If anything, this Hong Kong dystopian anthology film, "Ten Years," may've been overly optimistic. It only took four years from its release in 2015 and not ten to introduce an extradition bill as the opening salvo in the Chinese Communist Party's steamrolling of the rights of the citizenry of Hong Kong. Don't expect any more movies like "Ten Years" or many good movies for that matter coming out of the former-British-turned-Chinese colony from now on, either. Something about brutal and oppressive authoritarianism just isn't conductive to the freedom of expression required to make good art. When was the last time you saw a great movie to come out of Xinjiang, after all--"Mulan" (2020) included?
That said, I wish I could honestly say I found "Ten Years" a great film, what with its agreeable social commentary and that it reportedly won a Best Film award for which mainland China censored the awards show (and nobody even bothered to waste effort attempting to distribute the movie itself there). But, the anthology framework, filled as it is with some lackluster episodes, doesn't work very well. The second one, "Season of the End," is especially rather dull. Others, such as "Dialect," which follows a taxi driver forced to learn Mandarin in the once-Cantonese-dominant Hong Kong lest he lose his job, and "Self-Immolator," a mockumentary that seems especially prescient given protests and violence in Hong Kong in recent years, are better. I think the best is saved for last, "Local Egg," which ends with a bookstore's secret depository for contraband. It's the only kind of place where "Ten Years" itself could occupy in China now. An incredibly fitting end with one exception that I could spot: Captain America's shield. Once again, "Ten Years" may've been overly optimistic--in this case that Disney, or Hollywood and capitalism in general, wouldn't kowtow so shamefully to an authoritarian regime. Nope, that merchandise is more likely to be hanging in a politburo conference room than a hidden space for banned artifacts.
