Revolution of Our Times
Director: Kiwi Chow
Year: 2012
Rating: 8.5
This one hurt. It is 150 minutes long and I had
to watch it in 30-minute increments and take a break. If you have any affection
for Hong Kong beyond the movies; for the city, for the people, for what it
used to be, this documentary is a kick in the stomach, a hard slap in the
face. I have visited Hong Kong many times over the past 30 years - sometimes
for work, sometimes just because I wanted to. I came to care about the city.
Love walking around. Staying in Kowloon on Nathan Road. I am conflicted
as to whether I should go back. A part of me wants to but a part feels like
I should not in even the smallest way support the government. A friend went
to visit a few months back - we had gone together before covid a number of
times - but this time I begged off. I wasn't ready for it. This film will
make you proud of the people but hate the police and the government. It is
a remarkable video essay on the protests and retaliation that took place
in 2019 over the passing of the Extradition Bill.
The Mainland government had been chipping
away at Hong Kong's freedoms for a few years after breaking their word not
to interfere for 50-years. There had been protests in Hong Kong previously
in 2014 that were termed the Umbrella Movement when the Mainland began interfering
in the city elections by screening candidates. This time the Extradition
Bill would allow China to bring to the Mainland anyone they deemed to have
broken any security law or for any other reason. They had already kidnapped
a few people and taken them to the Mainland for trial. The inevitable lesson
is that Authoritarian states will act always in an authoritarian manner.
Human rights be damned. Election rights be damned. And they found enough
toadies, cowards, self-promoters and people with a financial interest in
Hong Kong to go along. Some of them our favorite film stars. Fuck you Jackie
Chan. People yearning for an authoritarian government in some nations around
the world never learn. It never ends well.
Protests began almost immediately against
the bill - growing larger and larger - one estimated at 2 million people.
The police broke up the crowds often using brutal tactics - beatings, rubber
bullets, tear gas, water hoses - and on one occasion making a deal with the
triads to send the triads in to beat people as the police looked on and did
nothing. The protestors organized, adapted, grew a community, fought back
with Molotov cocktails. Hong Kong came to a standstill. Universities were
occupied. Streets blocked. The majority of the protestors were high school
and university students but there was a cross-section of citizens. One of
my favorites was a group of elderly gentlemen who were out to protect the
young against the police. Grandpa Chan has since been arrested. Who has more
to lose than the young. Their courage is astonishing. Truly. The police who
had been so respected in Hong Kong are demonic. Now hated. Another lesson
is that people in power, whether army or police tend to go along with authoritarian
rule. Some quit but many who had been neighborhood cops were now kicking
and stomping on children.
All of this is captured on video in this
film. Up close and personal. In searing detail. The chants of This Is the
Revolution of Our Times, the protestors strategy (be water), their conversations,
interviews with many of them after this was over, their pain, their tears
from the gas, some died, many were injured and thousands arrested.
It is unrelenting and painful. I teared up a few times myself. Things have
sadly only gotten worse. Many of those in this film have been arrested -
others have fled the city. The National Security Law was passed making pretty
much anything that is perceived as a protest no matter how small - a song.
a salute, a children's book - illegal.
There are people still being sentenced -
just the other day a number were including one of the main film interviewees
(Gwyneth Ho) for working on an election primary. Authoritarian governments
terrorize, have examples, show no leniency or mercy. Just the other day it
came out that China had spies in England that were tracking down dissenters
from Hong Kong. They are monsters. Making this film was an act of courage
as well as were the people who took this video with all the chaos and violence
going on around them. People's faces are blurred out or masked. The credits
are made up. You have to ask yourself one simple question - if I was in Hong
Kong at the time, what would I have done.