Beyond The Dream

To say that this HK social issue indie was a surprise blockbuster and delight is quite the understatement…

The issue of mental illness is not something that’s completely swept under the rug in Hong Kong society — at least not since the island’s most iconic Golden Age star Leslie Cheung put it to the fore with his 2003 suicide note lamenting depression. After that, arguably HK’s biggest singer of more recent years, Eason Chan, revealed that he had bipolar disorder at a major concert. That’s actually an unusually recurring but perhaps telling trend in HK entertainment: that the people many stars seem to trust and confide in the most publicly are their collective fans. Major concerts are also where Cheung finally confirmed his homosexuality/bisexuality (its stigma and scrutiny thought by some as a possible contributor to his depression), then Anthony Wong (Wong Yiu-ming, not that Anthony Wong) followed suit, adding explicit initiatives for people undergoing emotional challenges over it.

However, most people don’t have crowds of thousands of admirers to confide in; so for making their mental health challenges and distress known, they’ll in fact more likely fear the opposite reaction of public ridicule, shaming and ostracism.

That’s exactly what happens as the catalyst to our story. When a woman has a mental breakdown in the middle of a crowded street at night, most pedestrians present start judgmentally staring at her or even worse, taking pictures and recording her on their phones to share it on the internet. The only ones who actually go to help her are two people with a special understanding of her situation: Yan (Cecilia Choi, Detention), a graduate student of clinical psychology, and Lok (Terrence Lau), a primary school teacher who is himself recovering from schizophrenia. They catch eyes from there — far from your typical meet cute, no? — with Lok later becoming Yan’s student-patient (for psychological research and consultation). The two gradually develop a special bond, but a special bond is far from equalling a mutual understanding.

Yan is feeling increasing pressure from her profession, especially her very strict dissertation tutor, Dr. Fung (Nina Paw). Lok, meanwhile, also starts seeing and developing feelings for the hyperactive Yip-yip (Cecilia Choi), who has a resemblance to Yan. More than anyone, Yip-yip makes Lok feel at ease, but is under circumstances that make pursuit seem even more unattainable than with Yan, who’s shooting much higher up in the social strata. Thus Lok finds himself in a (to put it lightly) highly complicated love triangle where neither relationship may be at face value. Additionally, Lok is holding back a serious secret to more than one person, but even that may well not compare to the charnel in Yan’s closet (one may hesitate to call the accumulation mere skeletons).

But all parties involved have their special reasons and pressures as to why they keep their secrets; if the relationships have any chance to survive (or even leave their participants in one piece) under these conditions is what remains to be seen and explored.

While in recent years many were beginning to question the future of local independent HK cinema and some were wondering if it could even fully survive, Beyond the Dream’s unprecedented surprise box office take as the biggest domestic movie of 2020 (#4 altogether) emphatically erases any last doubt it’s alive and well. It’s not that skeptics didn’t have good reason to ask those questions or still worry some past the near future, however. To put things into perspective, in the last few years what little from HK did show up in the yearly top box office were big-budget, Mainland co-produced actioners (often sequels). 2019 was better than usual with only two co-productions in the top 20, The White Storm 2 (#16) and Ip Man 4 (#18). In 2018 there were only two local movies (even counting co-productions) that so much as made the top 50: Project Gutenberg (#10) and Men on the Dragon (#42). 2017’s list had no local films at all.

That being said, Dream’s success is something of a miracle. Just a couple of years ago the very idea that an indie film on an unpopular, nonpolitical subject with unknown actors (Choi only had three past supporting roles in Taiwanese movies; Lau was a stage actor) could even crack the yearly box office — let alone top it — was by all indications unthinkable. (Two other fully local indie films — My Prince Edward and I’m Livin’ It — also did quite respectably at the 2020 box office, but both of them had big-name stars to lead them plus far heavier promotion in the latter’s case.) And while director Kiwi Chow voiced regret that the film was cut off in the heart of its theatrical run after the pandemic caused a citywide lockdown for over a month, there’s still much to marvel at from its run.

It may well have been that the subject matter of this film — which with modest marketing plus a hiatus definitely owes at least a chunk of its success to word of mouth — strongly resonated with audiences in a way that fully transcended the particulars of its characters. After all, a major underlying theme (even if in a very different manifestation than most see) questioning the viability of a modern relationship under circumstances and a society that doesn’t allow one to breathe is hardly obscure now.

Furthermore, beneath the surface Dreams is probably more widely and directly relatable than it would seem or that most would attest to. Because statistically HK has some of the worst challenges in the developed world with mental health — with some reasons for which being easy to guess like the fact work hours average 8-9 hours a day 6 days a week. While the escapism is regularly seen in HK cinema is natural accommodation for those facts, the very different kind of escapism displayed here proved something of a mass untapped market.

With that in mind, one can’t even practically ask the clichéd question of whether Dream “lives up to the hype”; because it never even had the privilege of hype to get into its position. This is more grassroots filmmaking that shows in the movie’s story as much as anything else. The characters aren’t going to amusement parks or having exciting nights out on the town, going to dance/singing competitions or anything of the sort; they’re visiting each other’s plain, messy apartments, waiting for and taking the tram or with kids on the playground. But the fine cinematography makes it look more vibrant than it sounds and further enhances the more electrifying moments, all without compromising its down-to-earth nature or intimacy.

The setting also lends a greater collective sense of familiarity no doubt for many who live or regularly go there — more than for Westerners living in considerably bigger metropolitan areas —  with the area’s quite characteristic light rail cars and apartment buildings figuring prominently. Conversely, that intimacy is offset by the severe lack of privacy and space in the highly crowded city as well as the indifference with which they regard each other. In a scene conveying that as well as the pervasive pressure to forge relationships almost everyone in the film has, two characters have to carefully pause, break up and mince their words between passers-by during an awkward secret building corridor tryst (or an attempt at one, at least).

I believe much has already been said about the extraordinary performances from the two leads, and Chow’s sharp direction and co-written screenplay. But the film’s key linking component actually comes in its thematic basis: psychology. Far from just being a gimmick, Dream’s silent and delicate focus on psychology — which can easily go unnoticed or unappreciated for its more sensational psychological overtones — is what serves as the ultimate convergence of its merits. The direction, writing, camera and leads’ performances all put remarkable care into the way they talk to and look at each other, with subtle shifts in countenance and intonation giving more clear and even fascinating hints about their character (in both senses of the word) than words and actions do. The protagonists are frequently struggling to come to grips with the dishonesty and disingenuousness of each other as well as themselves (but one them has clearly had the most “practice”).

That setting and its treatment maintain a certain believability — even in a film so defined by dreams. While I can’t claim to know all that goes on in HK, I do know that the opening scene rings painfully true regarding the rather unique passive-aggressive apathy crowds on the street often collectively react with to anything bad that doesn’t concern them (even if it’s an easily helped situation). But the film goes further to stress ramifications beyond the street for a droning, ultra-competitive society (or perhaps just collective human nature altogether) that encourages people to see and sometimes use others and their problems that coldly. While the young protagonists are by no means bulwarks of ethics themselves, they’re products of their society who are still being moulded; and the academia responsible for moulding Yan is setting quite the example. In that society, Lok in particularly is in danger of being at the very bottom of the chain as the student of a student and the pawn of a pawn.

With that in mind, there really isn’t much like Dream as the sum of its parts. While aforementioned events brought everyone to acknowledge the existence of mental illness, full and even relatively serious examinations of it — especially in entertainment — continued to be avoided by the public. Even the West found it to be a challenging topic just for occasional coverage: the huge hit of the last decade on that front was 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook. But while entertaining, it so carefully framed its subject matter as a bubbly and giddy rom-com that it didn’t for a minute give much of an impression about the gravity of its issue. But you can’t blame anyone too much, as making socially relevant yet also cinematically meritorious fare on mental illness and treatment of it is a delicate balancing act indeed.

But the makers of Dream took up that challenge in a manner that feels more daring and less compromised than recent equivalents without being at the expense of entertainment. That leaves the results in overall quality and wider relevance just about as pleasantly surprising as its commercial success. Dream turns down several opportunities to take the easy way out — avoiding either overly embellishing or simplifying its premise and characters. Although I think one pivotal scene happens too easily and suddenly when noting what builds up to it, the film does well enough in leading that development away from an expected contrived ending.

Overall, Beyond the Dream probably doesn’t create or mark a new epoch in Hong Kong cinema, but it just about as importantly bolsters and solidifies its traditions while still taking them in new directions. A rich thematic focus on dreams of every variety (from sleep, fantasies, aspirations…) is intriguingly balanced and challenged with the coldly inhibiting realism of society and life.

Beyond The Dream screens online as part of Focus Hong Kong – Easter edition, running from 31 March to 6 April.

Side note

The only other high-profile hit mainstream HK film of past eras fully focused on mental illness that I know of is Derek Yee’s 1986 The Lunatics, about an altruistic psychiatrist who does social work for the shoddily cared for mentally ill and homeless. While notable and certainly memorable for its time purely as a film, it’s also one of the grimmest and depressing films you’d ever see, for HK (which is already saying a lot) or anywhere else. More ambivalently, despite its strong social message, it gave an outright terrifying portrayal of the mentally ill.

Quite coincidentally, Yee is now the Chairman of the HK Film Awards and was also presenter for 2020’s ceremony. So there was a chance for a perfectly symbolic passing of the torch from Yee to the next (full feature) debutante director of the long overdue follow-up milestone on the subject (even if with a starkly different mood and perspective). Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn out that way, as Dream got six nominations but didn’t win any — losing all but one to stiff competition in Better Days (though it did win a Golden Horse for adapted screenplay).

But actually, Yee sort of already passed the torch preemptively anyway — as he ended up personally awarding Chow (with four other directors) for his work on the omnibus film 10 Years. In his own words, Yee did so because others didn’t dare to for fear of not being able to work in the Mainland anymore (but it didn’t work out nearly that badly for Yee, as the following year he made the Mainland blockbuster Sword Master).