Drifting is a heart-rending slice-of-life social drama about the lives of the homeless in Hong Kong, featuring great performances from Francis Ng, Tse Kwan Ho and Loletta Lee.
Fai, a drug addict released from prison, rejoins his homeless community living in the Sham Shui Po. One night, the community is raided by the police, disposing their personal property as garbage. Miss Ho, a social worker, helps bring their case to a court of law as the street sleepers rebuild wooden shacks under an overpass.
In his second film since 2018's Tracey, writer-director Jun Li draws an intimate portrait of the lives and predicament of homeless people, showing their life values and mindset.
Jun Li cleverly keeps the backstories of the homeless characters vague. It leaves a space for the audience to imagine what happened to them. It is also deliberately vague because their past probably isn't an elaborate entertaining tale of Greek tragedy. Your best guess is probably not far off.
At one point, Drifting directly comments on how the media's over-fascination with the homeless people's life stories and how social services struggle with helping the homeless effectively. Help is given with good intentions, but the help has to be the right kind and then that help has to be received.
Francis Ng gives a great performance as the lead character Fai. Fai speaks differently when he's speaking to other homeless people as opposed to normal citizens.
To the homeless, he speaks freely and colloquially. To the average non-homeless citizen, there's a delay in his speech. It is not a cognitive or mental processing delay, but a struggle of not knowing how to start talking. There's too much to explain to even begin and understanding seems so far away that nothing he can say has any hope of covering that distance.
This was a teensy detail but the effect was nuclear and effectively pulled me into the characters' mindsets. I felt the immense distance between the homeless and society.
Tse Kwan Ho also gave a moving performance as Master, a Vietnamese boat person who caught some bad luck and was left behind when his family saught asylum. Ho's performance showed how difficult it was for a homeless person to change their life and how having a normal life can be a terrifying thought.
Drifting is by no means an uplifting film, but it deals with its subject in a sincere and humane way that keeps it insightful and rewarding.
Fai, a drug addict released from prison, rejoins his homeless community living in the Sham Shui Po. One night, the community is raided by the police, disposing their personal property as garbage. Miss Ho, a social worker, helps bring their case to a court of law as the street sleepers rebuild wooden shacks under an overpass.
In his second film since 2018's Tracey, writer-director Jun Li draws an intimate portrait of the lives and predicament of homeless people, showing their life values and mindset.
Jun Li cleverly keeps the backstories of the homeless characters vague. It leaves a space for the audience to imagine what happened to them. It is also deliberately vague because their past probably isn't an elaborate entertaining tale of Greek tragedy. Your best guess is probably not far off.
At one point, Drifting directly comments on how the media's over-fascination with the homeless people's life stories and how social services struggle with helping the homeless effectively. Help is given with good intentions, but the help has to be the right kind and then that help has to be received.
Francis Ng gives a great performance as the lead character Fai. Fai speaks differently when he's speaking to other homeless people as opposed to normal citizens.
To the homeless, he speaks freely and colloquially. To the average non-homeless citizen, there's a delay in his speech. It is not a cognitive or mental processing delay, but a struggle of not knowing how to start talking. There's too much to explain to even begin and understanding seems so far away that nothing he can say has any hope of covering that distance.
This was a teensy detail but the effect was nuclear and effectively pulled me into the characters' mindsets. I felt the immense distance between the homeless and society.
Tse Kwan Ho also gave a moving performance as Master, a Vietnamese boat person who caught some bad luck and was left behind when his family saught asylum. Ho's performance showed how difficult it was for a homeless person to change their life and how having a normal life can be a terrifying thought.
Drifting is by no means an uplifting film, but it deals with its subject in a sincere and humane way that keeps it insightful and rewarding.