Discussions began in March at FilMart in Hong Kong, which U.K.-China Film Collab attended with the U.K. The NGO deployed a similar approach last year with Robin Lee’s Hong Kong documentary “Four Trails,” which opened Odyssey and then played more widely in cinemas in 2025. The film, from Hong Kong director Rosa Pang, revisits Wong, the singer-songwriter who drove Beyond creatively and whose songs shaped a generation of Cantonese-speaking listeners in Hong Kong and further afield.
The producers are Yip Sai Wing, one of Beyond’s founding members, and Leslie Chan, the manager who is credited with finding the group. The film is built around interviews with people who knew Wong both personally and through work. These sit alongside rare concert recordings, never-before-shown archive material from his early years and footage that has not been released until now.
It follows Wong from his first brushes with music through the rise of Beyond and his growth as a songwriter and performer, looking at his approach to music, his character and his ideals. Pang and Leslie Chan described it as a dedication to “a legend, an ordinary person, through memories of those who truly knew him. The film seeks to rediscover the real Wong Ka Kui.” Wong died in an accident in Japan in 1993, at age 31.
The band’s songs have kept finding new listeners since. There is also a U.K. link. The film’s interview with Beyond founding member William Tang was shot in London.
After an earlier theatrical run in Asia, “Because of You Ka Kui” will have its U.K. premiere as Odyssey’s opening film. The festival will run Sept. 28–Oct. 10 at a number of cinemas as well as online. Each edition is built around a different theme, and this year’s is #Fashion.
Fashion is not only about what an era wears; it is also about how a generation chooses to see and express itself. That makes ‘Because of You Ka Kui’ a very meaningful film to launch this year’s Odyssey.” Hiu Man Chan said the opening pick reflected the festival’s aim to treat fashion as more than clothing and catwalks, and to explore how film, music, visual identity and pop culture feed into one another. Bringing the film to the U.K. was “my true honor,” Hiu Man Chan added.
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