Film Review: Permanent Residence 永久居留 (2009) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 6.5/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★
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There is a quiet, stubborn courage in Scud’s Permanent Residence (2009) that I admire even when the film itself doesn’t quite land with the emotional force it clearly intends. Here is a Hong Kong filmmaker working in a commercial industry that traditionally prefers safer ground, choosing instead to tell a story about the ache of unrequited love between two men — one openly gay, the other identifying as straight — while wrapping it in larger meditations on mortality, impermanence, and the search for something lasting in a transient life.
Sean Li plays the central figure, a man carrying both desire and a quiet awareness of life’s fragility. Opposite him is Osman Hung as the object of that desire, a performance that walks a difficult line between naturalism and necessary opacity. Their chemistry is convincing in moments of intimacy and awkwardness alike; you believe in the friendship even when the erotic tension strains it. Scud, who also wrote and produced, films their scenes with a directness that still feels startling nearly two decades later — full-frontal male nudity and unapologetic sex are not used for shock but as part of the honest texture of these lives.
The film’s strength lies in its willingness to sit with discomfort. Scud refuses easy resolutions or moral lessons. He lets his characters be flawed, selfish, hopeful, and lost, sometimes all at once. There are passages — especially those involving travel and fleeting connections in Japan, Australia, and elsewhere — that achieve a kind of melancholic poetry. The movie understands that some loves are not meant to be possessed, only experienced, and that knowledge can feel like both liberation and punishment.
Yet Permanent Residence struggles with its own weight. At nearly 140 minutes, it occasionally drifts and repeats its emotional points rather than deepening them. The semi-autobiographical elements give the film an authentic sting, but they also lead to a certain indulgence — moments that feel more personal to the director than illuminating to the audience. The narrative can feel episodic, almost like chapters in a diary rather than a tightly shaped drama. When the film reaches for larger existential statements about life and death, it sometimes grasps rather than grasps us.
Still, there is real value here. In a cinematic landscape that often treats queer stories as either flamboyant comedies or tragic cautionary tales, Scud’s calm, non-judgmental gaze is refreshing. He simply observes people trying to find permanence — in love, in memory, in residence — in a city and a world that resists it. The title itself is quietly profound: “permanent residence” is both a legal status many in Hong Kong have sought and a spiritual state most of us never fully achieve.
This is not a great film, but it is a sincere and distinctive one. It earns its place in the small but vital tradition of honest independent Asian queer cinema. I respect its nerve and its heart even as I wish its craft had matched its ambition more consistently.
A film that matters more for what it dares to say than for how perfectly it says it. Worth seeking out for those interested in bold, personal filmmaking. (Neo, 2026)