The ‘invisible’ in The Way We Are (2008, Hong Kong): The scriptwriter, the script, the everyday and the audience

By Ian Fong¹
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¹ The University of Hong Kong
Source: Shaping Global Cultures through Screenwriting , pp 184-201
Publication Date: September 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951590_15
Language: English
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This chapter discusses Ann Hui’s The Way We Are (2008) . It depicts two women’s lives in a single day, which represents the compression of their whole lives. Is this ‘the way women are’? Its Chinese title means that they live day and night in Tin Shui Wai, a remote district in Hong Kong. In Chinese, the title literally means a place embraced, ‘Wai’, by heaven, ‘Tin’ and water, ‘Shui’. It is predominantly a lower-class district with public housing estates. The film criticizes how ordinary women are ‘imprisoned’ by the poor urban planning of Hong Kong. It ends at the end of an ordinary day. Its symbolic richness is projected in the mind gradually after seeing it, and it becomes richer after each rereading. It invites us to reread, to lay down our gaze and to read the everyday. The film was made with a low budget and excluded from mainstream cinema. It is about women and is a ‘woman’. How do we read the survival of an ‘ordinary’ film made by an ‘ordinary’ local female filmmaker on an ‘ordinary’ woman in an ‘ordinary’ neighbourhood? It asks the question: If ‘ordinariness’ fades out in Hong Kong, what will women be?

Keywords: Ann Hui ; Chinese screenwriting ; women’s domestic sphere

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The ‘invisible’ in The Way We Are (2008, Hong Kong): The scriptwriter, the script, the everyday and the audience

Intellect , 184 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951590_15

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References

Asia Sentinel (2007), ‘Tin Shui Wai: City of sadness’, 15 December, https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/tin-shui-wai-city-of-sadness#:~:text=Tin%20Shui%20Wai%20has%20been,her%20two%20children%20in%20November. Accessed 12 April 2023.
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Night and Fog (Tin shui wai dik ye yu mo) (2009), King-wai Cheung, Alex Law (wrs), Ann Hui (director). Hong Kong: Class Limited; Mega-Vision Pictures.
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Szeto, Mirana M. (2010), ‘Ann Hui at the margin of mainstream Hong Kong cinema’, in E. M. K. Cheung, G. Marchetti and T. See-Kam (eds), Hong Kong Screenscapes: From the New Wave to the Digital Frontier, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 51–66.
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The Way We Are (2008), Lou Shiu-Wa (writer), Ann Hui (director), Hong Kong: Class Limited; Mega-Vision Pictures.
White, P. (2015), Women’s Cinema, World Cinema, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wong, Cheuk-naam and Yuet-wah, Ng (eds) (2018), Ann Hui: Film of Forty, Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (in Chinese).
Woolf, V. (1925), Mrs Dalloway, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Xiao, Qian (1986), ‘The memories of Beijing city in miscellany’ 北京城雜憶, in The Memories of Beijing City in Miscellany, Beijing: People’s Daily Press, pp. 16–52 (in Chinese).
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References

Asia Sentinel (2007), ‘Tin Shui Wai: City of sadness’, 15 December, https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/tin-shui-wai-city-of-sadness#:~:text=Tin%20Shui%20Wai%20has%20been,her%20two%20children%20in%20November. Accessed 12 April 2023.
[Google Scholar]
Darthmike (2008), ‘The Way We Are’, Darth Mike Movie Record, 17 August, https://darthmikemovie.blogspot.com/2008/08/way-we-are.html. Accessed 12 April 2023 (in Chinese).
Headmaster, in Septet: The Story of Hong Kong (2020), Lou Shiu-Wa (writer), Ann Hui (director), Hong Kong: Milky Way Image Company.
Hong Kong Screenwriters’ Guild (2022), ‘Screenwriter of Headmaster in Septet: Lou Shiu-wa’ 《七人樂隊》之《校長》編劇–呂筱華, Facebook, 28 July, https://www.facebook.com/hkswg. Accessed 13 November 2022.
Hong Kong Women Filmmakers (2020), ‘Hong Kong Women Filmmakers: Sex, Politics and Cinema Aesthetics, 1997 to 2020’, https://hkwomenfilmmakers.wordpress.com/about-us. Accessed 9 November 2022.
Hua ren bai ke 華人百科 (‘The Encyclopedia of the Chinese’) (n.d.), ‘呂筱華’ (‘Lou Shiu-wa’), https://www.itsfun.com.tw/%E5%91%82%E7%AD%B1%E8%8F%AF/wiki-8566405-9489284. Accessed 13 November 2022 (in Chinese).
Hui, A. (2009), ‘Ann Hui on The Way We Are’ 許鞍華説天水圍的日與夜, in Kwong Po-wai 鄺保威 (ed.), Ann Hui on Ann Hui 許鞍華說許鞍華, 2nd ed., Hong Kong: Evergrowing, pp. 155–63 (in Chinese).
[Google Scholar]
Hui, A. (2013), ‘Ann Hui’s Talk with Wen Tien-Hsiang’, in 50 Year of Golden Horse Master Class, Taipei, 20 November, https://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/aboutus/history?sc=8&search_year=2013&ins=46&r=en. Accessed 9 November 2022.
Hui, A. (2018), ‘Interview with Ann Hui’ 許鞍華, in Wong Cheuk-naam 卓男 and Ng Yuet-wah 吳月華 (eds), Ann Hui: Film of Forty 許鞍華。電影四十, Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, pp. 160–85 (in Chinese).
[Google Scholar]
Hui, A. and Chua, L. (1991), ‘Ann Hui Interview’, Bomb, 36, pp. 28–30.
[Google Scholar]
Koolhaas, R. and Mau, B. (1998), ‘The generic city’, in J. Sigler (ed.), Small, Medium, Large, Extra-large: Office for Metropolitan Architecture, New York: Monacelli Press, pp. 1239–64.
[Google Scholar]
Kwong, Po-wai 鄺保威 (ed.) (2009), ‘Epilogue,’ in Ann Hui on Ann Hui 許鞍華說許鞍華, 2nd ed., Hong Kong: Evergrowing, pp. 418–19 (in Chinese).
[Google Scholar]
Lam, Chi-kin (2018), ‘Let each role develop to its full potential’ 讓每個崗位各展所長, in C.-n. Wong and Y.-w. Ng (eds), Ann Hui: Film of Forty, Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, pp. 254–65 (in Chinese).
[Google Scholar]
Lefebvre, H. (1991), The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith, Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Lefebvre, H. (2004), Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life (trans. S. Elden and G. Moore), London: Continuum.
Li, Pang (2020), ‘Ann Hui, a director who captures ordinary women’s lives’, China.org.cn, 15 April, http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2010-04/15/content_19820089.htm. Accessed 9 November 2022.
[Google Scholar]
Lou, Shiu-wa 呂筱華 (2000), Ordinary Family 普通人家, screenplay, Hong Kong: Class Limited; Mega-Vision Pictures (in Chinese).
Lou, Shiu-wa 呂筱華 (2007), Ordinary Family 普通人家, screenplay (revised), Hong Kong: Class Limited; Mega-Vision Pictures (in Chinese).
Margulies, I. (2009), ‘A matter of time’, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, DVD extras, Irvington, NY: Criterion Collection.
[Google Scholar]
Keep Rolling (2020), Lim-chung Man (director), Hong Kong: 6:00am Pictures.
Land of Plenty (2004), Wim Wenders, Scott Derrickson, Michael Meredith (wrs), Wim Wenders (director), United States: Emotion Pictures.
McCreadie, M. (2006), Women Screenwriters Today: Their Lives and Words, Westport, CT: Praeger.
Night and Fog (Tin shui wai dik ye yu mo) (2009), King-wai Cheung, Alex Law (wrs), Ann Hui (director). Hong Kong: Class Limited; Mega-Vision Pictures.
Perec, Georges (2010), An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (trans. Marc Lowenthal), Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan (2012), ‘Chantal Akerman: The Integrity of Exile and the Everyday’, Lola, 2, http://lolajournal.com/2/integrity_exile.html. Accessed 9 November 2022.
[Google Scholar]
Smoke (1995), Paul Auster (writer), Wayne Wang (director) United States: Miramax.
Summer Snow (1994), Man-Keung Chan (writer), Ann Hui (director), Hong Kong: Class; Golden Harvest Company; Harvest Crown.
Szeto, Mirana M. (2010), ‘Ann Hui at the margin of mainstream Hong Kong cinema’, in E. M. K. Cheung, G. Marchetti and T. See-Kam (eds), Hong Kong Screenscapes: From the New Wave to the Digital Frontier, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 51–66.
[Google Scholar]
The Way We Are (2008), Lou Shiu-Wa (writer), Ann Hui (director), Hong Kong: Class Limited; Mega-Vision Pictures.
White, P. (2015), Women’s Cinema, World Cinema, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wong, Cheuk-naam and Yuet-wah, Ng (eds) (2018), Ann Hui: Film of Forty, Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (in Chinese).
Woolf, V. (1925), Mrs Dalloway, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Xiao, Qian (1986), ‘The memories of Beijing city in miscellany’ 北京城雜憶, in The Memories of Beijing City in Miscellany, Beijing: People’s Daily Press, pp. 16–52 (in Chinese).
[Google Scholar]
Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui (1999), ‘Introduction’, in M. M.-h. (ed.), Spaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1–33.
[Google Scholar]
Zavattini, C. (1966), ‘Some ideas on the cinema’, in R. D. MacCann (ed.), Film: A Montage of Theories, New York: Dutton, pp. 216–28.
[Google Scholar]

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