The Weeknd Debuts New Song “Hong Kong” In Hong Kong

Earlier this year, the Weeknd debuted a new song, reportedly titled "Rio," while performing in Rio, and he premiered another one that seems to be called "Tokyo" while performing in Tokyo last month. On Saturday, the Weekend kicked off a sold-out four-night run at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Stadium. There, he debuted another brand new song, and you will not be shocked to learn that it's called "Hong Kong." As captured in the Weekend's social-media video, "Hong Kong" is a grand, dramatic ballad built on a sample of "Seasonal Wind," a 1993 Cantopop ballad from the Hong Kong star Faye Wong. To some of us, Faye Wong will always be best-known as the star of Wong Kar-Wai's classic 1994 film Chunking Express, and that definitely seems to be what the Weeknd had in mind with that sample choice.The Weeknd's social media video of his "Hong Kong" performance is one static camera angle, far away from the stage, and you can barely see the guy most of the time. Instead, what you see is the totality of the massive screen behind him. It's all footage of Hong Kong, shot by videographer Evan Larsen, that explicitly evokes scenes from Hong Kong films. Larsen tells the South China Morning Post, "The Weeknd is a massive movie fan and loves Hong Kong cinema from the late ’80s and the early ’90s. He gave me a list of movies to check out before I arrived to get inspired by the city before I saw it in person. That definitely helped, and we wanted to lean into that. " Larsen names Chungking Express and its spiritual sequel Fallen Angels as influences, as well as John Woo's A Better Tomorrow and Hard-Boiled. Great movies! Larsen says that he has gotten tons of messages from people who remember Hong Kong in the '80s and '90s: "It brought tears to their eyes. Reading these messages is exactly what we are going for... [The Weekend] really wanted to make the song but also the video a full-on love letter to the city. It’s amazing to see that it’s connected with so many people." Watch the performance below.The Weeknd's last album, 2025's Hurry Up Tomorrow, had songs called "São Paulo" and "Niagara Falls." He's turning into the Mountain Goats with these place-name song titles.