{ "id": "ep48j4y1yq", "slug": "hand-rolled-cigarette", "title": "Hand Rolled Cigarette", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films", "label": "Film noir and neo-noir films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films.yr-1977-2022", "label": "Released 1977 to 2022", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films.yr-1977-2022" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "China · 2001 to 2020: Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "path": [ { "id": "geo.chn", "label": "China", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2001", "label": "China · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Hand Rolled Cigarette (手捲煙, Sau Gyun Jin) is a 2020 Hong Kong crime film and Chan Kin-long's directorial debut, starring Gordon Lam and Bipin Karma; an allegory of post-2019 Hong Kong identity set at Chungking Mansions, it won Best New Director at the 40th Hong Kong Film Awards.", "snippet": "Hand Rolled Cigarette (手捲煙, Sau Gyun Jin) is a 2020 Hong Kong crime film and Chan Kin-long's directorial debut, starring Gordon Lam and Bipin Karma; an allegory of post-2019 Hong Kong identity set at Chungking Mansions, it won Best New Director at the 40th Hong Kong Film Awards.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films.yr-1977-2022", "markdown": "# Hand Rolled Cigarette\n\n**Hand Rolled Cigarette** (*手卷烟*, Sau Gyun Jin) is a 2020 Hong Kong crime film directed by Chan Kin-long (陈健朗) in his feature directorial debut, starring Gordon Lam Ka-tung as a retired colonial-era soldier and Bipin Karma as a South Asian drug runner whose lives collide at [Chungking Mansions](https://www.edgepedia.org/chungking-mansions)[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538) • [2](https://www1.nziff.co.nz/2021/archive/hand-rolled-cigarette/). Supported by the Hong Kong government's First Feature Film Initiative (FFFI), it was made for HK$3.2 million (about US$400,000), earned more than double that at the local box office, and received seven nominations at both the Golden Horse Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards, with Chan winning Best New Director at the 40th Hong Kong Film Awards[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538). After the 2019 protests, significant sections of the local audience read it as a political allegory of Hong Kong identity, and the director himself has claimed the film is intentionally allegorical[3](https://research.cuhk.edu.hk/en/publications/chungking-jianghu-imagining-a-post-2019-hong-kong-identity-in-the/).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Original title | 手卷烟 (Sau Gyun Jin); Hong Kong, 2020, Cantonese, 101 minutes, DCP, color[4](https://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/film/programme/films/detail/2816) |\n| Director / writers | Chan Kin-long, directing debut; screenplay by Ryan Ling and Chan Kin-long[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538) • [5](https://hknt.hkiff.org.hk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette) |\n| Leads | Gordon Lam Ka-tung as Chiu, an ex-soldier of the British army's Hong Kong Military Service Corps; Bipin Karma as Mani, a small-time South Asian drug dealer[2](https://www1.nziff.co.nz/2021/archive/hand-rolled-cigarette/) • [5](https://hknt.hkiff.org.hk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette) |\n| Production | Winner of the 4th First Feature Film Initiative; budget HK$3.2 million (ca. US$400,000); producer Lawrence Ah Mon (Lawrence Lau)[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538) • [6](https://www.hkaff.asia/upload/finder/file/booklet/2020.pdf?v22=) |\n| Awards | Seven Golden Horse nominations (including Best Narrative Feature and Best New Director); seven Hong Kong Film Award nominations, with one win, Best New Director at the 40th HKFA[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538) • [7](https://www.scm.cityu.edu.hk/-/media/project/cityuhk/academic/scm/newsletters/pdf/20221012-issue10.pdf?rev=99869924c4d04ee2a0d77d8b3958a0f9) |\n| Festival status | Opening film of the 2020 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival; closing film of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival[6](https://www.hkaff.asia/upload/finder/file/booklet/2020.pdf?v22=) • [8](https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette/) |\n| Release | Hong Kong theatrical release 17 June 2021[9](https://anz.newonnetflix.info/info/81552053) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and characters\n\nChiu (Gordon Lam Ka-tung) served in the Hong Kong Military Service Corps of the British army and was left behind when Britain failed to provide him a way out before the colony was returned to China in 1997. He now makes a meager living working odd jobs for the triads, arranging a smuggling deal for his boss Tai (Ben Yuen) and running cons for extra cash[2](https://www1.nziff.co.nz/2021/archive/hand-rolled-cigarette/) • [5](https://hknt.hkiff.org.hk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette). Mani (Bipin Karma), a Hong Kong-born South Asian drug runner, gets into serious trouble when his cousin steals a drug shipment; fleeing the triads, he takes refuge in Chiu's flat with a stolen bag of dope, and Chiu cuts a deal in return for letting him stay[5](https://hknt.hkiff.org.hk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette) • [2](https://www1.nziff.co.nz/2021/archive/hand-rolled-cigarette/).\n\nThe two men, despite their cultural and racial differences, see their similarities as remnants of the city's colonial past and forge a close friendship as their lives come under threat, since both have double-crossed the same kingpin[2](https://www1.nziff.co.nz/2021/archive/hand-rolled-cigarette/) • [10](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/hand-rolled-cigarette/). Mani is forced into drug-running by a lack of job prospects despite holding a Hong Kong ID, and aspires to give his younger brother Mansu a path to a respectable middle-class life through education[10](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/hand-rolled-cigarette/) • [1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538). The supporting cast includes Michael Ning, Ben Yuen, Tai Bo, Chin Siu-ho, Tony Ho, and To Yin-gor[11](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/hand-rolled-cigarette-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdaxnzq0).\n\n## Production and background\n\n**A debut under the FFI.** Chan Kin-long, an actor who graduated from City University of Hong Kong's School of Creative Media and was discovered by Fruit Chan for *The Midnight After* (2014), developed the film under the First Feature Film Initiative, a Hong Kong government scheme whose 4th edition his project won[5](https://hknt.hkiff.org.hk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette) • [6](https://www.hkaff.asia/upload/finder/file/booklet/2020.pdf?v22=). Produced by Lawrence Ah Mon, the director of late-1980s and early-1990s Hong Kong classics such as *Gangs* and *The Queen of Temple Street*, and edited under the supervision of William Chang, a longtime [Wong Kar-wai](https://www.edgepedia.org/wong-kar-wai) collaborator, the film is steeped in the golden age of Hong Kong crime cinema[12](https://www.thechinesecinema.com/hand-rolled-cigarette-chan-kin-long-2020/). It was one of the very few films shot in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538).\n\n## Allegorical reading and reception\n\n**A post-2019 allegory.** In the wake of the 2019-2020 protests and the 2020 National Security Law, a burst of genre filmmaking revitalized Hong Kong cinema's tradition of allegorically commenting on identity and politics, and *Hand Rolled Cigarette*, alongside *The Way We Keep Dancing* (2020) and *Drifting* (2021), was actively read as a political allegory by significant sections of the local audience[3](https://research.cuhk.edu.hk/en/publications/chungking-jianghu-imagining-a-post-2019-hong-kong-identity-in-the/). The scholar Kristof Van Den Troost, of the Centre for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, describes the film as perhaps the most elaborate of these allegories: it adapts Hong Kong gangster-film tropes such as male bonding and the jianghu, a mythical underworld operating by its own rules, making the jianghu an allegorical space separate from yet intertwined with lived reality[3](https://research.cuhk.edu.hk/en/publications/chungking-jianghu-imagining-a-post-2019-hong-kong-identity-in-the/).\n\nChungking Mansions, the film's primary location, is a building the anthropologist Gordon Mathews has termed a site of \"low-end globalization\", long seen as Hong Kong's \"heart of darkness\" where crime runs rampant, and made famous cinematically by Wong Kar-wai's *Chungking Express* (1994)[3](https://research.cuhk.edu.hk/en/publications/chungking-jianghu-imagining-a-post-2019-hong-kong-identity-in-the/) • [12](https://www.thechinesecinema.com/hand-rolled-cigarette-chan-kin-long-2020/). In 2019 the building briefly became a lightning rod in the protests: after reports that the convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front had been beaten by South Asian men, a social worker organized members of ethnic minority communities to hand out water and food to protesters marching by Chungking Mansions[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538). Against this background, the film's growing brotherhood between Hongkongers of different ethnicities obliquely refers to those events and to a new deracialized imagination of what it means to be a Hongkonger[3](https://research.cuhk.edu.hk/en/publications/chungking-jianghu-imagining-a-post-2019-hong-kong-identity-in-the/). In its final scene, Mani smokes a cigarette while watching an old video of Chiu and his soldier friends; in the director's explanation, Mani represents a younger generation nostalgic for a golden age it never experienced but determined to hold onto its values[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538).\n\n**Reception split.** English-language reviews generally considered the film a well-crafted but not particularly innovative crime film, while Chinese-language reviews more often highlighted its implicit engagement with Hong Kong identity[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538). The *South China Morning Post* gave it three of five stars, praising Lam Ka-tung's performance and an extended late fight sequence while criticizing tonal shifts between social drama and over-the-top gangland violence[13](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3137452/hand-rolled-cigarette-movie-review-lam-ka-tung-shines?module=inline&pgtype=article). Its critical acclaim and commercial performance, achieved despite ongoing social-distancing policy, placed Chan Kin-long among the most promising young directors transforming Hong Kong cinema[1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538). The film was originally released in Hong Kong on 17 June 2021, was classified for violence by the [British Board of Film Classification](https://www.edgepedia.org/british-board-of-film-classification) for a 31 December 2021 streaming release through Netflix, and later screened in the M+ Restored Festival 2026 program[9](https://anz.newonnetflix.info/info/81552053) • [11](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/hand-rolled-cigarette-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdaxnzq0) • [14](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/cinema/mplus-restored-festival-2026/hand-rolled-cigarette/).\n\n## References\n\n1. [Kristof Van Den Troost (2025). Hong Kong crime cinema's allegorical arsenal and its local function: A post-2019 case study of Hand Rolled Cigarette. Journal of Chinese Cinemas.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2025.2565538)\n2. [Hand Rolled Cigarette, New Zealand International Film Festival 2021 archive](https://www1.nziff.co.nz/2021/archive/hand-rolled-cigarette/)\n3. [Kristof Van Den Troost. Chungking Jianghu: Imagining a Post-2019 Hong Kong Identity in the Gangster Film Hand-Rolled Cigarette (2020). CUHK research output, Joint East Asian Studies Conference 2024.](https://research.cuhk.edu.hk/en/publications/chungking-jianghu-imagining-a-post-2019-hong-kong-identity-in-the/)\n4. [手捲煙 Hand Rolled Cigarette, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival program page](https://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/film/programme/films/detail/2816)\n5. [Hand Rolled Cigarette, Hong Kong New Talents, Hong Kong International Film Festival](https://hknt.hkiff.org.hk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette)\n6. [Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2020 program booklet](https://www.hkaff.asia/upload/finder/file/booklet/2020.pdf?v22=)\n7. [SCM newsletter: Chan Kin Long wins Best New Director, 40th Hong Kong Film Awards](https://www.scm.cityu.edu.hk/-/media/project/cityuhk/academic/scm/newsletters/pdf/20221012-issue10.pdf?rev=99869924c4d04ee2a0d77d8b3958a0f9)\n8. [Hand Rolled Cigarette, Flicks UK](https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/hand-rolled-cigarette/)\n9. [Hand Rolled Cigarette on Australian Netflix, New On Netflix](https://anz.newonnetflix.info/info/81552053)\n10. [Hand Rolled Cigarette, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York Asian Film Festival 2021](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/hand-rolled-cigarette/)\n11. [Hand Rolled Cigarette, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/hand-rolled-cigarette-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdaxnzq0)\n12. [Sean Gilman (2021). Hand Rolled Cigarette (Chan Kin-long, 2020). The Chinese Cinema.](https://www.thechinesecinema.com/hand-rolled-cigarette-chan-kin-long-2020/)\n13. [Edmund Lee (2021). Hand Rolled Cigarette movie review. South China Morning Post.](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3137452/hand-rolled-cigarette-movie-review-lam-ka-tung-shines?module=inline&pgtype=article)\n14. [Hand Rolled Cigarette 手捲煙, M+ Restored Festival 2026](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/cinema/mplus-restored-festival-2026/hand-rolled-cigarette/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Film noir and neo-noir films › Released 1977 to 2022*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Hand Rolled Cigarette\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Hand Rolled Cigarette](https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette](https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Hand Rolled Cigarette\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/hand-rolled-cigarette. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Hand Rolled Cigarette is a 2020 Hong Kong crime film and Chan Kin-long's directorial debut, starring Gordon Lam and Bipin Karma; an allegory of post-2019 Hong Kong identity set at Chungking Mansions, it won Best New Director at the 40th Hong Kong Film Awards." }