HKIFF: The Asia debut of the original 'Metropolis'

'Metropolis': A city of towering skyscrapers ruled by a technocratic elite that lords over underprivileged working masses. Sound familiar? The dystopian future imagined by Metropolis, the 1926 masterpiece of German director Fritz Lang, rings eerily true in certain parts of Asia today. Now, thanks to the Hong Kong International Film Festival, moviegoers will have a chance to see Metropolis the way it was originally intended: uncut and with a live orchestra providing the soundtrack.

Metropolis is the story of the rivalry between a city's autocratic ruler and the mad scientist Rotwang, who builds a rampaging robot known as the Maschinenmensch. When it premiered in Berlin in 1927, it was well received, but at 153 minutes it was far too long for American distributors, who insisted on chopping it up and re-editing it until it was barely recognizable. The recut version of the film flopped. Worse yet, the original version was lost.

Eventually, the film was redeemed as people slowly began to recognize the brilliance of its vision. Its take on architecture was particularly remarkable: the metropolis of the film's title is a terrifying exaggeration of the modern city, with easily-recognizable architectural styles -- Art Deco, Bauhaus, early Modernism -- that were made gloomy and nightmarish. Bizarrely, in the decades after the film was made, real-life cities began to resemble the one in the film, as if "Metropolis" had subconsciously inspired architects to build monstrously-proportioned, inhuman housing projects and office complexes.

In 2001, the film was recut and restored to as close to the original version as possible, earning it an extraordinary spot on a UNESCO list of world cultural treasures. Then, in 2008, the original version of the film was discovered sitting in the storage room of a Buenos Aires museum.

It took "some luck and a lot of effort" to bring the newly-uncovered version of the film to Hong Kong, says Li Check-to, the HKIFF's artistic director. The Hong Kong Culture Centre's Grand Theatre was the only suitable venue, but it lacks a digital projection system, so the festival had to install one itself. It will also bring in a guest conductor from Germany to lead the orchestra, which will be performing a score that inspired the movie, rather than the other way around.

All in all, says Li, the HKIFF will lose money on this screening. But it's all worthwhile. "This is a film ahead of its time. It was only recognized decades later as a classic, and a pioneer in science-fiction films, both in terms of the architecture of the futuristic city and the design of the robot." (Metropolis trivia: Star War's famously dotty robot, C3PO, was based on the Metropolis robot.)

If Hong Kong sees a reflection of itself in the dysfunctional metropolis of the film, all it needs is a Maschinenmensch of its own to set things right.

"Metropolis" screens at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre on Thursday, April 1, at 8pm. Tickets range from $100 to $600 and can be bought through Urbtix.