City Without Baseball

City Without Baseball (Chinese: 無野之城; stylized: 無野の城; jyutping: mou⁴ je⁵ zi¹ sing⁴) is a 2008 Hong Kong drama film starring Ron Heung and other members of the Hong Kong National Baseball Team. It is directed by South African-born Hong Kong filmmaker Lawrence Ah Mon, about a city where baseball is almost unknown, and where the team plays to empty stadia. It explores several themes traditionally regarded as 'taboo' in Hong Kong society, in an unusually open, convention-defying way, and features full-frontal male nudity in several scenes. It is the first of five such films by Scud (the stage name of Hong Kong writer/film producer Danny Cheng Wan-Cheung). The four later films are: Permanent Residence in 2009, Amphetamine in 2010, Love Actually... Sucks! in 2011, and his most recent, Voyage, in 2013. His sixth film, Utopians, has now been completed and awaits release, whilst his seventh, Naked Nation, is currently in production.

Plot

The actual members of the Hong Kong National Baseball Team appear in the film as themselves, in a story set in 2004. Their isolated existence leads them to take unconventional choices in both love and friendship, and to summon great courage in the face of their lonely and disconnected existence. The story focuses on the easy-going, yet often detached, main character, Ronnie, as played by Ron Heung, and his friendships and relationships with others, both on and off the sports field.