Happiness Is… 2015

Chan Kai-yuk returns to Hong Kong from Guangzhou after his mother’s death, hoping to reconnect with a father who abandoned the family and started a new life. He soon encounters hardship: fired from a restaurant and unable to keep up with rent, he ends up sleeping on the streets. A kind gesture from Kam, a chef at the Beloved Community Centre, offers him a lifeline. Kam invites him to the centre, but Chan can’t commit without a stable address, so he seeks help from Tse Yuen-fan, a middle-aged, childless ex-singer who lives alone after her last tenant moved out.

Tse is wary at first, a practical and modest woman who sticks to a simple daily routine. Yet Chan’s persistence and a small gesture—a dozen eggs offered as a gift—help break the ice, and she eventually agrees to become his new tenant. With a roof over his head, Chan starts to settle into life at the living room, where Tse enforces a strict timetable. This new structure gives him momentum, and soon he lands a job at the Beloved centre, where he meets Xiaoyue and Fong, both connected to social work in the community. Xiaoyue, a Guangzhou-based intern, captures Chan’s interest as he works on a food-sharing program, even as he navigates the growing pull of romance and the complications of her own relationship.

As the story unfolds, Tse’s memory begins to show strain. A light-hearted moment with Chan turns serious when she undergoes a mini–mental state examination and is diagnosed with a mild cognitive disorder. At first Chan is detached, but witnessing Tse lose her way on the street ignites a sense of responsibility he hadn’t expected. He wrestles with the fear of becoming the caretaker her condition might demand, and for a time he considers stepping away. Yet the sight of Tse searching for him, vulnerable and determined, pulls him back. He chooses to stay, and under the supervision of Fong and with Tse’s consent, he helps her begin a medication plan intended to slow the progression of her condition.

With Fat’s help, Chan tracks down his father and discovers a new family. He secretly takes his younger stepbrother to an indoor playground and treats him to ice cream, unaware of a peanut allergy that triggers a medical crisis. The boy’s distress becomes a turning point: the father, under the influence of his new wife, orders Chan to cut ties with the family he’s trying to reconnect with. Chan complies outwardly, but the emotional toll is heavy. He finds solace in Tse and Xiaoyue, who stand by him, and Tse even asks Chan to call her mother.

As Tse’s condition worsens, she writes a will naming Chan as the heir to all her properties, including the flat she once inherited, on the condition that he continues to care for her as if he were her son. The two begin to live like a family, with Tse indulging in her old passion for drawing and Chan taking up a new job at a restaurant. A visit to Beloved reveals that Xiaoyue has returned to Guangzhou. Her leaving note reveals that she has admired Chan’s steadfast love for his ailing mother since they first met in a Guangzhou hospital, even though she didn’t fully recognize him at the time. Her relationship with her own partner faltered, yet she treasures the human connections she formed in Hong Kong, especially the bond between Chan and Tse, which has given both of them a sense of belonging and purpose amid difficult times.