Spacked Out

In the god-forsaken satellite city of Tuen Mun, 13-year-old Cookie suspects she's pregnant. Lately things have not been going her way. Her mother left; her father ignores her; her best friend is in reform school; and her boyfriend is off selling bootleg VCDs in bustling Mong Kok. Flanked by her ride-or-dies Banana, Sissy, and Bean-curd, she journeys into town to find an abortionist.

Director Lawrence Lau updates his 1988 debut Gangs – a shocking account of underage Triads – with an all-girlscast surviving on the lowest rungs of gang-life after the bosses have long gone legit. Swimming in turn-of-century malaise, this Category III youth drama offers a slice of urban grime as our quartet, who can only rely on themselves, navigate drug abuse, bad boyfriends and library books way past their due dates. Produced by Johnnie To (Election) and written by Lo Chi-leung (Viva Erotica), Spacked Out unfolds not unlike Hong Kong’s answer to Uli Edel’s Christiane F. or Larry Clark’s Kids: a slice of 90s urban grime (replete with all the shiny stylings from the era).