This dramatic footage shows the moment Hong Kong protesters evaded police by abseiling down a bridge and escaping on waiting motorbikes.
The activists were filmed sneaking out of Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Monday night and shimmying down plastic hosing.
Some commentators say the effort to help demonstrators flee the police lockdown channels the 'spirit of Dunkirk', Reuters reports.
About 200 protesters were still inside the sealed-off university campus last night, raising fears of bloody clashes with no resolution in sight.
The former British colony appointed a new head of police, Chris Tang, on Tuesday to oversee the city's force of more than 30,000 officers.
Tang said he and his colleagues were not able to end the protests alone.
He also claimed "fake news" was undermining the reputation of Hong Kong police.
Police allowed two prominent figures onto the campus late on Monday to mediate but many protesters refused to leave voluntarily.
The university, in the centre of the bustling Kowloon peninsula, is the last campus still occupied by activists during a week of often violent protests.
Demonstrators said supplies, including food, were dwindling rapidly.
One demonstrator, 21, said: "There have been so many people who have sacrificed for this.
"Some people just don't give a s***. They just want to sit back and wait for a successful result."
Demonstrators are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in Hong Kong's promised freedoms when the former British colony
returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
They also say they are responding to excessive use of force by police.
China says it is committed to the "one country, two systems" formula granting Hong Kong autonomy.
The city's police deny accusations of brutality and say they have shown restraint.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday she hoped the university standoff could be resolved peacefully, although she was shocked that campuses had been turned into "weapons factories".
