44th Hong Kong Film Awards Preview: Key Races2026 Hong Kong Film Awards Preview

The 44th Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA) arrive on April 19 carrying more weight than usual.Long regarded as Hong Kong’s equivalent of the Academy Awards, the ceremony has served as a barometer of the city’s cinematic health. This year, the signals are mixed. Structural pressures, from declining voter turnout to broader industry uncertainties, are increasingly visible. Yet the strength of several key contenders points to something more enduring, a creative vitality that has not diminished in step with these constraints.

What makes this year particularly notable is the widening gap between what appears on screen and what unfolds behind it. The films in contention are, by most measures, accomplished, and in some cases genuinely exceptional. The system that produces and sustains them, however, shows clear signs of strain. Rather than diminishing the awards’ relevance, this tension gives it added weight and underscores a simple but persistent truth. Even under pressure, a film culture can continue to produce work of clarity and force.

The Field: Three Films, Three Very Different Bets

In a year short on quantity — only 47 films qualified for consideration, down significantly from the industry’s peak years — the field has coalesced around three frontrunners, each representing a distinct vision of what Hong Kong cinema can be.

Sons of the Neon Night (風林火山), Juno Mak Chun-lung’s hyper-stylised crime thriller, leads all films with 12 nominations including Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, and Best New Director. The film is a technical showcase: shot in a monochromatic post-apocalyptic Hong Kong perpetually blanketed in snow, it features Takeshi Kaneshiro in what has reportedly become his final screen performance before retirement. Its nomination haul reflects the industry’s admiration for its craftsmanship, even as audiences have been more divided — the film’s fragmented narrative and maximalist aesthetics drawing both devoted praise and sharp criticism. Depending on who you ask, it’s either the most ambitious Hong Kong film in a decade or an expensive mood reel that mistakes atmosphere for story. Both readings are defensible.

Notably, Juno Mak himself is absent from the Best Director shortlist, a pointed omission that effectively splits Sons of the Neon Night’s chances: it can sweep the technical categories but is unlikely to claim the night’s top prize.

Back to the Past (尋秦記), with 11 nominations, represents a different bet entirely — on nostalgia and star power. The film adapts a beloved 2001 TVB time-travel drama series, reuniting Louis Koo with the franchise that made him a household name across the Chinese-speaking world. Its nominations are concentrated in technical categories (Best Film Editing, Best Sound Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction) as well as Best Actor for Koo, reflecting its position as a crowd-pleasing blockbuster that excels in execution rather than artistic ambition.

Ciao, UFO (再見UFO), with 10 nominations, is the critical consensus favourite and the film to beat for the night’s major prizes. Directed by Patrick Leung Pak-kin, it follows three former childhood friends from Hong Kong’s historic Wah Fu Estate who were bonded by a shared UFO sighting in 1985, and whose adult lives have not matched their childhood dreams. The film won Best Picture at the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards in January — a reliable leading indicator — and swept the Hong Kong Film Directors’ Guild Awards in March, taking Best Picture, Best Director for Leung, and Best Supporting Actress for Michelle Wai. Its nominations include Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Original Film Score, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects, making it the most complete contender across meaningful categories.

A fourth film of note is Another World (世外), Tommy Ng Kai-chung’s animated feature, which won the Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Feature in 2025 and arrives with 8 nominations including Best Film and Best Director — a landmark moment for Hong Kong animation.

Peter Chan Ho-sun’s She’s Got No Name (酱園弄·悬案) rounds out the Best Film field, bringing the veteran director back into contention with a 1940s Shanghai-set crime thriller.

Best Director: The Establishment vs. The New Guard

The Best Director race is the most strategically layered of the evening.

Patrick Leung Pak-kin (Ciao, UFO) enters as the clear frontrunner on the strength of his Critics Society and Directors’ Guild wins. His film’s emotional portrait of Hong Kong working-class life resonates deeply with local voters.

Shu Qi (Girl / 女孩) is the ceremony’s most compelling narrative: the Taiwanese superstar, beloved in Hong Kong for roles spanning three decades, makes her directorial debut and lands nominations in three categories simultaneously — Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best New Director. Her Directors’ Guild Best New Director win confirms that the industry sees her debut as the real thing, not a vanity project. Whether voters reward her in the main Director category against more seasoned competition remains the central question of the night.

Tommy Ng Kai-chung (Another World) and Peter Chan Ho-sun (She’s Got No Name) are credible contenders; Chan in particular is an industry stalwart whose return to Hong Kong-territory filmmaking carries symbolic weight. Jonathan Li Tsz-chun and Chou Man-yu share a co-director nomination for Behind the Shadows (私家偵探), an unusual arrangement that may complicate voter calculus.

Best Actor: Louis Koo vs. Tony Leung Ka Fai

The acting races are among the most competitive in recent memory.

For Best Actor, Louis Koo Tin-lok appears twice on the ballot — a rare feat — nominated for both Back to the Past and She’s Got No Name. Koo has long been the defining face of Hong Kong commercial cinema, and a win here would be a sentimental favourite outcome. His chief rival is Tony Leung Ka Fai, who won Best Actor at the Directors’ Guild for his role as the enigmatic criminal mastermind in The Shadow’s Edge (捕風追影). Leung is a two-time HKFA Best Actor winner and the Guild win puts him in a strong position. The remaining nominees — Cheung Tat-ming (Golden Boy / 金童) and Chan Ka-lok (Someone Like Me / 像我這樣的愛情) — are respected but considered longshots.

Best Actress: Fish Liew’s Moment

The Best Actress race carries one of the night’s most emotionally resonant stories.

Fish Liew Chi-yu, a Malaysian actress, has won Best Actress at both the Hong Kong Film Critics Society and the Hong Kong Film Directors’ Guild for her performance in Someone Like Me (像我這樣的愛情), where she plays Mui, an artist born with cerebral palsy. The double precursor win makes her the statistical frontrunner, and a victory would make her one of the rare non-Hong Kong residents to claim the prize — a meaningful statement about the regional scope of Hong Kong cinema.

Her competition is formidable: Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin (Ciao, UFO), a pop icon turned credible dramatic actress; Yanny Chan Yan-yi (No Name Finger / 無名指); and 廖子妤 (Someone Like Me). The category notably does not include several mainland Chinese stars who were widely discussed during the nomination period, narrowing the field to performers with deeper ties to Hong Kong’s industry.

Best New Director: The Generation Shift

The Best New Director category captures the generation most likely to define Hong Kong cinema over the next decade. Shu Qi is the sentimental favourite, though her eligibility alongside her main Director nomination creates an unusual dual-category dynamic. Juno Mak receives his recognition here rather than in the main Director race. The remaining nominees — Kung Siu-ping (Measure in Love / 戀愛的量度) and the co-directing team of Kwok Ka-hei and Jack Lee Chun-kit (Behind the Shadows) — represent a broader wave of emerging Hong Kong voices.

Technical Categories: Where Sons of the Neon Night Will Dominate

With Juno Mak out of the director race, Sons of the Neon Night’s 12 nominations are almost entirely concentrated in technical and supporting categories. Expect the film to sweep or dominate in Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume & Make-Up Design, where its otherworldly visual palette is without peer in this year’s field. Alex To Tak-wai, nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film, won at the Directors’ Guild — making him the probable winner.

For Best Supporting Actress, Michelle Wai Sze-nga (Ciao, UFO) is the frontrunner, also having won at the Directors’ Guild. The competition includes veteran actress Nina Paw Hee-ching (Sons of the Neon Night) and Kara Wai Ying-hung (The Dumpling Queen / 水饺皇后) — the latter a first-generation HKFA legend whose presence in any category commands respect.

The Shadow Over the Ceremony

No preview of this year’s HKFA would be complete without acknowledging the controversy that has shadowed it since January. Four films that met the HKFA’s eligibility criteria were removed from the official contenders list without explanation: Vital Signs (directed by Vincci Cheuk, starring Louis Koo and Neo Yau), Valley of the Shadow of Death (starring Anthony Wong), Finch & Midland (also starring Wong), and the Malaysian production Mother Bhumi (starring Fan Bingbing).

When pressed by local media at the nominations announcement, HKFA chairman Derek Yee offered no substantive explanation, quoting the Diamond Sutra in lieu of a direct answer. The association has maintained silence since. The episode has generated significant commentary about the integrity of the awards and the pressures facing cultural institutions in contemporary Hong Kong — commentary that the HKFA, as an organization, has chosen not to engage with publicly.

There’s an argument that silence is the rational choice — that any explanation would only deepen the wound. Maybe. But the cost of saying nothing is that the institution itself starts to look like the problem. Film awards derive their authority from the perception that they are judging art, not managing it. Once that perception cracks, it’s very hard to repair. The 44th ceremony may well be remembered as a genuinely good year for Hong Kong cinema. Whether it’s also remembered as the year the HKFA lost a little of its nerve is a question only time will answer.

Predictions Summary

The 44th Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony takes place on April 19, 2026, at the Grand Theatre of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui. The red carpet begins at 4:30 PM local time; the ceremony commences at 7:30 PM, broadcast live on ViuTV.

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