{ "id": "ep735a1p7v", "slug": "starry-is-the-night", "title": "Starry Is the Night", "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.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s", "label": "Drama films 1980s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1986-1989", "label": "Released 1986 to 1989", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1986-1989" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "China · 1946 to 2000: Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "path": [ { "id": "geo.chn", "label": "China", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946", "label": "China · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.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.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Starry Is the Night (今夜星光燦爛, Gam ye sing gwong chan lan) is a 1988 Hong Kong drama-romance directed by Ann Hui, starring Brigitte Lin, George Lam, and David Wu; the first Hong Kong film to unambiguously depict the 1967 riots, produced by Shaw Brothers and Tomson Films.", "snippet": "Starry Is the Night (今夜星光燦爛, Gam ye sing gwong chan lan) is a 1988 Hong Kong drama-romance directed by Ann Hui, starring Brigitte Lin, George Lam, and David Wu; the first Hong Kong film to unambiguously depict the 1967 riots, produced by Shaw Brothers and Tomson Films.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1986-1989", "markdown": "# Starry Is the Night\n\n**Starry Is the Night** (今夜星光灿烂; [Cantonese](https://www.edgepedia.org/cantonese): *Gam ye sing gwong chan lan*) is a 1988 Hong Kong drama-romance film directed by Ann Hui, in which a university student's affair with her married professor in the 1960s is set against the political unrest of the era and echoed, twenty years later, by a second relationship with the professor's son.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/) • [2](https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/PAU/HonDoc/2010/2010_Hon_Doc_Ann_Hui_On_Wah.pdf) It was Hui's eighth feature film.[3](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/starry-night)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Original title | 今夜星光灿烂 (*Jin ye xing guang can lan*); literal English title \"Tonight's Starlight Is Splendid\"[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/releaseinfo/) |\n| Release | Hong Kong, October 13, 1988; 94 minutes; Cantonese[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/releaseinfo/) • [5](https://www.hkfilm.net/archive/hkfa.pdf) |\n| Director and writer | Ann Hui; screenplay by Leung Suk-Wah[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/) |\n| Principal cast | Brigitte Lin (To Cai-Mei), George Lam (Dr. Y.C. Cheung), David Wu (Cheung Tien-On), Derek Yee (Poon Chung-Lung)[6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/fullcredits/) |\n| Production | Shaw Brothers and Tomson Films; producers Mona Fong and Feng Hsu[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/starry_is_the_night) • [6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/fullcredits/) |\n| Historical significance | The first Hong Kong film to unambiguously represent the 1967 riots[8](https://www.hongkongstudiesassociation.co.uk/hong-kong-insight/lung-kongs-yesterday-today-tomorrow) |\n| Awards | Golden Horse nomination for Best Director; Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer (David Wu, 1989); nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Original Film Song[9](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/starry-is-the-night/2030267038/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and structure\n\nThe story runs on two time axes. In 1966, university student To Cai-Mei ([Brigitte Lin](https://www.edgepedia.org/brigitte-lin)) falls in love with Cheung Ying-Chuen (George Lam), a married university professor. During the 1967 Hong Kong labor and student unrest, Cheung leaves Hong Kong with his family without saying goodbye, and Cai-Mei, unable to let go of her feelings for him, lives alone for years afterward.[10](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/1930207/)\n\nIn the 1980s, Cai-Mei works as a social worker for church-sponsored organizations. In Macao she meets Cheung Tien-On (David Wu), a troubled teenager and high school dropout who has left school to make money and aspires to be a hairstylist. She sets out to bring him back to his studies, and the two begin a relationship despite a nearly twenty-year age difference.[10](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/1930207/) • [3](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/starry-night) The young man is the son of her former professor, and the two men are estranged.[2](https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/PAU/HonDoc/2010/2010_Hon_Doc_Ann_Hui_On_Wah.pdf) • [11](https://www.heroic-cinema.com/2003/09/hong-kong-international-film-festival-02/) The film portrays what one account of Hui's career calls a story of \"lost ideals, social prejudices and pressures\".[2](https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/PAU/HonDoc/2010/2010_Hon_Doc_Ann_Hui_On_Wah.pdf)\n\n## Politics and history in the film\n\n**The 1967 riots on screen.** The film alternates archival footage of the violent 1967 trade union riots, which began at a plastic flower factory, with reenactments of street protests leading up to the 1988 legislative elections, when the Hong Kong government rejected a move to replace indirect elections through \"functional constituencies\" with direct elections.[3](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/starry-night) The topic was so sensitive that, according to the Hong Kong Studies Association, Starry Is the Night was the first Hong Kong film to represent the riots unambiguously; a 1969 film that allegorized them as a plague had been retitled after censorship.[8](https://www.hongkongstudiesassociation.co.uk/hong-kong-insight/lung-kongs-yesterday-today-tomorrow)\n\nScholar Yingjin Zhang's study of Hong Kong cinema describes the film as depicting a Hong Kong woman's two romances while moving between the late 1960s, when local tertiary students' patriotic movement identified with mainland China, and 1988, when the colony pressed both the Chinese and British governments for direct elections before the 1997 return, thereby constructing a Hong Kong \"indigenous identity\" distinct from both British colonial and Chinese national identity.[12](https://s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/ap-st01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/61MUN_INST/storage/alma/57/9C/16/94/C6/CB/86/34/85/CA/EB/22/55/AE/9E/C2/Chu2000.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJUYRSPBSIJGGDX6A%2F20260213%2Fap-southeast-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260213T114404Z&X-Amz-Expires=86399&X-Amz-Signature=223323c06b1958078a779891bf86e860836e9a023163ff8ed174eaed595253af&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3D%22Chu2000.pdf%22%3B+filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Chu2000.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf) A University of Hong Kong tribute likewise places the film, together with *Love in a Fallen City*, among the works that captured the social unrest of the 1960s and firmly established Hui's directing style.[13](https://www.alumni.hku.hk/gwhk/ch11.pdf)\n\n## Production and reception\n\nThe film was set at the [University of Hong Kong](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-hong-kong), and many scenes were shot in the university's [Main Building](https://www.edgepedia.org/main-building), where professor Cheung and student To meet.[14](https://www4.hku.hk/hongrads/tc/citations/dr-ann-on-wah-hui-ann-hui-on-wah) • [15](https://www.heritage.gov.hk/filemanager/heritage/en/content_68/heritageBookletEng.pdf) The Hong Kong Film Archive lists the production companies as Tomson and Shaw Brothers, with Mona Fong (方逸华) and Feng Hsu (徐枫) as executive producers, Henry Chan as cinematographer, and music by Danny Chung (钟定一).[5](https://www.hkfilm.net/archive/hkfa.pdf) [John Woo](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-woo) appears in a cameo as a Catholic priest, Father Fan.[16](https://asiandvdguide.com/index3.cfm) • [6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/fullcredits/)\n\nThe Hong Kong Film Archive's study of 1980s middle-class cinema groups the film with titles such as *Love Massacre* (1981), *Nomad* (1982), and *Full Moon in New York* (1989/1990), noting that most fit the *wenyi* (hong Kong genre of romance/psychology-focused melodramas) category, focused on explorations of the human psyche, and generally performed poorly at the box office.[17](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/18995340/19057015/ebook_eng_03.pdf) Starry Is the Night earned HK$8,187,328 in Hong Kong, ranking 57th for the year.[18](https://kungfutube.info/13907)\n\nAt the awards, the film was nominated for Best Director at the Golden Horse Awards, and David Wu was named Best New Performer at the 1989 Hong Kong Film Awards for his debut as the troubled delinquent; the film also received Hong Kong Film Award nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Original Film Song.[9](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/starry-is-the-night/2030267038/) • [16](https://asiandvdguide.com/index3.cfm) Critics have treated it as a lesser but revealing work in Hui's career: a 2024 review judged it \"definitely not among Ann Hui's best\" while crediting its casting, acting, and political commentary,[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/starry_is_the_night) and later commentary has paired it with Hui's *July Rhapsody* (2002), which revisits age-gap relationships across two time periods with greater critical distance.[19](https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?sid=e519e285b2ea69fb6836372b8c307753&start=825&t=12092)\n\nThe film has remained in circulation through restorations and retrospectives: it screened at the 42nd Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2018 during a Brigitte Lin showcase,[20](https://asianfilmfestivals.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/42ndhkiff_fullschedule.pdf) and the UCLA Film & Television Archive scheduled a 35mm screening in February 2026 as part of its series on Los Angeles Chinatown's Sing Lee Theatre.[21](https://cinema.ucla.edu/events/passion-starry-is-the-night-2026-02-14/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Starry is the Night (1988), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/)\n2. [Ann Hui On Wah, Honorary Doctorate citation, Hong Kong Metropolitan University](https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/PAU/HonDoc/2010/2010_Hon_Doc_Ann_Hui_On_Wah.pdf)\n3. [Starry is the Night, Screen Slate (Cosmo Bjorkenheim, 2019)](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/starry-night)\n4. [Starry is the Night (1988) – Release info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/releaseinfo/)\n5. [港產電影一覽 (1913–2003), Hong Kong Film Archive](https://www.hkfilm.net/archive/hkfa.pdf)\n6. [Starry is the Night (1988) – Full cast & crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095405/fullcredits/)\n7. [Starry is the Night, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/starry_is_the_night)\n8. [Lung Kong's Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Hong Kong Studies Association](https://www.hongkongstudiesassociation.co.uk/hong-kong-insight/lung-kongs-yesterday-today-tomorrow)\n9. [Starry is the Night, TV Guide](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/starry-is-the-night/2030267038/)\n10. [今夜星光灿烂 (1988), 1905电影网](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/1930207/)\n11. [Hong Kong International Film Festival 02, Heroic Cinema (2003)](https://www.heroic-cinema.com/2003/09/hong-kong-international-film-festival-02/)\n12. [Yingjin Zhang, City and National Cinema in Chinese Cinema (2000)](https://s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/ap-st01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/61MUN_INST/storage/alma/57/9C/16/94/C6/CB/86/34/85/CA/EB/22/55/AE/9E/C2/Chu2000.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJUYRSPBSIJGGDX6A%2F20260213%2Fap-southeast-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260213T114404Z&X-Amz-Expires=86399&X-Amz-Signature=223323c06b1958078a779891bf86e860836e9a023163ff8ed174eaed595253af&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3D%22Chu2000.pdf%22%3B+filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Chu2000.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf)\n13. [Growing with Hong Kong, HKU Alumni (chapter 11)](https://www.alumni.hku.hk/gwhk/ch11.pdf)\n14. [Dr Ann On Wah Hui citation, University of Hong Kong honorary degrees](https://www4.hku.hk/hongrads/tc/citations/dr-ann-on-wah-hui-ann-hui-on-wah)\n15. [Hong Kong Heritage Tourism Expo booklet](https://www.heritage.gov.hk/filemanager/heritage/en/content_68/heritageBookletEng.pdf)\n16. [Starry Is The Night (1988), Asian DVD Guide](https://asiandvdguide.com/index3.cfm)\n17. [A Different Brilliance – The D & B Story, Hong Kong Film Archive](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/18995340/19057015/ebook_eng_03.pdf)\n18. [今夜星光燦爛（1988）, Kungfu Tube / Shaw Brothers database](https://kungfutube.info/13907)\n19. [Hong Kong Cinema discussion, criterionforum.org](https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?sid=e519e285b2ea69fb6836372b8c307753&start=825&t=12092)\n20. [42nd Hong Kong International Film Festival full schedule (2018)](https://asianfilmfestivals.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/42ndhkiff_fullschedule.pdf)\n21. [Passion / Starry Is the Night, UCLA Film & Television Archive](https://cinema.ucla.edu/events/passion-starry-is-the-night-2026-02-14/)\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 › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1986 to 1989*\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/starry-is-the-night", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/starry-is-the-night.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": "\"Starry Is the Night\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/starry-is-the-night. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Starry Is the Night](https://www.edgepedia.org/starry-is-the-night)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/starry-is-the-night](https://www.edgepedia.org/starry-is-the-night). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Starry Is the Night\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/starry-is-the-night. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Starry Is the Night is a 1988 Hong Kong drama-romance directed by Ann Hui, starring Brigitte Lin, George Lam, and David Wu; the first Hong Kong film to unambiguously depict the 1967 riots, produced by Shaw Brothers and Tomson Films." }