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 stadiums. The film explores several themes traditionally regarded as "taboo" in Hong Kong society.
City Without Baseball is the first of seven publicly-released films by Scud (the production-crediting name of Hong Kong writer/director/film producer Danny Cheng Wan-Cheung). The six later films are: Permanent Residence (2009), Amphetamine (2010), Love Actually... Sucks! (2011), Voyage (2013), Utopians (2015) and Thirty Years of Adonis (2017). His eighth film, Apostles, was made in 2022, as was his ninth, Bodyshop, but neither has yet been released. His tenth and eleventh films, Naked Nations: Hong Kong Tribe and Ghosts Just Wanna Have Fun, were produced in 2024.
Contents
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.
Awards
2008 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards Winners for Top 7 Suggested Films
2008 Taiwan Film Critics Society Awards Winners for Top 10 Best Chinese Films
Home media
A Panorama Distributions Co.:
VCD first became available on 2008-10-03 (3 October 2008)
DVD (DVD Region 3) first became available on 2008-10-10 (10 October 2008)
Blu-ray Disc first became available on 2011-06-03 (3 June 2011)