Anita

Official Selection, 2021 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
Closing Film, 2021 Busan International Film Festival
Audience Award, Osaka Asian Film Festival

The meteoric rise of Anita Mui is the stuff of legends. From her beginnings doing nightclubs with her sister, to the singing contest that made her a star, to the outfits, videos, and ballads that coronated her the queen of Cantopop and the world’s third biggest film industry, Anita Mui was called the “Madonna of Hong Kong,” but really she was Hong Kong: its underdog spirit, and its memory that refuses to fade gently into the starry night.

Featuring newcomer Louise Wong in the titular role, ANITA follows the singer across four decades and four countries, recreating the iconic set of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge and revisiting the haute couture stylings of Mui brand mastermind Eddie Lau. The key figure of Anita’s relationships, though, is her most unforgettable collaborator and best friend: singer-actor Leslie Cheung. Treating the biopic as celebrity séance, director Longman Leung is less interested in the motivations than the mystique, the pixie dust and exhaust fumes of superstardom, the run-ins with the illustrious and infamous. As much as this is a biopic of Anita Mui, it’s also a resurrection of Hong Kong entertainment’s golden ‘80s and ‘90s, when Asia sang in Cantonese and the biggest of stars hailed Hong Kong as home.

—Brian Hu

Co-Presented by Alliance of Chinese Americans, Chinese School of San Diego, UCSD Asians & Pacific Islanders for the Arts and Humanities, and House of China