Directed by Fruit Chan • 1997 • Hong Kong
Starring Sam Lee, Neiky Yim Hui Chi, Wenders Li

The first Hong Kong independent film released after the island’s handover from the UK to China, this intoxicating vision of nihilistic youth explores the era’s disillusionment via a portrait of Autumn Moon (Sam Lee), an aimless young gangster searching for meaning in a world seemingly without a future. When he meets and falls in love with the terminally ill Ping (Neiky Yim Hui Chi), he makes it his mission to save her—a quest that only leads him deeper into a violent underworld. Shooting on a minuscule budget on strands of leftover film stock, director Fruit Chan crafts a stylistic tour de force bursting with woozy, dreamily desaturated images that evoke a sense of both heady abandon and overpowering ennui.