No Time For Goodbye screened on 12 April 2025 at the London Independent Film Festival and at the Hong Kong Film Festival UK on 19 September 2025 amongst others.
No Spoilers
Through the universally understood experiences of loss, uncertainty, and hope, Don Ng illuminates the uncertain existence of migrants seeking asylum in Britain.
No Time For Goodbye is a deeply human film that centres on two asylum seekers from Hong Kong, Bosco (Lam Yiu-Sing) and Jasmin (Kitty Yu). Jasmin and Bosco meet through one of life’s unremarkable moments, as Bosco misses his bus, an emblem of their migrant lives, which have been put on hold. It is within this shared period of uncertainty among asylum seekers that a delicate connection begins to form.
The pasts that led Bosco and Jasmin to seek asylum in Britain remain largely distant from the viewer, shifting the focus instead to their present circumstances within Britain. These circumstances are rendered with sharp emotional detail. Jasmin is in the middle of an appeal process for her asylum claim, while struggling with separation from her boyfriend and the uncertainty surrounding his situation in Hong Kong. Bosco, meanwhile, arrives in the UK only to be immediately separated by authorities from Lung, a child who has made the journey with him.
Ng uses Bosco’s living conditions, in particular, to visualise the realities of asylum accommodation in Britain. Bosco is placed in a cold, unhomely ex-military building, underscoring the temporality and instability of migrant housing. Contrastingly, Jasmin inhabits a warm and vibrant canal boat, a temporary haven provided by a fellow artist who is out of the country. This temporary, nomadic home reflects her own uncertain status, one that remains subject to removal at the whim of others.
The film’s emotional impact is largely carried by two special performances. Lam Yiu-Sing portrays Bosco as a man eager to rebuild his life and contribute his mechanical skills, yet he is left immobilised and frustrated by both the financial restrictions and the inability to work. These restrictions, imposed on those in Britain applying for asylum, affect meaningful integration into society. Kitty Yu’s Jasmin functions as a striking contrast. Outwardly, she appears as a bright, smiling artist; however, underneath lies unresolved grief and longing. A solo scene aboard the canal boat is the highlight of Yu’s performance, which allows the viewer to fully feel Jasmin’s uncertainty, loss, and sorrow.
While Bosco and Jasmin are pivotal to the storyline, the film features a variety of supporting characters, including fellow migrants and both helpful and hostile locals. Through this broader social environment, Ng invites the viewer to grasp the circumstances and hopes of migrants seeking asylum in Britain. Meanwhile, the film’s deliberate, measured pacing allows emotional connections between each character and the viewer to develop, encouraging a connection with each character’s story. Crucially, whilst Ng engages the audience with individual stories, he resists rushing towards resolution; often, there is none. This reflects the film’s central themes of uncertainty, alongside loss and hope, in which goodbyes are rarely clear or complete.
No Time For Goodbye is particularly timely. It carefully incorporates the hostility towards asylum seekers within contemporary political discourse, from news coverage and deportation plans, to outbreaks of public violence. Yet its relevance in the year of its release extends beyond the broader immigration debate, offering a moment of reflection for migrants from Hong Kong.
The film arrives as those who migrated to the UK under the British National (Overseas) visa scheme approach the five-year mark of their lives in the UK. The BN(O) scheme, introduced in 2021, which saw 71,512 successful applications in its first year alone, now leaves many of these migrants facing the decision between applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain and British citizenship. For this audience, the film will ring true with particular clarity, serving as a symbol of the emotions and unmade goodbyes that preceded their own journeys, alongside the hope of starting anew.
No Time For Goodbye is a vital and deeply moving debut that establishes Don Ng as an important cinematic voice, one who treats the stories of the migrants not as issues to be examined, but as human realities to be felt and honoured.
Image credits: Film stills from No Time For Goodbye (2025), courtesy of Vancouver Asian Film Festival / HKOSFF. Copyright belongs to the respective owners.
