A thematic continuity between Exiled (Fangzhu, Johnnie To, 2007) and After This Our Exile (Fuzi, Patrick Tam, 2006) is more easily prompted by the English titles than the original Chinese titles: ‘(fang) to let go, (zhu) to go after’ and ‘(fu) father, (zi) son’. The English translations of these titles explicitly incorporate the notion of exile, which connotes both spatial displacement and social and cultural relegation. In each film, protagonists escape to a place of isolation (Macau) or reside in a place of lesser economic development (Malaysia). But what motivates – diegetically or extra-diegetically – these films to be set outside Hong Kong, and to what extent do they redirect one's attention to the experience of living in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong cinema has consistently been transnational at the level of text as well as industry, with characters in films travelling across national borders and targeted audiences for films spanning both domestic and overseas markets. Macau has emerged as one of the prominent locales for contemporary Hong Kong cinema, providing the space for such films as The Longest Nite (Patrick Yau Tat-chi, 1998), Fu bo (Lee Kung-lok and Wong Ching-po, 2003), Isabella (Pang Ho-cheung, 2006) and Vengeance (Johnnie To, 2009). Macau has also long served as a place of origin and sojourn for individual characters including Su Li-zhen in Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai, 1990) or, as in the films that I will examine, a place for exile. Macau, like Hong Kong, attracted and bridged various political and cultural traffics within the region due to its geopolitical conditions. In Song of the Exile (Ann Hui, 1990), Macau provides a transitional place for Yueyin's family, whose members long to return or move to somewhere else for a difffferent reason. In a flashback the childhood of Yueyin, who has grown up in Macau in the 1960s, unfolds. One detects a cultural tension between her grandparents, who still lead and insist on a Chinese lifestyle with a hope to return to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the near future, and her Japanese mother, who faces difficulty fitting into the Chinese customs and culture.