Drifting is a heart-rending slice-of-life social drama about the lives of the homeless in Hong Kong, featuring great performances from Francis Ng, Tse Kwan Ho and Loletta Lee.

Fai, a drug addict released from prison, rejoins his homeless community living in the Sham Shui Po. One night, the community is raided by the police, disposing their personal property as garbage. Miss Ho, a social worker, helps bring their case to a court of law as the street sleepers rebuild wooden shacks under an overpass.

In his second film since 2018's Tracey, writer-director Jun Li draws an intimate portrait of the lives and predicament of homeless people, showing their life values and mindset.

Jun Li cleverly keeps the backstories of the homeless characters vague. It leaves a space for the audience to imagine what happened to them. It is also deliberately vague because their past probably isn't an elaborate entertaining tale of Greek tragedy. Your best guess is probably not far off.

At one point, Drifting directly comments on how the media's over-fascination with the homeless people's life stories and how social services struggle with helping the homeless effectively. Help is given with good intentions, but the help has to be the right kind and then that help has to be received.

Francis Ng gives a great performance as the lead character Fai. Fai speaks differently when he's speaking to other homeless people as opposed to normal citizens.

To the homeless, he speaks freely and colloquially. To the average non-homeless citizen, there's a delay in his speech. It is not a cognitive or mental processing delay, but a struggle of not knowing how to start talking. There's too much to explain to even begin and understanding seems so far away that nothing he can say has any hope of covering that distance.

This was a teensy detail but the effect was nuclear and effectively pulled me into the characters' mindsets. I felt the immense distance between the homeless and society.

Tse Kwan Ho also gave a moving performance as Master, a Vietnamese boat person who caught some bad luck and was left behind when his family saught asylum. Ho's performance showed how difficult it was for a homeless person to change their life and how having a normal life can be a terrifying thought.

Drifting is by no means an uplifting film, but it deals with its subject in a sincere and humane way that keeps it insightful and rewarding.

This film begins with a middle-aged man named "Fai" (Frances Ng) being released from prison after spending a number of years behind bars. Since he has no family and no source of employment, he has no choice but to find a way to make ends meet there on the bustling sidewalks of Hong Kong. Yet, despite all of the pain and adversity he has suffered, he still manages to find a few other homeless people around him that offer some comfort to him when nobody else seems to care. But as bad as things are for him, things get even worse one morning when employees from the sanitation department come along and take all of his meager possessions without warning. However, rather than simply accepting serious breach in protocol, he and his friends are convinced by a local social worker named "Ms. Ho" (Cecilia Choi) to file a civil suit against City Hall to try to gain some modicum of compensation. Unfortunately, until a verdict is finally reached, they all will have to try to survive somehow any way they can. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I had no knowledge of this film until I recently stumbled across a review of it and decided to check it out. That being said, I have to agree that it was a departure from most films made in Hong Kong in that it contained a deeper and more intense storyline than usual. Admittedly, I have no real knowledge of the homeless situation there and for that reason I cannot say whether this film adequately captures the plight of these people or not. But even so, this is still a gripping movie experience and I recommend it to viewers looking for a film of this kind.

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2021 Hong Kong drama "Zuk Seoi Piu Lau" (aka "Drifting") here in 2022. Granted, I hadn't even heard about Jun Li's movie here, but I didn't need to have heard about it to watch it. Simply with it being a Hong Kong movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to watch it.

Seeing that the movie was starring Francis Ng, I must admit that things were looking good, and I was definitely having some expectations to the level of entertainment.

And let me just say that writer and director Jun Li delivers a wholesome and enjoyable movie. "Zuk Seoi Piu Lau" is a most welcomed movie to the Hong Kong cinema, as it depicts the lives of those unfortunate Hong Kong residents that live in slums and on the streets. And it was such a much needed breath of fresh air to the Hong Kong cinema, as it was so far away from the usual fast paced action, sappy romance and slapstick comedies that you get in an abundance. So thumbs up, way, way up for writer and director Jun Li on that accomplishment.

It should be said that not only was it because of a great and well-written storyline that "Zuk Seoi Piu Lau" turned out so enjoyable, but most definitely also because of some very emotional and memorable performances by the cast in the various roles of those poor people living on the streets in Sham Shui Po district of Hong Kong.

I was really impressed with Francis Ng's performance in this movie. But then again, I have always enjoyed his performances in the movies he is in, but I will say that "Zuk Seoi Piu Lau" is possibly the crowning achievement of his acting career thus far.

"Zuk Seoi Piu Lau" is a movie that hits home and stays with you for a long time, especially if you are familiar with the living situations of Hong Kong.

My rating of "Zuk Seoi Piu Lau" lands on an eight out of ten stars.