Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong

April 9, 2025

3/5

Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong is a 2015 homage to the 1995 classic Before Sunrise.

It follows the two leads on the two nights they spend together in then-contemporary Hong Kong.

The movie kicks off with Jewish-American expat Josh (played by Bryan Greenberg) smoking a cigarette to get reprieve from a rowdy birthday party, when he overhears Chinese-American visitor Ruby Lin (Jamie Chung) futilely trying to get directions over the phone and offers to walk her to the place where her friends are waiting for her. After some hesitation she takes him up on the offer and finds herself so charmed she asks him to have a drink with her, which leads to the kind of awkward situation that today likely would result in a can-you-believe-this-happened TikTok video.

The two run into each other again an evening a year later, and once again Josh's charm (and fluent Cantonese) wins her over which sets the stage for a night that puts their respective "tomorrows" up for grabs as they seem to realize - once again - that maybe they have found the one.

I like this movie. It's writer-director Emily Ting's first feature-length movie. The basic premise of a random repeat meeting is of course highly implausible but I think it's worth overlooking that.

Bryan Greenberg (the good guy in The Good Guy) and Jamie Chung (who's been in a lot of shows and movies, none of which I've seen) carry the movie with seeming ease, even though it was shot on a small budget on crowded Hong Kong streets.

The movie does a great job of keeping Josh intriguing as a character. Is he charming or just flirty? How real is his emotional connection to Ruby? At times he's freely vulnerable but at key moments he holds back, leaving Ruby unsure about his intentions and wants.

Ruby, on the other hand, is clearly taken with Josh but stung, or perhaps baffled, by his inability or unwillingness to say or show what he is wanting their relationship to become.

The flipside of that is Ruby carelessly reengaging with a man she met once, a year earlier, but is still not over, while she's engaged to another man, allowing this virtual stranger to take precedence over a man she's been with "on and off" for five years.

The conversation is fluid and Ting and her crew does a stellar job of blending the two actors into the bustling, captivating, and at times beautiful Hong Kong night.

Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong is worth watching.