“Sang Yat Fai Lok” was recreated from newspaper archives, production stills, and family photographs of the Rediffusion (Lai Dik Foo Sing) Television Programs “Calvin’s Corner,” circa 1960; “Children’s Corner,” circa 1965; and “Happy Birthday,” circa 1975. Though wildly popular and adored by generations of children in the Pearl River Delta region, there are no recordings of these programs in existence. This was the case for the majority of early broadcasts, which were filmed live and transmitted directly into homes.
Based loosely on the prolific career of Hong Kong television personality, Calvin Wong Hay and his brother Eddie Wang Yee Hang, it simultaneously documents a lost era of Hong Kong’s broadcast history and the artist’s discovery of estranged familial ties to the region. Through probing both the idiosyncrasies of his ancestors (concubines, gambling addiction, alleged murder, pet monkeys trained to perform lewd acts) and their mysterious pasts, “Sang Yat Fai Lok” is a psychedelic re-imagination of a personal history long repressed.