The True Story of Ah Q—Between Dog and Wolf

When the powerful and powerless blur into one

The French expression “entre chien et loup”—the twilight hour in which dog and wolf blur into one—depicts a world where identities fracture and moral lines fade. The phrase echoes the subtitle of a darkly satirical play by German writer Christoph Hein.

In 1983, Hein re-imagined Lu Xun’s modern Chinese classic The True Story of Ah Q (1921–22) for the stage. The original story cut deep into the absurdity of self-preservation and human denial, and Hein’s approach to the play is laced with tragic humour, sharpening its bite for a new era.

Following last year’s acclaimed The Drunkard, the HKAF commissions another bold cross-cultural production in Cantonese, reviving a literary masterpiece with striking contemporary resonance.