Fan Ho is one of the most important street photographers of the twentieth century. To others, he was a director of erotic films and a pioneer in Hong Kong’s independent arthouse cinema. Ho’s first feature film Lost stemmed from his 1966 experimental short Home Work. In both films, the male protagonist vacillates between two women: one pure and mysterious, the other alluring and seductive. The films are intricate metaphors for the experience of being torn between the spiritual and the carnal, the East and the West.

Funded and produced by co-director Sun Po-ling, Lost premiered in Cannes in 1970 and was released in Germany and the United States. In a twist of fate, the physical copy of the film was assumed lost, turning it into a legend. Almost half a century later, in 2021, a copy was found in Taiwan, and a 2K scanned digital version brings the film onscreen once again.

The screening on 25 February will be followed by a post-screening talk in Cantonese on Lost and Hong Kong’s 1960s experimental film with scholar Law Kar and Reel to Reel Institute co-founder Aki Kung. The talk will be moderated by M+ Curator of Hong Kong Film and Media Li Cheuk-to.

The screening on 5 March will be followed by a post-screening talk in Cantonese on the photography and film of Fan Ho. Join independent curator and art educator Rachel Ip, and curator and Reel to Reel Institute founding member Lau Yam. The talk will be moderated by M+ Associate Curator of Hong Kong Visual Culture Vennes Cheng.

Fan Ho (1931–2016, Hong Kong) was born in Shanghai. He moved to Hong Kong at the age of eighteen and had a particular interest in photography. Ho often created drama and atmosphere with backlit effects or through the combination of smoke and light, capturing life in the streets of Hong Kong. In 1961, he joined Shaw Brothers as a continuity assistant and moved into acting, most notably as Monk Tang in The Monkey Goes West (1966). Ho made his debut, an 8 mm short, Big City Little Man in 1963. His body of works include short films Gulf (1966), Home Work (1966), Drifting (1968), and Lost (1970).  He became a director in the industry in 1972, starting with Blood and Love, The Notorious Frameup (1978), Expensive Tastes (1982), and Yu Pui Tsuen II (1987). Fan Ho continued to direct films in Taiwan such as Carnal Desire aka The Locked Heart (1986) and L’Air Du Temps (1990). His last work is The Sichuan Concubines (1994).

Sun Po-ling (1930–2005, Hong Kong) was born in Shanghai and emigrated to Hong Kong with her sister. In the 1950s, she established the Madame Rose Photo Studio that specialised in portrait photography and was frequented by celebrities. In 1969, Po co-directed Lost and brought the film to Cannes. Afterwards, she devoted herself to the art and culture industry, working for director Li Dou-ying in her Cantonese opera Chasing the Fish and for director Lola Young’s opera Ma Wei Slope. In the 1970s, she began to write columns for newspapers and magazines such as Express and Sing Tao Daily. Po immigrated to Taiwan in the 1980s and then to the United States in the 1990s.