General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Tracey (翠丝) (2018 film)

Tracey (翠絲) is a 2018 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Jun Li (李駿碩), starring Philip Keung as a 51-year-old married eyewear shop owner who decides to transition from male to female. It was the first Hong Kong feature film to take transgender identity as its direct subject, and the first film about transgenderism as a distinct gender identity to be screened at mainstream commercial cinemas in Hong Kong.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director / writers	Jun Li's feature directorial debut; screenplay signed by Shu Kei, Erica Li (李敏), and Jun Li³
Producers	Shu Kei and Jacqueline Liu (廖婉虹); produced by One Cool Film¹^•⁴
Cast	Philip Keung, Kara Wai, Ben Yuen, River Huang, Jennifer Yu, Ng Siu-hin, Eric Kot⁵
Dates	Filming began 5 December 2017; premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival on 28 October 2018; Hong Kong release 22 November 2018⁴
Format	Cantonese, 119 minutes, Hong Kong category IIB¹
Awards	Ben Yuen won the 2018 Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor; the film received nine nominations at the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards, where Kara Wai won Best Supporting Actress⁶^•⁷
Box office	US$634,018 worldwide cumulative as of 12 April 2024⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Tung Tai-hung (佟大雄, played by Philip Keung) is a 51-year-old eyewear shop owner with a stable business, a wife, Anne (Kara Wai), a teenage son (Ng Siu-hin), and a daughter (Jennifer Yu). His life appears settled, but he has kept a lifelong secret: he identifies as a woman trapped in a man's body.⁹^•¹⁰

A late-night call from London brings news that his old classmate and childhood crush Ching has died. Bond (River Huang), a young writer who describes himself as Ching's same-sex husband, arrives in Hong Kong with Ching's ashes for burial, and the encounter stirs buried memories and desires.¹⁰^•¹¹ Around the same time Tai-hung meets his old friend Brother Darling (打鈴哥, Ben Yuen), a veteran Cantonese opera performer who specializes in female roles and is himself a trans woman.⁹ Through these encounters Tai-hung comes to conceive of herself as trans, comes out to Anne in female dress, and decides to undergo sex reassignment surgery.²^•¹²

The family absorbs the decision differently. Anne refuses to accept it and will not grant a divorce; the son is bewildered; the daughter's own marriage is failing.¹¹^•¹³ After a confrontation that pushes Tai-hung to self-harm, she takes drastic measures to actuate her female self, and the film ends after the surgery with her embracing her identity as Tracey.¹²^•²

Production

The project began with the veteran filmmaker and critic Shu Kei (舒琪), who served as producer and co-writer. He spent years holding the script and looking for a young director; eight or nine directors declined, some because they did not feel they understood transgender issues, some on religious grounds, and some because they felt offended by the subject. Shu Kei met Jun Li at a Fresh Wave awards ceremony, and the film finally went ahead.¹⁴

Jun Li, born in 1991, studied journalism as an undergraduate and gender studies for his master's degree at the University of Cambridge. His Fresh Wave competition short Liu Yang He (2017), about a sex worker in Hong Kong, won the top prize and Best Director at the 11th Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival, and on the strength of that recognition he was offered Tracey.¹⁵^•¹⁶^•¹ Before shooting, he invited transgender people to meet the cast and crew, which he regarded as a basic step for any realist film.¹⁴

The film was made by One Cool Film, the production company founded by Louis Koo, which produced, distributed, and promoted it.²^•⁴ Filming began on 5 December 2017, about six months after Li's Fresh Wave win.⁴^•¹⁷

For Philip Keung, one of Hong Kong cinema's most prolific supporting actors, the film marked his first leading role, at the age of 52.¹⁸

Release and reception

Tracey premiered at the 2018 Tokyo International Film Festival on 28 October 2018 and was the opening film of the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival.⁴^•¹⁹ It opened in preview screenings in Hong Kong on 6 November 2018 and went on general release there on 22 November; it reached Taiwanese cinemas on 16 November.¹^•¹⁵

Critical response was positive on balance. On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a 60% Tomatometer from five reviews.²⁰ Edmund Lee of the South China Morning Post gave it 4 out of 5 stars, calling Keung's performance mesmerizing and the film a triumphant debut for him as a lead actor.¹⁸ Elizabeth Kerr of The Hollywood Reporter called it a necessary film with genuinely moving moments, but one too often weighed down by its own significance.²⁰ Some reviewers were more critical of its treatment of trans identity: a review in In Review Online argued that the film's centering of genitalia in trans identity remained problematic and highlighted the need for more trans perspectives in modern cinema.²¹

Director Jun Li framed the film's intent in terms of desire rather than surgery: he said he wanted to show that transgender people feel desire and long to be desired, and to depict a scene about two people making love in which gender identification mattered less than simple desire.¹⁶ He also stressed that the film tells only one story about one transgender person and does not represent the experience of the whole community.²²

Awards

At the 55th Golden Horse Awards in 2018, Ben Yuen won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Brother Darling, and Kara Wai was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.⁶^•²³ The film received nine nominations at the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Score, and Best Original Film Song, and Kara Wai won Best Supporting Actress there for playing Anne.⁷^•⁸

Significance

Tracey belongs to a recent current of Hong Kong social-issue dramas, alongside Mad World (2016, mental illness), Still Human (2018, disability), and later films on ethnic minorities and vagrancy, that brought marginalized subjects into mainstream local production.¹² Its placement matters: while Maisy Suen's independent A Woman Is a Woman (2018) also dealt with a trans woman in Hong Kong but played in small screenings without major backing, Tracey was the first film about transgender identity to reach mainstream commercial cinemas in the city, and it was extensively reviewed.² Jun Li's later career built on the debut: his second feature, Drifting (2021), was nominated for twelve Golden Horse Awards and won Best Adapted Screenplay.⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026