Taiwan Docs

Hong Kong native Xi Xi began to write in the 1950s. Her body of work includes poems, movie critiques, screenplays, novels and an experimental pictorial encyclopedia.Tireless and prolific, Xi Xi has remained as an unrestrained writer whose writing boasts of innocence and insightfulness sixty years after she embarked on the literary career.

Director Fruit CHAN takes the audience into Xi Xi’s world by visiting and documenting the places and sights depicted in the writer’s works. They include the pier of Ma Tau Kok, Murray Building, the racks for drying laundry and electricity cables on the terrace, as well as disappearing photo studios and traditional restaurants. CHAN liberally draws on a myriad of cinematographic techniques to represent the various forms and structures of Xi Xi’s diverse literary oeuvre. The result is a multilayered visual narration that recounts Xi Xi’s frank as well as nuanced observations and insights about Hong Kong.