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The House of 72 Tenants
七十二家房客 began as a stage comedy in the 1940s and was filmed in Cantonese in 1963 and again in Hong Kong in 1973, with later remakes. It shows the tenants of one crowded building — a tailor, a hawker, a widow, a policeman — fighting off a greedy landlord, and its title became shorthand for any overcrowded house. In real lanes, the number was rarely seventy-two, but crowding was real. By the late twentieth century, old lanes held a mix of long-standing residents, often elderly, and newer tenants from other provinces who rented cheap rooms near their work. In an expropriation, the two groups stand in very different places: compensation is tied to registered occupants and property rights, while short-term renters usually receive none and must find somewhere else. 老陈's remark — the film should cover them too — widens the documentary's subject from one family to the whole lane.