Wu/ Qiji Chen/ Teslin/ Wei Kai Huang/ William Lo/ Jach Chow/ Moe Chin/ Tank Liu/ Gavin Che

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam – Official Selection and Focus Director
• 9^th Taiwan International Queer Film Festival – Official Selection
• 33^rdHong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival – Official Selection and Focus Director
• Reeling: The 40^thChicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival – Official Selection

“Once again drawing from a very personal place, Scud’s eighth film Apostles does away with a certain kind of nostalgia. As in Voyage (2012), Utopians (2016) and Thirty Years of Adonis (2017), Apostles reaches into the deep and dark crevices of the human mind to reflect on the meaning and value of life by exploring death and what comes after. Claiming to be an apostle of Socrates and Plato, a scholar forms a cult-like circuit of twelve beautiful young men in a secluded estate to pursue this quandary.

With a narrative organised more like a stream of fragmentary visual statements and thoughts, shuffling past, present and future, Apostles gnaws on religions, the concept of karma, ghosts and the afterlife – all of which also enter the game. Nude young men wander the estate, climb mountains, lose themselves in the woods, talk and participate in various rituals and mythic re-enactments that constitute a physical, emotional and sexual journey. In the end, the group must decide which apostle will get to experience death in the form of sacrifice. Herein the film steers true to its alternative title: ‘Platonic Death’, and to Scud’s appetite for subversive, disturbing and still serenely beautiful films.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

Scud’s seventh film, which travelled to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand for filming, interprets the themes of death and life, predestination, pleasure and desire, which are always seen in his works, through the Tibetan Buddhist concept of life, with tolerance and freedom.

Yang Ke (Adonis He), a Beijing Opera actor, is fatefully driven into the underworld of masculine sex workers, and becomes a class of his own. He finds himself on a roller coaster between heavenly love with both men and women, and a living hell ensnared by devious villains and hypocrites. Despite his faith, endeavor and willingness to give, he remains a prisoner to his karma. Hell awaits when heaven seems near, and the ultimate truth is revealed only in a heartbreaking moment from which there is no return – he falls into a trap where he is gang-raped by thirty people, and in the midst of untold agony, he reflects on his life, and then speeds up to his fateful end, sending out a final cry to his arranged partner. The film features legendary actresses Susan Shaw and Nora Miao in key roles, and GV actor Eric East his maidan appearance on cinema.

Running Time: 97mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Nathan Wong (HKSC)/ Production Design by Irving Cheung/ Music by Ho Shan/ Edited by Nose Chan

Main Cast
Adonis He/ Susan Shaw/ Nora Miao/ Justin Lim/ Eric East/ Amanda Lee/ Ting Yu Sheng/ Ceci Li / Daniel Benjamin/ Jerry Hoh

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam – Official Selection and Focus Director
• 29^thHong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival – Official Selection
• qFLIX Worcester New England’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2018

“Venture with unparalleled grace, sadness and torment into the realms of desire, dreams and broken hearts in Scud’s Thirty Years of Adonis. A space where human emotions, both vulnerable and raw, are laid naked.

Adonis, a young actor at the Beijing Opera dreaming of stardom and a love that transcends the oceans of time, leaves everything behind and exposes himself to a whole new experience. In his late twenties, he yearns to explore new meaning in his life through the world of the male sex industry. And so he surrenders himself, to daydreams and nightmares alike.

Known for his unflinching exploration of complex themes, Scud continues to push the boundaries of the ways to explore art, raw forms of sexuality and perverse desires, to probe identity and society. Thirty Years of Adonis is another testament to his audacious narratives and directorial prowess, leaving even the most prepared audience thunderstruck.

He navigates the journey of its characters through a landscape of sensuality, self-discovery and self-destruction, challenging norms and offering a blend of provocative storytelling and visual artistry that is as beautiful as it is casually shocking.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

Utopians, Scud’s 6^th film, is about sexual repression and liberation, homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality, religious belief and civil doctrine, honesty and hypocrisy, dreams, legends and realities.

What can happen if Mishima Yukio meets Socrates? Hins, a dreamy boy who indulges in literature and thirsts for philosophy, is overwhelmed by a charismatic teacher Antonio, dragging his religious girlfriend Joey together into uncharted territories. The intriguing appearance of Swan, an elegant and intellectual lady, only adds to their entanglement of spirit and lust. Seemingly their love for art and wisdom would lead them to a surreal poetic life in an unrestrained Utopia amid the earthen world, yet what stands in the way is a lifetime secret and a lie of heart.

Running Time: 87mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Nathan Wong/ Art Direction & Costume Design by Irving Cheung / Music by Ho Shan / Edited by Matthew Hui

Main Cast
Adonis H./ Jackie Chow/ Moe Chin/ Fiona Wang/Shui Jie/ Eric Cheng/ William Tang/ Wong He/ Vinci Wong

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 2^ndNew Director Film Festival – Official Selection & Best Foreign Film Director
• 27^thPalm Springs International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 13^thOutfest Fusion LGBT People of Color Film Festival – Official Selection
• 31^stTorino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival – Official Selection
• 27^thHong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival – Official Selection
• 52^ndChicago International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 6^thFringe! Queer Film& Arts fest – Official Selection

“Love and Death meet again in Utopians. Hins, a dreamy student with a passion for literature and a thirst for a deeper understanding of life finds himself overwhelmed by Antonio and Swan, a charismatic teacher and his elegant assistant. Charmed by their love for art and wisdom, Hins plunges into the uncharted waters of spiritual learning and the pleasures of the flesh, taking his religious girlfriend Joey along for the ride.

Utopians resumes Scud’s meditation on the true notion of home and belonging to a place that permeates Permanent Residence(2008), and moves towards the idea that Utopia could be a place on Earth, a safe harbour for the soul to breathe freely – only to find it in Bangkok. In a way foreshadowing Thirty Years of Adonis (2017) and Apostles(2022), his two following films, Scud here places his literary and philosophical fervours into the narrative equation. Moreover, in Utopians, he also lets his cinephilic inspirations fly free, mainly playing around with hints and references to Pasolini and Greenaway.

For those unfamiliar with Scud’s favoured mise-en-scène, the film is also rich with naked people and explicit sex.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

A young psychiatrist ventures into a lone voyage to fight his depression. On the sea he records stories of people departed from this world prematurely, while what awaits him on the shore is the ultimate irony of life.

Running Time: 100 mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Charlie Lam / Art Direction & Costume Design by Irving Cheung /Music by Yu Yat Yiu / Edited by Chan Chi Wai & Matthew Hui

Main Cast
Ryo van Kooten/ Susan Shaw/ Sebastian Castro/ Byron Pang/ Linda So/Leni Speidel/ Debra Baker/ Adrian Heung/ Haze Leung/ Sau Wong/ Ryan Zhu/ Chan Than San

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 49th Chicago International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 1st Q Hugo Award
• 37th São Paulo International Film Festival – Official Selection
• Kyoto International Film and Art Festival 2015 – Special Invitation

What Scud once believed to be his final film, Voyage is about depression, suicide, premature death and afterlife. It’s based upon his own experience of depression, and those of his friends’, some had lost their battles of life. It was filmed entirely in English, shot in Inner Mongolia, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Netherlands and Hong Kong. The film opened in the 49th Chicago International Film Festival and received an Artistic Achievement Award. Scud was the first tribute honoree of Q-Hugo, for his contributions in LGBT film community, and in appreciation of his “edgy, tender, and bold filmmaking”.

“A psychiatrist debating the link between his choice of profession and his mental state, gets on his boat and embarks on a voyage. Grappling with his own depression, he revisits encounters with former patients. His attempt at self-therapy becomes an anthology of short stories, where Yuan (exiled to Inner Mongolia under Mao’s Chinese re-education policy), Ming (a young man with disabilities), Leni (a German columnist coping with the death of her mother) and Sebastian (an artist romantically involved with a young woman in the Netherlands) become the characters.

Voyage is a further cinematic excursion into the depths of the human mind, that offers different perspectives on the realities of depression and delves deep in the search for its source. In doing so a new motif that will become evident in Scud’s later films surfaces – ghosts and the afterlife. The nudity of men stands in for the nudity of souls, and sexual encounters and relationships act as proof of life with distorted undertones. Voyage dances in the space between expressions of radiant vulnerability and absurdity.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

Love is life, life as it is. Not every love story is a fairy tale. After a dramatic wedding feast, unusual love stories unfold towards unexpected endings. Inspired by real life cases, the film is about love that gone bad: a brother and sister in love but caught by the mother, a married painter falls for his young life drawing model of same sex, an intimacy between a dance school teacher and his rich but senior student, a lesbian couple one of which has role-play paranoid, a dreadful love triangle ending with the girl being beheaded…”Love Actually…Sucks!” celebrates love that no one care but actual. Life is love, love as it is.

Running Time: 83mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Herman Yau/ Art Direction & Costume Design by Irving Cheung/ Music by Yu Yat Yiu / Edited by Cheung Suk Ping William & Chan Chi Wai

Main Cast
Osman Hung/ Linda So/ Haze Leung/ John Tai/ Tang Wei/ Calvin Wong/ Owen Lee/ Betty Chan/ Alice Chen/ Christepher Wee/ Sherry Li/ Shui Jie/ Celia Chang/Lareine Xu/ Jackie Chow / Winnie Leung/ Ryo van Kooten

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 47th Chicago International Film Festival – Official Selection
• Philadelphia Q-Fest 2011 – Official Selection

Love Actually…Sucks! was Scud’s fourth film, inspired by real life cases of love gone bad and mad. It is Scud’s tribute to “Love Actually”. However it comprises 6 unblessed love stories not only glorified with romance or harmony, or that love conquers all, instead depicts the dark side of passionate love, compromised by lust, violence and death. The genuine sex scenes and an incest plot rendered the film’s released been delayed by over a year in Hong Kong and Taiwan, only possible after as many as 11 “processing”. The film premiered in Philadelphia and released in US and Europe uncut.

“Even if in Love Actually… Sucks! Scud interlaces stories of love and relationships, it becomes immediately apparent that this film bears no easy relationship to Richard Curtis’ 2003 film. As is made clear by the lashings of nudity and sex and a guy wandering along the coast, carrying his lover’s decapitated head. Inspired by six real-life court cases in Hong Kong, the film is a unique existential romance about love that has gone bad, illustrating how love can kind of suck, whilst giving a toast to unconventional love too.

Siblings express their mutual love a little too affectionately, a wedding is spoiled, a married painter has a crush on his male model, a dance school teacher dances more than tango with his student, a lesbian couple have a role-playing issue and an unlucky love triangle ends with death and decapitation. The second of two collaborations with the legendary Hong Kong cinematographer Herman Yau, Love Actually… Sucks! oscillates between myth and ghost story, mixing erotica with crime. While the film and love,are to be taken seriously, Scud’s insistence on keeping it real, his candour and his uncanny eye for singular imagery crackles with unexpected humour.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

Kafka, a straight fitness trainer meets Daniel, a passionate executive who happens to be gay. The young men fatefully fall in love and believe that their love can bridge anything, even their difference in sexuality and Kafka’s drug habits. Daniel does not regret his love for Kafka, who tries to love him back against his nature. But a dreadful memory from Kafka’s past render it most difficult. It turns out that their addiction to love proves more fatal than the drugs they use to explore the boundaries of their friendship.

Running Time: 97mins
Written, produced and directed by Scud
Consulting Director  Lawrence Lau / Cinematography by Charlie Lam / Art Direction & Costume Design by Jack Chan / Music by Yu Yat Yiu & Ho Shan/ Edited by Heiward Mak

Main Cast
Byron Pang/ Thomas Price/ Winnie Leung/ Linda So/ Simon Tam

• 60th Berlinale Panorama – Official Selection
• 24th Teddy Award – Runner Up
• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival – Closing Film
• 25th Torino GLBT Film Festival – Competition
• 46th Chicago International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 12th Rio International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 30th Hawaii International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 30th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Actor Nomination
• 33^rd Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival– Official Selection and Focus DirectorAmphetamine is the second of the Trilogy, exploring the limits of passion. It was an official selection by the Berlin International Film Festival of the year and nominated for Teddy Award at the Berlinale. It was also the closing film of the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival, and one of the leading men, Byron Pang, was nominated the Best New Actor in the Hong Kong Film Award. The film met controversy again, despite the fame, when the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority demanded 5 spots of the film to be cut before public screening. Scud protested the decision and wrote to the Chief Executive. Eventually the shots were blackened-out but with the soundtrack intact.

“Kafka is a fitness trainer, martial artist and delivery boy working multiple jobs to take care of his mother. His life has never been one where everything neatly falls into place: his father died by suicide when Kafka was young, and most recently, he broke up with his girlfriend. But perhaps meeting the charming young executive Daniel will be the lucky charm that turns the tables.

Once more employing a cast of absurdly beautiful men in cleanly elegant spaces with a fierce, camp attitude, in Amphetamine Hong Kong artist provocateur Scud explores the possibilities of love between people who desperately need it, crave it, believe in it, but actually may not really be capable of it. Kafka and Daniel throw themselves into each other, in the hope of manifesting a love that will heal their wounds from lonesome pasts and free their doubtful minds. Instead, they risk becoming another more dangerous drug to one another.

One of Scud’s most affecting films, Amphetamine is inspired by a close friend who nearly lost his life, and is dedicated to people who find no reason to live other than the love they might find in others. But is this love a true love?

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

Ivan has been searching an answer to a lifetime question: Where will we be after the present life? On the way, he went through a difficult passion with Windson, a straight guy, made a longtime friendship with Josh, a Palestinian, experienced the death of his beloved elderly, witness the wedding of his brother and the birth of a nephew. Eventually he designed a permanent residence at his own soil to host all his loved ones for the next life, in case there is any, while his friend Josh created a home at the Dead Sea for those not so much loved.

Running Time: 115mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Herman Yau / Art Direction & Costume Design by Ron Heung / Music by Teddy Robin / Edited by Jackie Leung

Main Cast
Sean Li/ Osman Hung/ Sean Li/ Jackie Chow/ Hong Lau/ Eva Lo

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 10th Chinese Film Media Awards – Best New Actor
• 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 20th Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival – Official Selection (Director’s Cut)
• 10th Taipei Film Festival – Special Reserved Screening (Director’s Cut)
• 25th Torino GLBT Film Festival – Official Selection
• 33^rd Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival– Official Selection and Focus DirectorScud solely directs the films he also writes and produces. Permanent Residence was shot in Israel, Japan, Australia, Thailand, mainland China and Hong Kong. Being the first of his “Trilogy of Finitude”, the film explores the limits of life. It is a story of a gay man who indulges in thoughts of afterlife and passionately falls in love with a straight friend. It’s an immediate hit in Taiwan. While the casting of Osman Hung, a teen idol and vocalist of a leading group stunned the industry, the groundbreaking performance of Sean Li, another leading man, won him a Best New Actor Award in China.

“Ivan, a handsome and brilliant IT guy, is coming to terms with his identity and sexuality in Scud’s sophomore feature, Permanent Residence.

Ivan meets Windson at the gym, a man so beautiful and athletic he must be a fantasy. They strike a queer friendship, spending their time together, sparring, travelling, going to beaches and having all sorts of manly fun wearing nothing but Adam’s robes. There is only one catch. Windson is straight and draws a strict boundary when it comes to sex, and so Ivan’s odyssey begins.

Scud draws on his own personal experiences to continue to challenge the usual image of queer men in Hong Kong cinema. Promoting camp to higher art, Permanent Residence continues to showcase the Asian male body so ostentatiously celebrated in City Without Baseball ( 2007 ). This film marks one of two collaborations with the Hong Kong legend Herman Yau as director of photography and the beginning of Scud’s gusto for self-referentiality, a detail which fortifies the fictional world Scud has built for his protagonist. A world where beautiful fantasies become reality, but one that has no immunity from pain or heartbreak, provoking contemplations of life, love, death and belonging.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024

Scud co-directed his maiden film, City Without Baseball with Lawrence Ah Mon. The actual members of the Hong Kong Baseball Team bare their souls and bodies to play themselves in this fictional youth drama. In a city where baseball culture is non-existent, these baseball players are a minority by choice. The experience teaches them to be free-thinkers in dealing with love, friendship and their own sexuality. It also enables them to find the will to live in the face of death and the strength to conquer losing in a spectatorless sport. The film caused a lot of controversies for exhibiting male full frontal nudities and touching on intimate brotherhood within a masculine sport. Even the billboards around town were said to be shocking and had to be removed after a complaint filed by one citizen. The film was academically acclaimed, however, awarded by China and Hong Kong critics.

Running Time：100mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
CO-DIRECTOR Lawrence Lau/ DOP Zhang Ying/ ART DIRECTOR Wong Yan Kwai / COSTUME DESIGNER Cheung Kai Sun /ORIGINAL MUSIC Eugene Pao/ EDITOR Jacky Leung

Main Cast
Leung Yu Chung/ Adrian Heung/ John Tai/ Jason Tsang/ Jose Au/ Hong Lau/ Yan Wei Sha/ Gia Lin/ Monie Tung

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 32^nd Hong Kong International Film Festival – Official Selection
• Film Critics China – Top 10 Chinese Movie of the Year 2008
• HK Film Critics Society – Recommended Movie of the Year 2008

Scud on his first film: “I returned to Hong Kong from Australia in 2004, and an unplanned appointment made me make an important decision, which may have rewritten the lives of more than a dozen young people.

Before my friend’s phone call, I didn’t even know anyone in Hong Kong played baseball and in fact had a decent representative team; he asked me if I could make a documentary film, so I went to the Sai Tso Wan Stadium in Lam Tin.

The first interview was with Adrian Heung, a handsome Japanese-idol-like who studied fashion design and was the lead singer of a band that played and sang well. Au Wing Leung, the captain of the band, is a left-handed player and a member of the team Brothers Gang. The coach is from Taiwan and is nicknamed “Handsome”. When I met Chung, the catcher who looks like a Korean star, I started to have an idea…

Following the cheers of the girls on the sidelines, I found Leung Yu-chung, and the moment he turned back and raised his eyebrows, I knew that any gender or sexual orientation would be pierced by his starry eyes – the very same spirit, the very same aura of that baseball pitcher!

I took some of my savings, got my mum to chip in, and started writing, fundraising, and filming “City without Baseball”.

I didn’t need to find “star”, as there were already nine handsome 5’11” guys right in front of me! They were free to accompany (drink…) me from dusk till dawn, laughing and telling each other about the history of their romances, crying about the disappointment of losing the competition in Thailand, and then singing their favourite song “Fairy Tale”. At dawn, the drunkenness dissipated, and they went back to the court in the afternoon to practice and coach…

In front of the camera, they fearlessly fought in the locker room, ran naked on the field, embraced naked on the beach; apart from their disinterest in the chilling hypocrisy of the synonym: “image”(like a good actor does), they had a passionate desire to be known for their existence, their struggles, their frustrations and their dreams. This fire of youth burns away all pretences and reveals the pure body and soul.

For such an unique project there is no need to look for a director ：Top Director Lawrance Lau was so in love of it and volunteered to make this dream come true.

This is a film about loss. However we also got a lot in such three years and we have no regrets at all.

In the beginning, there was nothing at all — City without Baseball”

“Sexuality, suppressed emotion and urban alienation occupy the minds of the Hong Kong baseball team, searching for their place in a city where baseball culture is non-existent. Who are these invisible players if no one is cheering them on?

Stripping bare the cast of real athletes, City Without Baseball is a postmodern youth drama and a sports film, that plays cheekily with each genre’s iconographies. The handsome and charismatic protagonists play alongside camaraderie, crushes, love, competition and homoeroticism that seep beyond the locker room in a strikingly bare manner that marks a new approach to queer films in Hong Kong.

Co-directed by Lawrence Lau Kwok-Cheong, Scud’s directorial debut invites viewers to reflect on the complexities of human relationships, as well as the courage required to break free from societal expectations. Laying out the blueprints for his later work, City Without Baseball blurs the boundaries between fiction and documentary, and fictionalises the lives of the baseball players navigating the challenges of youth in the universal quest for acceptance in a society that so often sidelines individuality.

– kijA”

Information Sources：IFFR 2024