Film of the 26th Hong Kong International Film Festival

While expecting to see an Italian film in the press screening session of the HKIFF, a documentary about Shakespeare was shown instead. Although disappointed by the fact that I could not watch an Italian drama, I would not regret spending the time to watch this controversial documentary.

This film is about whether William Shakespeare really wrote the marvelous work of "William Shakespeare". The producer leaned on the side that someone else wrote those masterpieces, and that the person who wrote them as suspected was Christopher Marlowe, the well-educated writer who was also once a spy for the Queen (Elizabeth I) during his time in Cambridge University. The film uses evidences from the schooling of Marlowe and Shakespeare, the allegedly fake murder of Marlowe, and hints that the producer gathered in Italy where Marlowe might had exiled to, to the career of William Shakespeare as an actor, his illiterate family members, and his estate, to bring out the idea that Marlowe might be the one who wrote "Shakespeare" or perhaps he and Shakespeare might have co-written at least some of the work.

After being told for more than 30 years that William Shakespeare was a great person, it is extremely stunning to me about the idea that someone else wrote "William Shakespeare". The cover-up is perhaps the longest lasting (more than 400 years) with most impact to the English world ever. You have the choice of not believing the idea, but before you can make a judgment, you really need what to know what the producer has gotten on hand.