The first independent film released in post-Handover Hong Kong, director Fruit Chan's atmospheric shoestring-budget character study is a rough-and-ready piece of work shot on grainy leftover 35mm short ends in the city's overcrowded subsidized housing projects. The result is a tough, pessimistic film, a portrait of a city on the brink that follows the drifting of high school dropout and wannabe Triad tough Autumn Moon (Sam Lee, in a star-making role, opposite a largely non-professional cast), who sees little hope for his future or that of his home as a newly created Special Administrative Region within China.