After This Our Exile

One of the leading filmmakers of the Hong Kong new wave during the early 80s, Patrick Tam returns after a 15-year absence with a film that is visually (and emotionally) arresting. Set in 1990s Malaysia, Tam's family drama dissects the troubled relationship between a loser father (Hong Kong superstar Aaron Kwok) with a gambling problem and his son who desperately looks up to him. Deserted by their wife and mother, the men drift across the thin line that divides survival from collapse. Fleeing from loan sharks, the father encourages his son to rob houses, a scheme with predictably disastrous results. In contrast, the mother is now remarried and living a comfortable middle-class life. A few years later, the grown-up son returns to his home and, for better or worse, comes to terms with his loss of innocence.