A village fights back with compost and community meetings—Hong Kong's quietest revolution.
This is a film about Choi Yuen Village, documenting villagers’ lives in the summer and autumn of 2009. Suddenly, weekly meetings, guided tours, protests, and ambiguous government consultations entered their routines. They had to recount their personal histories and the meaning of life. The common belief that protests were only about money began to loosen. The word "agriculture" reemerged for Hongkongers. The timeline depicted in the film leads up to the peak of the anti-high-speed rail protests around the Legislative Council. In the end, the railway was decided to build. In spring and summer 2010, villagers searched for land and negotiated with the government to rebuild their homes and lifestyle, valuing community, and coexistence with nature. What sustains their deep connection to land and life?
Direction
Patient observation lets resistance breathe without sensationalism.
Editing
Seasonal structure mirrors the village's agricultural rhythm.
Production
Embedded access captures meetings others would stage or miss.
Director
Benny Chan Yin Kai
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Choi Yuen Village's struggle helped galvanize Hong Kong's broader anti-development movement, influencing the 2014 Umbrella Movement's spatial tactics.
Director Benny Chan spent months living with villagers; the film's intimacy comes from being trusted as neighbor, not journalist. The 'raging' of the title is ironic—this is rage made patient, rooted, and methodical.
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