Thief of Time is a 2010 Hong Kong film directed by Lo Kai-wai, produced by Cheung Wan-ting, starring Tat Wah, Ng Jun-ru, Lee Chi-ting, Chung Siu-tou and Choi Ying-eun, funded by the Film Development Fund, with major locations including Wing Lee Street, Patrick Boys' Colleges and St. Stephen's Anti-Book Schools, as well as a number of cameos by teachers and students of Patrick Boys' Colleges. This is a semi-autobiographical film by director Luo Qirui, and the second sub-role in the play is Luo Qirui's own childhood experience.
In February of the same year, "The Thief of Time" won the Crystal Bear Award for Best Film in the Generation Kplus category of the 60th Berlin Film Festival.
The main theme of the plot describes how a low-income Hong Kong grassroots family of four faces the great changes in fate, comparing time to a thief who steals the beautiful things around him. His father, Luo Sheng (Ren Dahua), opened a "Luo Ji" shoe shop, and his mother (Wu Junru) was a housewife. The eldest son, Luo Jinyi Desmond (Li Zhiting), is an outstanding male college student with excellent character and excellent learning, and is also a sports athlete and guitarist, and falls in love with Liu Fangfei Flora (Cai Ying'en), a famous girls' school student next door, while the second son, Luo Jin'er (Zhong Shaotu), is completely opposite to his brother, with poor academic performance and extremely naughty personality.
At that time, in the 1960s, when Hong Kong people were living in the poorest after the war, the Roche family barely made a living by making and selling shoes, and at the same time had to save money and food for the tuition of their eldest son, and their lives were difficult. One day, Flora suddenly proposed to break up with Desmond because he wanted to immigrate to the United States with his family, which was a big blow to the eldest son, but it also made him and his brother notice the reason behind the Flora family's immigration - social injustice and corruption at that time: a British police officer told his young son when he went to the Luo family to ask for a bribe, he had to know how to recite 26 English letters in reverse order, and the English level was high; when the police officer went to the Luo family to ask for bribes again, the young son had memorized all the English letters in reverse order and recited them to the police officer on the spot, but the police officer did not say no.
Before Flora immigrated to the United States with his family, luo family misfortune was not alone, first the eldest son was seriously inaccurate in the exam, and the results plummeted; then the rebellious behavior of the youngest son, who had to be responsible for the family; then the eldest son lost his hand again in the academic games, although he was obviously ahead in the hurdles project, but in the good situation, he fell in the last column, and as a result, he lost gold and silver medals and only won the bronze medal. Despite the father's harsh reprimand, the mother still tried her best to comfort them; after that, the father continued to work hard to make shoes, and the mother continued to encourage the family to unite and tide over the difficulties with her optimism. After Flora immigrated to the United States, Typhoon Wen Dai hit Hong Kong head-on in the autumn of 1962, the Tenth Hurricane signal was hung high, the "Luo Ji" shoe shop (also the home of Roche's family of four) could not withstand the hurricane wind even after completing the windproof measures, the entire outer wall of the subway gate and the attic was destroyed, and Luo Sheng's painstaking efforts - a pair of leather shoes were all blown out of the shop, exposed to the storm, and the Roche family finally had the ability to keep the roof from being blown away. After the storm, Wynn Street was devastated and became a decadent and ruined, the Luo family suffered heavy losses, and just as they were cleaning up their homes, the eldest son suddenly saw a black eye and fell unconscious...