The Weeknd has released “Hong Kong” on streaming services, a week after he first played it to a packed Kai Tak Stadium, and the credit line spells out what the song is built on. The featured artist reads 王菲季候風: Faye Wong’s Chinese name fused with the title of her Cantonese ballad “季候風” (“Seasonal Wind”), the track he samples throughout.

The single comes out through Republic Records and his XO imprint as a one-track release running 3:37. Its cover sets the Chinese characters for Hong Kong, 香港, in a black block over a sun-bleached collage of harbourfront towers and a ferry pier, with the same fused Faye Wong credit printed underneath.

Hong Kong’s English-language daily The Standard described the song as weaving the melody and vocal elements of “Seasonal Wind” into The Weeknd’s dark R&B sound. Stereogum heard a grand, dramatic ballad. Wong’s voice is the hook, which explains why the credit treats her original recording as a guest feature rather than a footnote in the liner notes.

The stadium premiere came with a video made for the city. Its director, Evan Larsen, told the South China Morning Post that it was produced in about a week, with scenes in Central, on The Peak and along the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. “The Weeknd is a massive movie fan and loves Hong Kong cinema from the late ’80s and the early ’90s,” Larsen said, adding that the singer sent him a list of films to watch before he arrived. Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express and Fallen Angels were the main references, alongside John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow and Hard-Boiled.

The sample choice did not come out of nowhere. In late September, Abel Tesfaye shared Wong’s album Fuzao on social media. Before the concerts he had dinner with Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Carina Lau, and set his photo of the evening to Wong’s “Dream Person” (夢中人), the song that runs through Chungking Express, the film in which Wong starred opposite Leung.

The response in the city was immediate. The Weeknd’s own Instagram clip of the performance had passed 16.6 million views within three days, according to The Straits Times, and the official video of Wong’s original on her YouTube channel drew a fresh wave of views and comments. One fan quoted by The Standard called the song a love letter to Hong Kong and asked for it to reach Spotify. It now has.

“Hong Kong” is part of a pattern on this tour. The Weeknd has premiered songs that appear to be called “Rio” and “Tokyo” in the cities they are named after, and his previous album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, already carried place-name titles such as “São Paulo” and “Niagara Falls”.

He debuted the song on Saturday 24 October, the opening night of a four-show run at Kai Tak Stadium on the After Hours Til Dawn Tour, in front of more than 40,000 people. The streaming release is dated 31 October, the same day as the last of those shows. “Seasonal Wind” first appeared in 1993 on Wong’s Cantonese album No Regrets. As of release day, Larsen’s video had not been posted to The Weeknd’s official YouTube channel.

For a song written as a tribute to the city, the most telling detail may be that small credit on the cover: it names a 33-year-old Cantopop ballad as his duet partner.

Tags: Hong Kong, Republic Records, The Weeknd, Cantopop, Faye Wong

The Weeknd releases ‘Hong Kong’, built on a Faye Wong ballad, as his Kai Tak run ends

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