ENG | 港
The Lyricist Wannabe
填詞L
Director: Norris Wong Yee Lam
Year: 2024
Duration: 109 minutes
Language: Cantonese and Mandarin (with English subtitles)
5/25/2024 (Sat), 3:00 pm
Starlight Whittier Village Cinemas
Synopsis
Believing that writing Cantopop is her God-given talent, Law Wing-sze decides to make it her lifelong career. But as hard as Sze tries to polish her lyrics writing skills and expand her social circle, nothing seems to go her way. What if there’s a will, but there’s no way? The first major motion picture about Cantopop lyrics writing. Norris Wong’s long-awaited follow-up to her acclaimed debut My Prince Edward is an unsentimental autobiographical dramedy that reminds us no dream is guaranteed to come true. Ironically, the film’s star, up-and-coming actress Chung Suet-ying, is actually a real-life Cantopop lyricist.
Director’s Statement
I’ve been passionate about writing Cantonese lyrics since my youth. After chasing my lyricist dream for nearly 20 years, I detailed my experiences of failure in a book. While writing the lyrics of my film’s theme song, I was reminded of my passion for it, so I decided to turn the pursuit of my dream into a film. In Cantopop, lyrics must fit a song’s melody. This is much harder in Cantonese because of its tonal nature. Writing Cantonese lyrics may seem like a process of compromises and deflation, but only through discipline and preservation can greatness be attained.