The Hong Kong films released in 2025 ranked from worst to best

There were, ultimately, no miracles for Hong Kong cinema in 2025.\nIt was a regrettable year that began with reports of further cinema closures and ended in collective mourning after the Tai Po fire tragedy, which in turn pushed back the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash (now renamed Avatar 3) – previously earmarked as a saviour for cinema operators this Christmas.\nThe forecast downturn in film investment has been keenly felt; even several “urban myth” titles – the label jokingly given to high-profile projects wrapped years ago but left indefinitely, and often inexplicably, on the shelf – were summoned to fill the increasingly sparse slate.\nWhile long-time followers of Hong Kong film were relieved to finally witness such fabled productions as Remember What I Forgot, Atonement, Sons of the Neon Night and Golden Boy on the big screen, the general public’s enthusiasm for local narratives appears to have cooled.\n\nNo releases in 2025 came remotely close to matching the record-breaking runs of A Guilty Conscience, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In and The Last Dance in the previous two years, all three of which surpassed the HK$100 million (US$12 million) mark.\nIndeed, this year’s numbers make for grim reading: fewer than 40 Hong Kong films opened in cinemas domestically, and the highest-grossing title, the animation Another World, was the only film to take in over HK$14 million at the local box office.\nTo illustrate the severity of the slump, this is the first time the local box office champion of any year has fallen below HK$20 million since Michael Hui Koon-man’s 1981 comedy blockbuster Security Unlimited, whose nearly HK$18 million box office was a record at the time.\nOne can only hope that Hong Kong cinema can rediscover its spark soon with the coming releases of the Lunar New Year comedy Night King, which reunites A Guilty Conscience director Jack Ng Wai-lun and star Dayo Wong Tze-wah, as well as the two much-anticipated “urban myth films” Back to the Past and Ciao UFO.\n\nOnce the glow of these nostalgic treasures fades, one wonders what new dreams will rise to fill the void.\nHere we rank, from worst to best, the Hong Kong films released in the past 12 months that we have reviewed.\n34. Ha Ha Ha Happy New Year\n\nA goofy Lunar New Year comedy that is awkwardly framed around a premise taken straight out of a dark psychological sci-fi thriller, Ha Ha Ha Happy New Year is scattershot, often terrible, and as confused about what it really is as its temporarily amnesiac protagonist.\nThis Hong Kong-Malaysia co-production looks to be a passion project for Philip Keung Ho-man, who is both its producer and leading man.\nUnfortunately, the film is so ill-served by its frivolous and tonally uneven screenplay that it barely registers as a nonsensical comedy, family melodrama or sci-fi suspense thriller – all of which it lays claim to being without ever coming close to succeeding. Read the full review\n33. Once Upon a Lie\n\nIrene Wan Pik-ha may have never come close to making the A-list of Hong Kong cinema, but the veteran actress could certainly never be faulted for not trying hard enough.\nHer latest film, Once Upon a Lie, is a scenic but somewhat creepy romance that sees Wan’s character throw herself into the arms of an unsuspecting much younger man whom she also happens to be catfishing online.\nThis superficial first feature by director and co-screenwriter Stanley Liu Ming-yin duly takes shape as a May-December romance, even though it stays unconvincing to the end. Overall, it feels like this is but a romantic fantasy willed into existence by Wan, the self-made leading lady. Read the full review\n32. Queen of Mahjong\n\nIn a match made in cinematic purgatory, Wong Jing’s exhaustive fascination with the gambling movie genre meets Patrick Kong Pak-leung’s brand of crass relationship drama in Queen of Mahjong.\nIt’s a rare opportunity for the two critically maligned filmmakers to share directing credits and their mutual embrace of sexism.\nIf you are a mahjong aficionado who also happens to be a decent human being, it might be very hard work to sit through all the rubbish in Queen of Mahjong to get to the few good bits. Read the full review\n31. Burning Blood\n\nAction thrillers set around drug cartels in Thailand’s Golden Triangle have been a popular recipe for Hong Kong-China co-productions in the past decade. Unfortunately, Burning Blood, Wilson Chin Kwok-wai’s final feature, is inferior to most of those films in every single department.\nIts screenplay is filled with clichés but devoid of character development, the action is forgettable, the CGI effects are atrocious, the overall direction is shoddy, and even its lead actors, Jordan Chan Siu-chun and Michael Tse Tin-wah, fail to display the charm and charisma required to carry the unconvincing story. Read the full review\n30. Measure in Love\n\nA high-concept fantasy romance set in a human world that has been physically split into two, Measure in Love asks its audience to succumb to the supposedly poetic swooning of its star-crossed lovers – only to make it a very tall order indeed with a criminally underdeveloped set-up and an unfathomably illogical plot.\nThis dystopian fairy tale imagines a “gravity wall” separating humanity across two sides of the ocean. Angela Yuen Lai-lam and Greg Hsu Kuang-han make an attractive screen couple and Man Lim-chung’s art design does a wonderful job of transporting the viewers into the wasteland of Evergreen.\nIt is just a shame Measure in Love makes so little effort to be logical that only the biggest fans of its two leads are likely to merrily sit through the resulting piece of lyrical nonsense. Read the full review\n29. Reborn\n\nIn Danny Pang Fat’s supernatural drama Reborn, Venus Wong Man-yik plays a young mother whose grief over her deceased son takes a bizarre form when she adopts a rag doll said to be possessed by the seven-year-old boy’s spirit, much to the chagrin of her husband (Eddie Cheung Siu-fai).\nWhile the toy is meant to serve as a surrogate, the film it inhabits proves a poor substitute for genuine horror. Curiously unwilling to plumb the psychological depths its premise hints at, Reborn (also titled Deadly Doll) offers instead a superficial portrait of loss that is neither scary nor unsettling. Read the full review\n28. True Love, for Once in My Life\n\nPicture this: you are a middle-aged Hong Kong woman married to your first love, with whom you share two young-adult children, and you learn that your husband has fallen for another woman during his long business trips in Guangzhou, China. What will you do?\nFor executive producer Sabrina Tse Shuk-fun, it is the perfect opportunity to turn her unfaithful partner into a perpetual reminder in her life.\nA self-financed autobiographical story, this film about a wife’s devotion to a cheating ex-husband is as awkward and self-indulgent as it was always going to be. It is curious to see True Love, for Once in My Life secure a commercial release while still being so raw around the edges. Read the full review\n27. A Gilded Game\n\nThe dehumanising tendency of corporate finance and the merciless nature of stock market speculation serve as the basis for much of the drama in A Gilded Game, a mildly diverting film presumably made for viewers who will not mind its predictably moralistic lecturing tone.\nThere is minimal subtlety to Herman Yau Lai-to’s tale of market manipulation – and he is not the slightest bit embarrassed by it.\nThe rise and fall of an innocent newcomer in a profession that proves alternately lucrative and deadly is a story often told, because it works. What A Gilded Game lacks, however, is at least a couple of engaging characters with believable motivations. Read the full review\n26. Road to Vendetta\n\nAs one of the most handsome faces to emerge from Hong Kong’s latest generation of film actors, Jeffrey Ngai Tsun-sang’s ascent to a leading role was inevitable. After playing several supporting parts, he is finally getting the chance.\nRoad to Vendetta, a violent, John Wick-inspired action thriller co-produced by Hong Kong and Japan, delivers as a pop idol vehicle with its ample visual style. For all the effort to make an anti-hero out of Ngai, however, the film’s screenplay appears multiple revisions away from telling a convincing story.\nRoad to Vendetta is a textbook case of style over substance. Read the full review\n25. My First of May\n\nIn My First of May, a former star athlete sidelined by an old career-ending injury must emerge from his despair to care for the disabled teenage daughter he has long ignored.\nThis gentle effort by James Hung Ling-ching (The Seventh Lie), the latest in a long line of Hong Kong films in the past decade to look to home for bittersweet sentiment, is a warm-hearted but clichéd family drama that makes little attempt to conceal its calculated moves to wring tears from its viewers.\nThe writer-director has his trio of leading performers – Aaron Kwok Fu-shing, Natalie Hsu En-yi and Nina Paw Hee-ching – to thank for keeping the paper-thin plot watchable. Read the full review\n24. Little Red Sweet\n\nIf you are looking for a new film that epitomises some of the trends prevalent in Hong Kong cinema and offers a taste of its current state, you cannot go too far wrong with Little Red Sweet.\nThis well-meaning family drama – the feature debut of director Vincent Chow Wing – tackles the familiar themes of generational conflict and urban redevelopment. It also features nostalgia for a home-grown food recipe and a passing thought about emigration.\nDespite a tender atmosphere that is embraced by its reliable cast, Little Red Sweet is a little stale in flavour and somewhat undercooked in its dramatic expression. Its peddling of wistful sentiments towards traditional Hong Kong culture is a calculated move, but one not fully followed through. Read the full review\n23. The Dumpling Queen\n\nThe inspiring true story behind the founding of an iconic Hong Kong food brand receives a largely uninspired retelling in The Dumpling Queen, a glossy if unabashedly melodramatic and run-of-the-mill biopic set primarily in the city in the late 1970s and 80s.\nThe film represents a rare return to Hong Kong-centric stories for veteran filmmaker Andrew Lau Wai-keung. It tells the rags-to-riches story of Wanchai Ferry founder Zang Jianhe (or Chong Kin-wo), played by Chinese comic actress Ma Li without even a hint of humour.\nLau’s version of events is so sanitised and agreeably sentimental that it sometimes feels like you are reading Wanchai Ferry’s brand story from a company brochure. Read the full review\n22. Good Game\n\nThe intense, jargon-filled world of professional esports might seem like a rather esoteric setting for a film. Yet in the comedy-drama Good Game, this competitive backdrop is used for something unexpectedly heartwarming: a simple underdog story about chasing dreams and overcoming obstacles.\nDirector Dickson Leung Kwok-fai’s follow-up to his goofy fantasy comedy Yum Investigation is defined less by its geeky premise than its undemanding nature and unabashedly life-affirming spirit – and is far more interested in the heart of its players than in winning at a video game.\nWhile the decision to shoot the gameplay scenes in live action is a refreshing way to convey the virtual experience, Good Game is otherwise too conceptually lightweight and artificially inspirational in its telling of the players’ personal stories, often leaning on sentimentality over substance. Read the full review\n21. Under Current\n\nUnder Current is a quintessential example of the Hong Kong crime film in its present, transitional state. While it paints a mostly watchable portrait of greed and corruption, the film’s story also happens to be thoroughly detached from reality.\nDirected by Alan Mak Siu-fai (Infernal Affairs) from a screenplay he co-scripted with Lam Fung, this thematic follow-up to Mak’s 2019 anti-corruption drama Integrity again takes a distinctly convoluted narrative to ponder the state of law enforcement, only to lose much of its conviction with preposterous twists and turns.\nUltimately, this most superficial account of justice and conscience is only leavened by its occasional action scenes and few stand-out supporting characters. Read the full review\n20. Remember What I Forgot\n\nThe eccentric behaviour of an excessively passionate Hong Kong film geek serves as the inspiration behind Remember What I Forgot, a sentimental comedy-drama set on the fringes of the city’s fabled entertainment industry.\nShot in 2017 but shelved until this year, this directorial debut from Keian Chui Tze-yiu – whose second film, Showbiz Spy, was released in 2021 – gently amuses with its observations on some rarely considered aspects of Hong Kong cinema, only to fumble the plot whenever it shifts its focus onto the personal life of its fictionalised protagonist. Read the full review\n19. Peg O’ My Heart\n\nNick Cheung Ka-fai is one of the most prominent active Hong Kong actors to have dabbled in directing, and in doing so has proved himself a talented visual stylist and world builder with a penchant for the dark and supernatural.\nBut the main reason Cheung is not known as a visionary filmmaker is that, despite all his stylish visuals, he is a clumsy storyteller who could not fashion a convincing narrative to save his life.\nFor much of its first half, Peg O’ My Heart intrigues with a barrage of sometimes spooky, often surreal images from its characters’ worst nightmares. For viewers who remain engaged enough to care about the central mystery, however, disappointment beckons. Read the full review\n18. Valley of the Shadow of Death\n\nCan a pastor forgive the young man who raped his daughter and indirectly caused her death? That is the premise of Valley of the Shadow of Death, a bold yet deeply flawed attempt to rethink Christianity’s advocacy of unconditional kindness.\nAustere in atmosphere and exceptionally narrow in narrative scope, this portrait of a spiritual void is thought-provoking enough at first. It then avoids the toughest question that it has posed: should a devout Christian be expected to forgive the enemy just because that is the way?\nThe film sets the stage beautifully for this age-old dilemma to be reconsidered, only to shy away from providing an answer and drown the question out with distracting sideshows. Read the full review\n17. Smashing Frank\n\nA quartet of rookie robbers take on the elite yet corrupt members of the older generation in Smashing Frank. This stylish but lightweight crime drama, however, is considerably more effective as a portrait of disaffected youth than as a parable on the growing chasm between young and old, and wealthy and poor in Hong Kong.\nWriter-director Trevor Choi Hong-ying’s ambivalent characterisation of the protagonists ultimately paints a more muddled picture of what his message truly is.\nViewers are far more likely to recall Hedwig Tam Sin-yin’s chain-smoking demeanour than anything her lead character has to say about the deeply entrenched generational conflict in contemporary Hong Kong. Read the full review\n16. Golden Boy\n\nA mildly entertaining boxing drama anchored by an eye-catching central performance, Golden Boy was first earmarked to kick-start the then-stuttering career of Louis Cheung Kai-chung – only to stay in post-production limbo for years.\nAs in most respectable boxing films that the city has recently produced, it features a past-his-prime boxer who finds redemption in the ring against much younger opponents, partly for the child that somehow ends up in his care.\nDirected by TVB veteran Joe Chan Wai-kwan with a focus on brash humour rather than subtle emotions, this hot-blooded but generic tale about perseverance works better as a record of Cheung’s sheer determination to reinvent himself than as the artistic breakout that he had hoped it would be. Read the full review\n15. TBA\nThis review will be added at a later date.\n14. Atonement\n\nRonald Cheng Chung-kei sets aside his laid-back comedic persona for an utterly grim role in this devastating Thailand-set action thriller, which sees the Hong Kong singer and actor buff up and play an anguished father on a deadly hunt for the evil locals who have taken his young daughter.\nA co-directing effort by Cheng and Mark Wu Yiu-fai – Cheng’s director and co-star in the 2015 buddy comedy Undercover Duet – Atonement’s clunky storytelling at times makes one wonder how a more sophisticated director could make a better film out of the same materials.\nUltimately, however, this powerful tale of a father who would do anything to avenge his daughter proves a thoroughly engaging watch in spite of its flaws. Read the full review\n13. Montages of a Modern Motherhood\n\nIt is all doom and gloom for the first-time mother at the heart of Montages of a Modern Motherhood, a meticulously observed and wonderfully acted drama, but one that may not connect with a wider audience because of its unusual and almost perverse resolve to paint new parenthood as a completely joyless experience.\nIt marks the much-anticipated return of writer-director Oliver Chan Siu-kuen, whose 2019 hit Still Human is regarded by many as one of the best first features by a Hong Kong filmmaker in the past decade. Yet the new film could not be more different in tone from her heartwarming debut.\nHedwig Tam’s nuanced performance is the best part of this realistic tale of maternity in a patriarchal Chinese society. It is a pity to see her effort diluted by the lack of interesting characters around her – as well as by Chan’s single-minded, borderline monotonous determination to arrive at the worst-case scenario, if only to prove her point. Read the full review\n12. The Remnant\n\nPhilip Keung finds just the right mix of menace and humanity in The Remnant, a gloomy drama with an obligatory sense of hope. He plays Tai, a former gang boss who, after a prison sentence for a deadly turf war, lives a quiet and solitary life in an old district as the owner of a traditional laundromat.\nThe film draws from a well of familiar traits: the nostalgic portrayal of triad brotherhood, the championing of chivalry, a commentary on generational conflict, and one of Hong Kong cinema’s most recurrent plotlines – the villainous efforts of property developers to evict tenants from their homes.\nThis feature debut by documentary filmmaker Kwan Man-hin is a largely compelling watch, its uneven pacing offset by a narrative that takes fairly surprising turns. Read the full review\n11. Someone Like Me\n\nEven with just two films under her belt, Tam Wai-ching may already be the closest thing to an emerging auteur that Hong Kong cinema has to offer – for better or for worse.\nUnlike her first film, In Your Dreams, Someone Like Me initially appears to align with the focus on social issues prevalent in recent Hong Kong films. However, this turns out to be the least of Tam’s concerns as her story unfolds; the film turns its awkward premise on its head and into an intimate character study.\nActing accolades may naturally follow Fish Liew Chi-yu in the coming awards season, for her challenging role as a woman with cerebral palsy who wishes to experience sex. Read the full review\n10. Behind the Shadows\n\nLouis Koo Tin-lok, the Hong Kong film industry’s most prolific star and arguably its most influential investor too, puts his signature blend of deadpan charisma and dramatic intensity to fine use in Behind the Shadows, the first Malaysian production of his company One Cool Film.\nA character-driven detective thriller that shows a fascination with cheating wives and jilted husbands, the film sees Koo play a hardbitten private investigator who, while running away from his own marriage, must track down a serial killer who seems to bear a grudge against unfaithful women.\nSurprisingly for a film whose first half is so well scripted, Behind the Shadows reveals the killer’s identity at its halfway point. After this, unfortunately, neither the motive of the perpetrator nor the ensuing cat-and-mouse game elevate the film beyond a conventional romp. Read the full review\n9. My Best Bet\n\nA woman with a severe gambling addiction marries a man with an over-the-top aversion to people who gamble in this Lunar New Year comedy from Andy Lo Yiu-fai.\nLo shows a gift for nonsensical humour after taking a more sophisticated approach to contemplating family ties in his first two films, Happiness and Once in a Blue Moon.\nThe writer-director’s big achievement here lies in the way he subverts his audience’s expectations about the “good” and “bad” guys as if he has always recognised how pointless it is to rehash the formula of traditional gambling comedies. Read the full review\n8. Hit N Fun\n\nA year after he earned much acclaim for the character-driven crime drama Rob N Roll, director Albert Mak Kai-kwong is back for another crack at the Lunar New Year box office with this unusually warm-hearted boxing drama.\nHit N Fun tells a bittersweet and at times almost philosophical story that again feels like it is striving to separate itself from all those Lunar New Year comedies. Its few moments of slapstick humour aside, this is a largely sombre tale in which characters learn to accept their lot.\nThe film is not the hot-blooded sports drama about overcoming the odds that viewers might have expected, but there is no denying this is a product of its time – and a rather engaging one at that. Read the full review\n7. Fight for Tomorrow\n\nA potentially corny tale involving old-fashioned gangland heroics and an ex-convict father’s belated redemption is told with a great deal of nuance and heart in Fight for Tomorrow, a refreshingly uplifting crime drama by Hong Kong writer-director Chan Tai-lee (Tomorrow is Another Day).\nIn a rare leading role that marks his best performance in years, veteran actor Patrick Tam Yiu-man leaves a vivid impression as Shek Sam-long, a former mob boss who was once known for his ferocious attitude, but has since lost both his marriage and fortune after several years in prison.\nChan’s endeavour to weave in the pandemic – it was written in 2019 and shot in late 2022 – and pitch Sam-long’s struggles to hold on to his former glory as a parable for Hong Kong is flawed but ultimately rewarding. Read the full review\n6. Pass and Goal\n\nThe prospect of Pass and Goal is not immediately appealing. A football-themed comedy with an old-fashioned premise about staying true to oneself, it features a modest cast that includes several inexperienced child actors and is directed by the filmmaker behind abysmal comedies like Lucky Fat Man (2017) and Love Detective (2015).\nYet, to echo a key message from Jil Wong Pak-kei’s latest film, a match is seldom won or lost in the first half. And so it proves here, as this feel-good, family-friendly offering defies expectations with its infectious positivity and cheeky humour.\nAn inspirational underdog story that makes no attempt to hide its melodramatic calculations, Pass and Goal relies on the natural chemistry of its ensemble cast and screenwriter Ambrose Kwok Yat-choi’s funny dialogue to deliver a thoroughly enjoyable time for all the family. Read the full review\n5. Vital Signs\n\nIn Vital Signs, the converging career paths of two ambulance paramedics at very different stages in their lives provide the unusual backdrop for a soul-searching drama rooted in today’s Hong Kong, with characters pondering the essence of home as they reluctantly face a wave of emigration from the city.\nThe fourth feature by writer-director Cheuk Wan-chi and her first since the 2014 comedy Temporary Family, Vital Signs comes across as a notably more mature work by the multi-hyphenate who is also known as a stand-up comedian – even if its themes are not always as tightly woven as they could be.\nViewers expecting an exciting rescue drama might be underwhelmed by the dearth of action in Vital Signs. Whatever her film lacks in genre thrills, Cheuk more than makes up for with sensitive character drama. Read the full review\n4. She’s Got No Name\n\nAn unsolved real-life murder in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1945 provides the backdrop for a vicious battle of the sexes in She’s Got No Name. Peter Chan Ho-sun’s captivating period drama proves both morally ambiguous and thematically diffuse – though perhaps not entirely by its filmmakers’ design.\nThis first half of a two-part film follows Zhang Ziyi’s unnamed killer in the brief period between her arrest for the murder and dismemberment of her husband (Wang Chuanjun) and her dramatic change in fortune right at the end of World War II.\nWith the coming part two, whether Chan can turn this thrilling, if clichéd, drama about archaic patriarchal order into a more resounding whole remains to be seen. Read the full review\n3. Sons of the Neon Night\n\nFew Hong Kong films have arrived with as much anticipation as Juno Mak Chun-lung’s Sons of the Neon Night, a hyper-stylised crime thriller with a reported HK$400 million (US$51.4 million) budget and an unusually star-studded cast.\nTo focus on the convoluted, nearly kaleidoscopic story – set in an alternate-reality Hong Kong of 1994 – and its many loose ends would be to miss the pleasures of this ambitious effort, which oozes dark humour in its often cynical dialogue and boasts spectacular production design that renders every location a little surreal.\nThis is the work of an artist fully committed to the dark, lawless world he has created – a rarity in today’s Hong Kong cinema.\nUltimately, Sons of the Neon Night is best viewed not as a coherent narrative where closure is a goal, but as the uncompromisingly vivid fever dream of a crime film buff with a great eye for visual design. Read the full review\n2. Another World\n\nHong Kong filmmakers rarely get as philosophical about the human condition as they do in the animated feature Another World, which contemplates the limits of goodness in the face of great evil, set against a vibrant action fantasy backdrop.\nAdapted from Naka Saijo’s novel Sennenki: Thousand-Year Journey of an Oni with both narrative flair and visual potency, this impressive effort by first-time director Tommy Ng Kai-chung and writer-producer Polly Yeung Po-man is an anomaly in more ways than one.\nAlthough the film’s focus on reincarnation appears to align it with Eastern religions, Another World’s belief in kindness renders it a universally engaging watch.\nThe film is bound to be seen as a milestone for the city’s animation industry – perhaps ironically, given that there is very little on screen to indicate its Hong Kong roots. Read the full review\n1. The Way We Talk\n\nIn his six films to date, Hong Kong writer-director Adam Wong Sau-ping has repeatedly revealed a soft spot for protagonists who are trying to understand themselves and find their place in the world.\nBut he has not come close to matching the immersive sense of soul-searching he evokes in The Way We Talk. This deeply humane drama about a trio of young deaf people is Wong’s best film yet by some distance.\nA beautifully engrossing tale of self-discovery set around a complex topic of contention, the film makes a valiant effort to simulate the experience of hearing loss, incorporating both meticulous sound design and long, wordless sequences that transcend the formula of mainstream filmmaking.\nThe unassuming Chung Suet-ying impresses not just with her sensitive performance but also her convincing deaf accent and eloquence in sign language. Read the full review\nFor our ranking of the Hong Kong films released in 2024, read here.\nWant more articles like this? 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