Could Four Trails success bring hope to Hong Kong documentaries in the long run?
Hong Kong filmmaker Robin Lee was advised to keep his expectations 'very low' before the cinematic release of his documentary Four Trails last December.
After all, he was told, it was just a sports documentary that had no A-list celebrities to attract audiences. In making the film, Lee could not even secure any sponsorships or funding.
Still, the 36-year-old believed deeply in the story's power to resonate with audiences as it captured the physical and emotional journeys of runners taking on a gruelling 298km challenge, while showcasing the natural beauty of Hong Kong's landscapes.
'You can't blame them [distributors] because there is no script ... I couldn't tell them [where] the money that you're investing is going to go because no one really knew what would happen,' said Lee, who was the film's cameraman, director and editor.
Against the odds, Four Trails became a surprise box office hit, earning over HK$10 million and becoming the second highest-grossing documentary in Hong Kong history.
The film also earned Lee the title of Best New Director at the prestigious Hong Kong Film Awards.
The 101-minute documentary film follows a group of ultrarunners in February 2021 as they braved the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, one of the world's toughest ultra-marathons. Runners must complete Hong Kong's four major hiking trails within 72 hours.
The success of Four Trails has boosted the confidence of Hong Kong's small documentary filmmaking scene – though this outlook stands in contrast with the wider movie industry that is still reeling from cinema closures and competition from streaming platforms.
The documentary has sparked a renewed appreciation for Hong Kong's trails – even superstar and avid hiker Chow Yun-fat helped promote the film. It also inspired a group of primary school pupils to hike sections of the Lantau Trail with one of the runners featured in the movie.
'In our film, I made loads of conscious decisions to try and get as many different personalities as possible. As a viewer, hopefully, there was one person in the film which you could relate to on a personal level,' Lee said.
His next goal is to take the documentary to cinemas around the world and, eventually, to streaming platforms. He is currently in talks with global distributors.
'It's just me and my brother, Ben, who's the producer. The two of us are trying to get the film out globally ... with almost next to no experience before. So it's still taking a lot of time,' he said.
While commercial success and accolades were never Lee's motivation, these achievements have been crucial to his goal of reaching audiences overseas.
'Around the world, people don't look at Hong Kong as a trail running destination, so I was really excited to show people this is what Hong Kong has to offer,' said the director, who was born and raised in the city. 'We've got one of the hardest challenges in the world, and it's here in a city which most people think is just skyscrapers.'
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Challenges of making
Four Trails
Before filming began, Lee hiked most of Hong Kong's four main trails – MacLehose, Wilson, Hong Kong and Lantau – to familiarise himself with the terrain, identify key filming spots and connect with the runners before the race. With no script to follow and less than 72 hours to record most of the footage, building rapport was crucial in shaping a human-centred narrative.
'It's like a big jigsaw puzzle, [but] there's no picture that you have to follow. You're creating the picture, so it's really difficult to try to figure that out,' he said.
Lee recruited his brother and a few freelancers to help film during the race.
Once the ultra-marathon started, one of the biggest challenges, Lee said, was figuring out how to build a coherent storyline that captured the journeys of 18 athletes moving at very different paces.
'Everything is changing,' he recalled.
'The runners gave us a time sheet of when they thought they would be in places, but some of them are going faster [and] some are going slower than what they anticipated. Therefore, you have to be really flexible.'
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By the third day of the event, exhaustion set in.
'I only slept two or three hours; my brother had just one,' Lee said, adding that the filming process felt chaotic.
'We had this detailed plan before the race, but by day three, it looked wrong. And your head is playing all these games with you that you don't really know which is the right decision to make.'
The film showed how the runners started to buckle under the mental and physical strain, but behind the camera, the filmmakers were struggling, too.
'You see them hallucinating and going crazy as the cameraman and the director were also going through a similar situation, so fatigue is really difficult,' Lee said.
Even after the race ended, Lee had to edit the footage while juggling his freelance work. Since Four Trails was entirely self-financed, he would take on short projects – some lasting a day and others a week – before returning to edit the documentary.
'I needed to pay for things like graphics. And at one point, I had to hire a composer to write original pieces for specific scenes,' the director noted. 'It's a bit of a risk, but if I don't do it, it's not going to be as good, and I want to make something which I'm really proud of because this may be my only chance to make a film.'
'Four Trails' videographers run to catch up with a competitor who is on the way to the next trail. Photo: Edko Films Ltd
Blazing a trail for the industry
The commercial success of Four Trails is rare in Hong Kong – Lee's experience of balancing his passion with freelance work is not.
Ryan Lai, who has been a documentary filmmaker for about six years, said funding was the major challenge for him and others in this field.
'It's extremely difficult to make a living from documentaries in Hong Kong,' Lai explained.
'Unlike narrative films, documentaries typically lack commercial appeal and therefore attract little to no investment. Aside from some occasional art-related funding, there's almost no financial support available.'
As a result, Lai said most documentary filmmakers would treat their work as a side project, not a viable career.
'That's a major obstacle for anyone who wants to pursue this seriously in the long run,' he said.
Thus, Lee hopes the unexpected triumph of Four Trails can spur greater support for documentary filmmaking in Hong Kong.
'If you're investing in film, you don't have to shy away from a documentary as long as the story is good,' he said.
'All the stories in Four Trails are real. They're not made up. That, in many ways, makes it even more exciting than some [fictional] feature films.'
Lee believes the way forward for the film industry is to prioritise originality.
'If you can keep making original ... and new content, that's going to get people talking. Then that's the best thing for the industry,' he said.
Stop and think: Why was the box office success of Four Trails so unexpected in Hong Kong?
Why this story matters: Documentary filmmaking is a key art form that shows real stories. It is hard for many of these creators to make a living in Hong Kong, so the success of Robin Lee's film could bring hope to others in the industry.
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