Local Hero

I consider the movie "Local Hero" (港譯：「小鎮風波」) ten years ahead of its time. It is released in 1982. I think I saw it around 1986 in the movie theater "Columbia Classics" (新華) in the "unreclaimed" harbor shore of Wan Chai (灣仔). Those were the days where I could still spent HKD 20 to see a movie and they had a unique policy of giving 20% off discount to student at 12:30pm & 2:30pm show. I was still in high-school then. I always skipped class on Friday afternoon to see the so-called "art house" movie in "Columbia Classics". I was told it closed down years ago. I guess the "art house" doesn't really have a market in Hong Kong now.

In the movie, a lonely Texan oil professional was assigned by his boss to visit countryside Scotland for the site of the future base of his oil company. Local residents were on the leash by their humble living and they surely welcomed the rag-to-rich scheme by this oil man's plan to purchase their land. They didn't make the deal because of the refusal of one big ragged humble land owner. His reason was the beautiful stars he saw at night would be gone if his homeland was turned into an oil base. The environmental activist view is at least 10 years ahead of most people or 20 years ahead of Hollywood until I saw "The Day after Tomorrow" last year. I guess the "Local Hero" in the movie is this tenacious land owner.

The sound track is produced by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, a Scottish band. He made such a beautiful music where the theme sound is replayed again and again.