Honorary University Fellows
Alumnus Mr Alexander Kai Yui Law has built a reputation as a talented writer, film director and producer whose impressive career has seen him reach the highest echelons of the Hong Kong film industry. An HKU graduate with one of the highest profiles in the film world today, he remains committed to his alma mater and Hong Kong.
Mr Law has received global recognition for his work at, inter alia, the Hong Kong Films Awards, the Golden Horse Awards, Chicago International Film Festival, the Asia-Pacific Film Festival.
Most recently, he won the Crystal Bear for Best Film at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival for the film Echoes of the Rainbow, which also garnered him the Best Screenplay Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. The film is set in 1960s Hong Kong and is based on Law’s childhood. It generated such public interest that its location, Wing Lee Street, was saved from demolition, with the Government deciding to preserve the tenements on the street.
Law is an vocal advocate for the Hong Kong film industry and has served as Vice-President of the Hong Kong Film Directors’ Guild, as well as been a guest lecturer at Baptist University’s Academy of Film.
Since graduating with a BA in Chinese and English Studies & Comparative Literature from HKU in 1976, he has worked on many films with fellow alumna, Ms Mabel Cheung, a creative partnership that has led to numerous awards and honours.
Their movies had been Gala Premieres for fundraising for HKU − including The Soong Sisters in 1997 and City of Glass in 1998, and for the 25th Anniversary of the Class of ’75 Beijing Rocks in 2001.
Mr Law has for many years shared his experience and insights with our students as an HKU Mentor, and remains an inspiration for young filmmakers throughout Hong Kong.
Citation delivered by Professor Kam LOUIE, Dean of Arts
“What matters in life is not what happens to you, but what you remember and how you remember it."
Mr Pro-Chancellor, I wish to introduce Mr Alexander LAW Kai Yui with this quote from the Columbian Nobel Laureate in Literature, Gabriel García Márquez, for several reasons.
The first, and perhaps the most immediate one, is that García Márquez is one of Mr Law’s favourite authors.
But this quote – with its reference to memory, and the power that the act of remembering commands – is also a particularly fitting lens with which to look at Mr Law’s accomplishments.
Mr Law is an alumnus of this University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese and English Studies & Comparative Literature in 1976.
Since then, he has built a reputation as a talented screenwriter, film director and producer whose impressive career has seen him reach the highest echelons of the Hong Kong film industry.
Mr Law has received global recognition for his work at, inter alia, the Hong Kong Film Awards, the Golden Horse Awards, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Asia-Pacific Film Festival.
Most recently, he won the Crystal Bear for Best Film at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival, with the film Echoes of the Rainbow 歲月神偷 (a magical thief who can steal time), for which he also received the Best Screenplay Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
It is perhaps this film which most vividly illustrates the relevance of García Márquez’s quote to Mr Law’s work.
Echoes of the Rainbow is set in 1960s Hong Kong, and follows the ups and downs of a working class family. Throughout, there are echoes and references to Mr Law’s own childhood, and in particular, the tragedy that takes the life of the eldest son in the family.
Mr Law willingly admits that his own late elder brother provided the basis for this character: the pride of the family, enrolled at the prestigious Diocesan Boys\\\' School, and tragically taken from them too early in life.
The film has been praised for evoking a past era nostalgically, sentimentally, but never melodramatically.
It is an intelligent, thoughtful and engaging depiction of a specific time and place. But it is also a courageous and imaginative exploration of Mr Law’s own memories, at once deeply personal, but also made very public.
Echoes of the Rainbow generated such public interest that its shooting location, Wing Lee Street (which is about a twenty-minute walk from this campus), was saved from demolition by the Government.
Mr Law is a great advocate of the Hong Kong film industry, and has served as Vice-President of the Hong Kong Film Directors’ Guild, and guest lecturer at the Baptist University Academy of Film.
He has also worked on many films with fellow alumna, Ms Mabel Cheung – a creative partnership that has led to numerous awards and honours.
Their movies have been Gala Premieres for HKU fundraising - including The Soong Sisters 宋家皇朝 in 1997, City of Glass 玻璃之城 in 1998, and for the 25th Anniversary of the Class of ’75, Beijing Rocks 北京樂與路 in 2001.
Mr Law remains committed to his alma mater. He has for many years shared his experience and insights with our students as an HKU Mentor, and remains an inspiration for young filmmakers throughout Hong Kong.
It gives me great pleasure, Mr Pro-Chancellor, to present Mr Alexander LAW Kai Yui for the Honorary University Fellowship, in recognition of his contributions to Hong Kong and academia.