‘Blue Island’ Review: A Cleverly Constructed Documentary Revisits the 2019-2020 Hong Kong Protest Movement
variety.comRichard Kuipers The question of what it means to be a Hong Konger is examined in Chan Tze-woo’s innovative and affecting hybrid documentary “Blue Island.” Artfully editing footage of the 2019-2020 protests with dramatic recreations of events that have shaped the British colony turned Chinese special administrative region since 1967, “Blue Island” balances its unavoidably sobering picture of the current political landscape with uplifting testimony of individuals determined to preserve the spirit of Hong Kong, no matter what the future holds.
Winner of the international documentary award at Hot Docs this year, “Blue Island” will likely never be legally exhibited in Hong Kong or China, though specialty outfit Icarus Films is distributing the film theatrically in selected U.S.
cities.After capturing the street-level intensity and passion of student activists involved in the Umbrella Movement in his 2016 documentary “Yellowing,” Chan has taken a much more expansive and creative approach in this companion piece about sustained civil disobedience in his homeland during 2019 and 2020.
While there is no shortage of frontline footage of arrests and protestors clashing with police, most of the running time is dedicated to placing recent events in historical and deeply personal contexts.
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