A group of four telecommunications employees at Pegasus Broadband, headlined by Francis Ng in his most charming role in recent memory, begrudgingly join the company dragon boat team hoping such a pledge of loyalty will keep them immune from encroaching layoffs. Under the tutelage of the pretty young no-nonsense coach, Dorothy they learn not just how to really race, but also to confront their own impending mid-life crises. From nagging families and infidelity to unrequited love and elusive Andy Lau concert tickets, myriad demons are exorcised as our bungling protagonists overcome the odds and take charge in this life-affirming comedy-drama.
Caridad Amaran and Georgina Wong learned the art of Cantonese opera in 1930s Havana. Caridad's mentor was her foster father, Julian Fong, who immigrated to Cuba in the 1920s after his family forbade him performing opera. Georgina's father was a famous tailor in Chinatown, who encouraged her to learn Kungfu and lion dance. Although both were the single children, they formed a sisterhood on stage. Throughout the 1940s, Caridad toured cities all over Cuba with Chinese communities, as one of the leading actresses of the opera troupe. Georgina quit opera to attend college, but her study was interrupted by Castro's 1959 revolution and her required military service. Eventually, she went on to become a diplomat. After retirement and well into their sixties, the two sisters are trying to perform Cantonese opera again. Will they find a stage? Will they find an audience? Written by Louisa Wei.
Cheng Cong, the matriarch of a wealthy Shanghainese family in Hong Kong, is financing the production of a new play in Hong Kong's venerable City Hall. The play is Two Sisters, a retro melodrama in the vein of Tennessee Williams, written and directed by the trans woman Ouyang An. As the two sisters of the title, the production will star Yuan Xiuling (a stage veteran making a comeback five years after retiring from the theatre, and one year after the death of her faithless husband Cheng Jun - who was Cheng Cong's younger brother) and He Yuwen (a smart movie actress making her stage debut, who happens to have nursed a career-long rivalry with her co-star). The production is scheduled to have its first night in one week's time. The run-up to the first night is eventful. Yuan Xiuling has been left financially embarrassed by her late husband's apparent failure to provide for her, and worries where she will live and how she will pay for her son Yuan's boarding-school fees in England. She has.
Four young lives were changed forever when they become involved in the 1967 Hong Kong Leftist Riot; half a century later, another four face similar challenges amidst the Mainland-Hong Kong conflict.