VIFF review: Memories to Choke on, Drinks to Wash Them Down is a bittersweet ode to Hong Kong
Four stories jump through time and place to paint a portrait of a complex city on the edge.
In one of the short stories in Memories to Choke on, Drinks to Wash Them Down , a couple explores Hong Kong’s food scene.
Streams September 24 to October 7 as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival, via VIFF.org
SANDWICHED IN THE middle of this quirky Hong Kong film quartet is a hidden treasure—a bit like the yolky-custard prize waiting in the central couple’s salted egg French toast.
“Yuen Yueng” is about two teachers in the giant metropolis—a white foreigner who’s come to instruct the English class and a shy Hong Konger. Together they explore the food adventures of the city—with so many unspoken feelings and subtleties lost in translation that it will make your heart ache. A charming Gregory Wong is thrilled to show off his hometown to the up-for-anything Kate Reilly, but as the film jumps between time periods—their awkward first meeting, the last day of classes—it becomes clear she’s ready to move on to her next posting in China. And he silently wishes for more. “This is what I’ll miss the most,” she says of leaving Hong Kong, and holds up a Yuen Yueng, the strong mix of coffee and tea in the title—never quite grasping the cultural history of the drink once used to fuel dock labourers. As she blithely shovels another incredible meal into her piehole, she’s also unaware that someone’s sitting two feet away who might have hoped he’d be missed.
The other wildly contrasting stories are a mixed bag—an Indonesian caregiver and her dementia-addled client, two brothers shutting down their family’s old toy shop. But the sum is greater than its parts, adding up to an eclectic, funny, and politically charged portrait of a city that’s full of contradictions. The final act, the only documentary short in the package, is about a young barista-actress who takes on the local communist-party rep in the near-farcical 2019 elections. We all know how that ends.
Directors Leung Ming-kai and the American Reilly take fun risks here, telling us as much about Hong Kong's past as its future, and lovingly exploring the corners of the city. Every story, no matter how light, is underlined by the precarious spot Hong Kong sits in today. A delight for anyone who knows it well, and worries about its future.
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