“Nixon Addendum”: New Movie on Hong Kong Premieres on “Bitter Winter”
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President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 was the beginning of the end for Hong Kong as an oasis in China’s red desert.
April 21, 2025
Mark Tarrant has produced and directed a new 35-minute film, “Nixon Addendum,” about US President Richard Nixon’s decision to accept Mao’s invitation to visit Beijing in 1972 and the effect this had on Hong Kong’s future. The movie premieres today in “Bitter Winter,” and we have interviewed Mark Tarrant on its meaning.
Q. Your previous short film “2023 Hong Kong Neon Jimmy Lai in Chains” premiered on “Bitter Winter” in November 2023 and was screened at the BAFTA-qualifying British Urban Film Festival in London last October. Why did you decide to make your new film “Nixon Addendum”?
A. To show the thuggish, brutal nature of the communist regime in China. For a few short years, Hong Kong was an oasis in this desert of red. The film starts with communist China’s attacks on Britain in 1967. Chinese officials rush out of the Chinese mission building in London with iron bars, a baseball bat, and a man swinging a large axe as they attack police and bystanders sending several to hospital. “Guardian” photographer Peter Johns took the photo of the swinging axeman at considerable risk to himself. The Guardian Trust provided us with the high-resolution photo used in the film. We then have British diplomat Peter Hewitt bashed by communists in front of his wife and young children at their home in Shanghai. I obtained the original stamped “Daily Telegraph” photo of Hewitt and his family at Heathrow after his escape from China from an historic photo dealer in Iceland—there is very little information available on the internet about these events. The British mission in Beijing was ransacked with communists tearing off the clothes of female diplomatic staff and sexually assaulting them. The term “Red Guards” is used as if to absolve the Chinese Communist Party from any blame.
Q. The film includes a sequence of the 1967 riots in Hong Kong, which I understand you lived through as a young child. Did making the film bring back any memories?
A. I would have been four years old when the riots erupted in Hong Kong in 1967. At the time, we were living in a bungalow perched above Castle Peak Road and looking towards Lantau Island. I remember the tension around the dining table as my parents discussed whether to leave or not—hundreds of communist bombs were going off on the streets of Hong Kong causing many injuries and death. My parents decided to stay. I had two older brothers, one of whom was born in Hong Kong, and a younger Hong Kong-born brother. Hong Kong was our home. I had not seen before “The Star” graphic photo of the bloodied, mutilated body of Senior Inspector McEwen lying on the street after he was killed by a communist bomb in Causeway Bay. “The Star,” which was owned by Australian Graeme Jenkins, was criticized at the time for publishing the photo but justified it by saying “the public was entitled to the facts of the diabolical threat from the Communists.” The photo is nowhere to be found on the internet. The communists also celebrated when they poured petrol on radio host Lam Bun and his cousin burning them to death—and then threatening to murder his young wife and children, forcing them to flee to Taiwan. Our mother would tell us to never touch any boxes in the street as they could be a bomb—making the film I now realize this is related to when a communist bomb killed an 8-year-old girl and her 2-year-old brother who were playing in the street. Again, the communists threatened to kill the distraught father.
Q. Why did you call your film “Nixon Addendum”?
A. After Nixon accepted Mao’s invitation in 1971 to visit Beijing this was the beginning of the end of Hong Kong. The atmosphere in Hong Kong had changed. We have included footage of the Taiwanese Ambassador to the US James C.H. Shen reacting to Nixon’s planned meeting with Mao, who says: “We feel that as a friend and ally we are not being treated rightly.” I would say Hong Kong felt the same way too. My mother swapped her talkative Indian mynah bird for a pet rhesus monkey that the local owner had named “Nixon,” as an insult to the US President. “Nixon” became my younger brother’s favorite pet.
Q. Why did you end your film with a sampling of a couple of Hong Kong kung fu movies and Bruce Lee’s death in 1973?
A. The film includes footage of the exodus from Shanghai in 1949. It was quite thrilling for me to discover this footage, filmed by the US military as my parents had ex-Shanghai friends, our school’s administrator was ex-Shanghai and our mother would take us to the “Shanghai Hair Salon” lit up by a neon sign for our haircuts by ex-Shanghai barbers. The Shanghainese, with their cosmopolitan outlook, helped create Hong Kong’s film industry. Shanghai-born Chang Cheh directed the 1972 Shaw Brothers movie “Young People,” which features in the film and includes Shanghai-born actor David Chiang. I am also in “Young People,” for around 2 seconds as an 8-year-old watching kart racing at Shek Kong airstrip—the clip is included in the film. My 16-year-old brother who was the Hong Kong junior kart champion was racing in the movie with our father as his mechanic. We were invited to watch the pre-release screening of “Young People” at Shaw Studio in Clearwater Bay, before the film was released in July 1972. It was such a thrill as a young boy to attend the private screening of a Shaw Brothers movie at Shaw Studio—and unexpectedly seeing myself appear on the silver screen. David Chiang’s catchy opening drum solo in “Young People” stuck with me all these years and I have included it in the end “Postscript Hong Kong” sequence to the film. I included Bruce Lee’s 1972 film “The Way of the Dragon” as there were Bruce Lee posters everywhere in Hong Kong at the time. I was often asked by young men— “Do you like Bruce Lee?” and I would answer “Of course!” He created so much excitement and energy and indeed hope—it is difficult to describe what a shock it was to Hong Kong when he died tragically at his peak in July 1973. There was close to mass hysteria on the streets outside the funeral parlor, which I watched on TV and read about in the newspapers. It left such a mark on me. Looking back, Bruce Lee’s death in 1973 after Nixon’s meeting with Mao the previous year was symbolic of the end of what Hong Kong could have been, a vibrant independent territory with its own unique culture and a bright future. Which is what I would say Winston Churchill wanted of Hong Kong as he resisted Roosevelt’s attempts to hand Hong Kong to China.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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