Kicks for Hong Kong film

With a local shortage of sharpened bamboo stalks and live-chicken cages (the only ones routinely upended in motorcycle chase scenes), it is safe to say Washington is not a kung-fu-movie kind of place. That didn’t stop the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office from throwing a party Wednesday night to celebrate its homegrown cinema.

This year’s event, co-hosted as it is annually by the Freer Gallery of Art, marked the 10th anniversary of the local Hong Kong Film Festival, a showcase of works by Jackie Chan, John Woo, Kar Wai Wong, Stephen Chow and others whose names can be dropped comfortably in the company of film fashionistas.

Alas, Quentin “Kill Bill” Tarantino and Sofia “Lost in Translation” Coppola (both heavily influenced by Hong Kong cinema trends) failed to attend. The city’s Asia hands and Chinese diplomatic community willingly turned out, however, to sample scallop teriyaki and ginger creme brulee, followed by a showing of Mr. Chow’s highly acclaimed “Kung Fu Hustle,” the highest-grossing film ever made in Hong Kong, in the Meyer Auditorium below.

The Freer’s serene inner quad was sweltering, and most guests elected to mingle in the art-filled corridors to weigh in on the merits of Hong Kong cinema and its acrobatic martial arts. At a time when all action stars freeze in midair or back-flip off walls, Hong Kong Commissioner Jacqueline Willis

was as diplomatically understated as can be: “You can see Hong Kong’s influence on some of the stylized form of fighting that has caught Hollywood’s imagination,” she said.

Asia hands spoke of intellectual property rights (i.e., the proliferation of black-market DVDs), the appealing notion of Hong Kong as a Trojan horse taking democracy onto the Chinese mainland, the trade deficit and the hot button subject of the Cnooc/Unocal oil deal.

Any anxiety over China had little effect on Miss Willis’ summery mood. “We make sure that members of Congress understand that we are one country, two systems,” she said.

Politics finally were put aside as guests descended to enjoy “Kung Fu Hustle’s” gravity-defying fight scenes and cameos from many Hong Kong action stars from the past.

The festival runs from July 8 to cwthrough Aug. 28 at the Freer Gallery of Art.