Echoes of the Rainbow
Alex Law

The story: Life is full of adventures for eight-year- old Big Ears (Buzz Chung) growing up in Hong Kong in 1969. He is left pretty much to his own devices as his cobbler father Mr Law (Simon Yam) is busy making a living and his mother Mrs Law (Sandra Ng) has chores aplenty to attend to. He worships his athletic high-schooler elder brother Desmond (Aarif Lee) and the family gets by, even if they are not well-off. Then tragedy strikes.

This is the semi-autobiographical story of writer-director Alex Law, better known as a scribe for dramas such as An Autumn’s Tale (1987) and City Of Glass (1998). He won a Golden Horse award for Best Original Screenplay for the latter.
While it is a cosy portrait of a family, it is also an affectionate look at Hong Kong at the tail end of the 1960s. The period details extend to the music with Western pop hits such as The Monkees’ I Wanna Be Free playing a key part in the soundtrack.
It was a time when neighbours lived cheek by jowl and dinner was a communal affair. Conversation was a polyglot of accents, from Shanghainese to Cantonese, reflecting the hometown roots of the recent immigrants. Unfortunately, audiences here get the Mandarin version of the movie, and given the context and the setting, some of the flavour is inevitably lost.
While the film intersperses some documentary footage from the era, it does not give a sense of society at large beyond a glimpse or two. Law works in a scene with a Caucasian cop asking for what amounted to protection money but goes no further with it.
Perhaps he was more tied up with scouting for locations as he has said in interviews that it was difficult finding suitable places because much of the city from the 1960s is gone. The nostalgia factor means that Rainbow will echo more strongly with Hong Kong audiences.
That could also account for the clutch of trophies that the film won at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
Veteran actor Yam was lauded as Best Actor though really, he has been better in more challenging roles. He is believable as the stoic pessimist whose mantra is working hard. But the character is a little thinly drawn even though Law’s father was a cobbler. Still, Yam is dependable as always and has an easy rapport with Ng, who is his more optimistic other half.
Lee, looking uncannily like singer- actor Wang Lee Hom from certain angles, walked away with the Best New Performer award. Maybe it was because he had to shoulder the movie as it went from feel-good nostalgic jaunt into 1960s Cantonese tear-jerker melodrama mode and did a fair job of it. But it might be the Best Original Song award – Lee sang the theme song Echoes Of The Rainbow – that proves to be the more accurate harbinger of his future, as a pop idol.
It was Chung who commanded much of the attention given that the story was told from his point of view and he managed to be engaging and cute without being irritating.
Law, too, was a winner. He picked up the trophy for best script and the film won the Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in February this year. He certainly found his pot of riches at the end of Rainbow.
(ST)