Hometown blues

DJ, stand-up comedian, actor, writer and director Cheuk Wan-chi's Vital Sign strikes a less-harrowing but no less-timely note. The film stars Louis Koo as Ma Chi-yip, a paramedic struggling with chronic back pain and whose resistance to playing the political civil service game has kept him tied to an ambulance rather than a cushy desk job. The film starts with Ma taking on a new partner, young and brash Wong Wai (Yau Hawk-sau), who, unlike Ma, is happy to go with the flow.

It's a rescue thriller, so of course it ends with a multicar pileup in which Wong comes to understand Ma's wisdom and skill. But underneath all of it is a thread about the widowed Ma considering immigrating to Canada with his young daughter. Ma's inner struggle is about giving up the job he loves - his back will prevent him from becoming an emergency medical technician in Canada - and leaving his hometown. Vital Sign is one part rescue drama and one part poem. It's a film that will resonate with those who have attended dozens of farewell parties in Hong Kong over the past few years.

Finally, in Four Trails, we have yet another love letter to Hong Kong - marked by serious physical "agony". Director Robin Lee's documentary about the notoriously taxing 298-kilometer Four Trails Ultra Challenge, founded by trail-runner Andre Blumberg in 2012, tracks the participants of the 2020 edition. For those unfamiliar with the race, trail runners are expected to cover the MacLehose (100km), Wilson (78km), Hong Kong (50km) and Lantau (70km) trails in 60 hours. No aids. No stages. No prizes. No stopping.

Four Trails is constructed like any classic sports drama, complete with favorites and rivalries (though the runners are far friendlier than in other, less physically challenging, sprint competitions), dropouts and dark horses, underpinned by a common quest to try to complete the challenge in under 50 hours. The film is a gorgeous travelogue and a breathtaking portrait of Hong Kong at its most naturally beautiful, a reminder to all who live here just how fortunate they are to be so close to such biodiversity.

The record set in the film is from 2020 and has since been beaten (by Japanese runner Tomokazu Ihara this year) but you'll be hard pressed not to gasp and cheer when the race's finishers - or "survivors", as the HK4TUC prefers to call them - reach that green mailbox in Mui Wo.

If you go

Time Still Turns the Pages

Written and directed by Nick Cheuk. Starring Lo Chun-yip, Sean Wong. 95 mins, IIB. Opens Nov 16.

Fly Me to the Moon

Written and directed by Sasha Chuk. Starring Angela Yuen and Wu Kang-ren. 111 mins.

Four Trails

Directed by Robin Lee. Featuring Stone Tsang and Jacky Leung. 101 mins.

Vital Sign

Written and directed by Cheuk Wan-chi. Starring Louis Koo and Yau Hawk-sau. 98 mins.