by Vivien Leung
Three deaf twenty‑somethings in Hong Kong navigate identity and systemic barriers in Adam Wong’s drama.
“I hope there are no more deaf people in this world.”
It is, on the surface, a well‑intentioned ideal—but what does it feel like for the currently deaf to hear it? When Sophie, youthful and earnest, serves as an ambassador for cochlear‑implant surgery, she delivers this line with a kind of contrived confidence. It instantly ignites Wolf’s fury from beneath the stage. It took me a moment to realise that Sophie had unknowingly claimed superiority over some of her hard‑of‑hearing comrades.
Sophie has worked her whole life to be “normal.” Her mother told her she needed to work twice as hard to survive in an aural world. She was discouraged from learning sign language because it signified disability. She hears and speaks at about seventy percent of an aural‑typical person, manages to secure a corporate job—only to later realise she was hired under disability tokenism. Yet with Wolf, she does not need to perform and learns what it is like to be free.
The film touches on the technical limitations of cochlear implants, but its heart lies elsewhere: in the courage to choose one’s own path. Sophie realises she has the option not to renew the failing implant in her skull. She could step into a non‑hearing world—the world of sign language. When asked about her hobbies, she becomes tongue‑tied, even more than usual. She has never had the luxury of time to pursue something that brings her real joy. Eventually she answers: sign language. Here she announces her new hobby, her new doorway.
Alan, the mediator between Wolf and Sophie, is the bridge figure, also a successfully “normalised” person—someone who uses an implant but also knows Hong Kong Sign Language. In the scene where he hesitates before removing his receiver on a basketball court, then quietly puts it back on, he too exercises freedom. But choice, as the film reminds us, always arrives bundled with responsibility. You accept the risks and consequences of the path you choose. That is when you exercise full freedom.
The romantic, triangular dynamic among the three adds another layer to Sophie’s journey. At first, we assume her feelings for Wolf motivate her to learn sign language—specifically Hong Kong Sign Language. But it isn’t that. She falls in love with the gestural world itself. Wolf, a diving aficionado, shows her the water. And she chooses to dive in. She literally plunges into the world of sign language, a world where she can be more than seventy percent—where she can feel whole. For the first time in her life, she is truly listening, not with her implant, not with her ears, but with her heart.
The film’s imagery and cinematography made me fall in love with my home city again. As a Cantonese speaker, I was delighted by the night‑market scene where the trio translates dai pai dong dishes into sign language—playful, poetic, and full of local flavour. And the rooftop scene where Sophie teaches Wolf mathematics in sign language for his diving exam is both tender and inspiring. The film succeeds in making sign language not only expressive, but fun—and sexy. Intricately arranged soundscapes draw us into the shifting auditory and muted worlds of each character.
I met filmmaker Adam Wong during a Q&A in Tokyo earlier this month. He said (paraphrased):
“For me, living in this world, finding myself, and discovering a way to connect with the world are of utmost importance. Especially in recent years, when so many values we once held dear are crumbling, you realise that nothing matters more than being true to oneself.”
Sometimes, we find our true selves not by emerging—but by submerging.
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The Way We Talk (2024)
Cantonese, Hong Kong Sign Language
Director: Adam Wong
Writers: Adam Wong, SeeKing, Ho Hong
CAST
Neo Yau – Wolf Yip
Chung Suet Ying – Sophie Fong
Marco Ng – Alan Ng
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