Frankie Sin (Director)
Yat Tai, Eatery and Home
The film is set on the island of Cheung Chau, where you were born. Why did you decide to film there?
I’ve known the Yat Tai eatery since I was in my teens. I also know the owner’s daughter through an acquaintance of mine, and that’s how I started going there. The regulars you see in the movie are all people I’ve known for a long time. Plumpy had also been going there for years, and gradually people of different generations started gathering there and everyone became friends. Plumpy and I were of the youngest generation.
I got the idea of making a film about “home” when I was studying art in Taiwan, but my ideas for the movie weren’t really that developed. I went home during the holidays in 2018. I had plenty of time, and decided to go to Yat Tai to take some shots. I started by filming the owner cooking and smoking. At first he was reluctant: “What are you filming there, I’m gonna throw that camera into the sea!” But I kept on filming, and gradually he stopped worrying about the camera. After filming for about two months, I started having doubts about what I was doing, and finally stopped shooting after three or four months. In 2019, a classmate came to visit and told me “Cheung Chau Island is really a special place.” That changed my mind, and I decided to start filming there again.
Cheung Chau Island is really small, so everyone knows each other and it’s a close-knit society. And you can only get there by boat. It’s literally insular, a closed environment, like all outlying islands I think. This closed environment creates a particular culture.
How did you think about distance in your relationships with the people at Yat Tai? At the Q&A after the screening you said something about a “pseudo-family” . . .
In my case, that distance is simply the distance of the camera. I would film, for example, from next to a table. So, I am in there too. The camera never actually points at me, but through what the camera captures I wanted to create the impression for viewers that they were also sitting at the table.
There’s a scene where the owner is eating ice cream outside with his wife, Auntie Ping, and it’s one of the only times when you hear my voice. A friend asked me, “Why do you show up for the first time in this scene?”
Actually, the owner and Plumpy weren’t getting along at the time, things were stuck. They hardly talked to each other and I couldn’t film them together.
After the two fought and stopped talking to each other, sometimes I would only film the owner, other times only Plumpy. I also set up a tripod and filmed them both in the shop not interacting at all. I think Plumpy was hoping I would let the owner know what was on her mind, but it seemed to me there was no way he could understand, and for a while I tried in vain to get them to communicate.
Plumpy would come to Yat Tai almost every day. She worked in Hong Kong, and Yat Tai is on her way home from the boat landing and it stays open and lit up until late. Going there was like coming home for her. The place is a type of home, and Plumpy is a part of that home. I sort of starting speaking in her place when she wasn’t around. I know it’s debatable and I’m not sure it was the right thing to do, but I feel it was important for me to do so.
In the city there were demonstrations demanding democracy, and people on the island saw them on TV and some even participated. What was the atmosphere at Yat Tai like at that time?
I would say Cheung Chau was very divided then. For example, on their days off the young people would take the boat to Hong Kong to participate in the movement, while the older people stayed on the island commenting about the news on TV over drinks. But it wasn’t like in the city, where there was strong opposition between generations and parents would even tell their kids not to come home if they demonstrated or the kids would rebel, breaking all contact between generations. Cheung Chau is a small island and relationships are tighter, so the young people would come home as usual, and even though the different generations couldn’t agree, they would still gather and spend time together at Yat Tai. When I showed an early rough cut to friends living in Hong Kong, they said they just couldn’t understand how people with such different opinions could spend time together in the same place. But for us it doesn’t feel natural that people would get so polarized that they would refuse to share the same space. Maybe it’s an island thing.
I think a sort of truce was reached during the COVID-19 pandemic. The owner got sick, making us wonder if we should keep on fighting or use the limited time to move towards reconciliation. Also, among the regulars there were people who got married or had kids, some moved to Hong Kong for work and others emigrated. The young people became adults, and the lives of the people who once went to Yat Tai almost daily changed. Today Yat Tai is different from how it was when the film was shot. Even so, when you go there it still feels like coming home, and even if we’re far away physically, what Yat Tai means to us hasn’t changed.
In the YIDFF 2025 catalog you are quoted as saying “This is a Hong Kong story—but not the kind we often see.” How do you want the international audience to view this film?
I think these days there are a lot of places around the world in the same situation. For example, when there are elections, opinions differ within families and in communities, leading to friction and fighting. You see it in the U.S. and in Japan too. But I think you have to stop and think about how to process this friction between yourself and those close to you, your family and your friends. I hope this film will encourage viewers to think about their relationships with those dear to them in these divided times. I think when I was a kid I believed that my family and homeland would never change, that they would go on eternally. But growing up I learned that nothing in this world is permanent. I think that holds for Yat Tai, for Hong Kong, for the entire world. Even so, like someone says in the film, “When you stay in a place long enough, your soul stays there too.” Ultimately that’s what I’d like to convey.
Compiled by Yoshida Miwa
Translated by Philip Beaham
Photography: Kato Takanobu / Editorial supervisor: Ono Seiko / 2025-10-13