It’s the spring of 1969 and the historic events of the year have not yet taken place. The world will have to wait another six months before Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon. Our young hero is still running through the streets of Hong Kong with a goldfish bowl on his head for an astronaut’s helmet. He is the first astronaut in the British Crown Colony and his view of the world is not merely distorted by the glass in front of his eyes. As far as our hero’s perception of terrestrial reality is concerned – he follows a completely different set of rules.
The film’s story centres on the young astronaut’s cheerful family: his shoemaker father who walks around in a torn pair of sandals; his carefree mother, who is convinced that anything’s possible if you really want it, and his ambitious older brother. In this film we accompany these amiable people back to a time when everything was new, the girls were charming, the adults unfathomable and every story was simple and beautiful.
Alex Law: “My father was a shoe-maker. During his time, he must have made more shoes than he could ever remember. But what’s more gratifying, my father’s shoes helped him feed the family, and saw me through my childhood, a childhood full of laughter and tears. ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW is a chronicle of this bitter-sweet childhood, along with its dooms and surprises. And most of all, it is also my love letter to Hong Kong, which braved the rocky and easy sixties in beautiful style.”