China

Kung Fu Mahjong

2008-09-02T08:13:00.001-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Wong Jing, Billy Chung Siu-Hung
Cast:Roger Kwok Chun-On, Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, Wong Jing, Theresa Fu Wing, Jay Leung Jing, Lam Chi-Chung, Tin Kai-Man, Jerry Lamb Hiu-Fung, Lee Kin-Yan
Description:
Does
anyone else think that Wong Jing uses Mad Libs to
write his scripts? Hong Kong's leading schlockmeister
recycles big time for his latest cinematic regurgitation,
Kung Fu Mahjong. The film's title and elder
stars are an obvious nod to
some little film called Kung Fu Hustle, but
Wong Jing does more than borrow from Stephen Chow's
leftovers. Wong also calls upon TVB star Roger Kwok
to parody his own performance from the TVB drama Square
Pegs, and the whole concept of Kung Fu Mahjong
is lifted from every other gambling film ever made.
Originality, thy name is not Kung Fu Mahjong.
Yuen Wah is Chi Mo-Sai,
a professional gambler who's more adept at getting
his butt kicked than actually cleaning up at the tables.
But Mo-Sai finds his golden goose in Ah Wong , a waiter at a local diner whose ability to
hear and repeat complex food orders is Rainman-like
in its exactness. Bingo, Mo-Sai has found his guy
to go gambling with, but there are obstacles. The
main problem is Auntie Fei, Ah Wong's boss and keeper,
who doesn't want Ah Wong to become a gambler because,
essentially, "gambling is bad." No one really
wants to argue with Auntie Fei, because A) she can
beat up bunches of thugs with her feet while carrying
a mahjong table, and B) she's played by Yuen Qiu,
who sports a dangling cigarette out of the corner
of her mouth AND administers beatings on Yuen Wah
as if she were still in Kung Fu Hustle. Wong
Jing knows: if you must copy, copy from the best.
Ah Wong, however, doesn't
heed Auntie Fei's advice, and joins Mo Sai for some
gambling action. Predictably, his beautiful mind works
wonders at the tables, leading to the admiration of
gambling queen Phoenix , plus the ire of #1 gambler Tin Kau Gor
. Mo-Sai also helps Ah Wong get in with
the pretty Cheryl using classic
"Chasing Girls" techniques, i.e. he uses
chicanery to pretend to be someone he's not. Like
all Wong Jing heroines, Cheryl sees through his crap
immediately, but she's still charmed and chooses to
date the lying fool. Cinema purists take note: Wong
Jing has just stolen from himself. He also steals
from himself when Ah Wong gets smacked in the head,
and goes all mental like Ko Chun from the God of
Gamblers films. Ah Wong is reduced to an idiot,
Mo-Sai gets beaten up some more, and the stage is
set for a rousing "I will get back what I lost"
finale, which can also be seen in God of Gamblers,
A Better Tomorrow, and the story of that guy
who just had his wallet stolen. Again, there's nothing
new here.
Not that it matters.
If Wong Jing has a motto, it's quick, fast, and uncomplicated.
Kung Fu Mahjong delivers all of that in spades,
though it errs on the uncomplicated part by being
about mahjong, which anyone can tell you is pretty
damn complex. Wong and co-director Billy Chung dig
deep into the mahjong playbook, and introduce us to
obscure winning hands and gameplay strategy, some
of it fake, but most of it oddly entertaining. If
you like mahjong - and cinematic matches totally get
you off - then Kung Fu Mahjong can be fun stuff.
With numerous amusing variations on display ,
mahjong fans will get their fix here, though the abundance
of onscreen mahjong makes the film about twenty minutes
longer than it should be. Add that to the usual Wong
Jing time-filling , and
you have the epitome of fast-food Hong Kong Cinema.
Kung Fu Mahjong: it's cheap, mildly appetizing,
and ultimately bad for you.
Still, as is common
with Wong Jing, that's all he set out to do: deliver
the cinema equivalent of a Happy Meal, only without
a free toy included. If one were to measure a film's
success by relative expectations then Kung Fu Mahjong
is much more successful than either Divergence
or The Eye 10. This doesn't mean it's a better
film per se, but those who check out Kung Fu Mahjong
and expect Kung Fu Hustle had better get some
education damn quick; this is cheap, rather lame stuff
for undemanding audiences and it's ultimately review-proof.
Are you a fan of Roger Kwok and his work on Square
Pegs? This is for you. Liked the sight of Yuen
Qiu beating the crap out of Yuen Wah in Kung Fu
Hustle? This is for you. Like recycled Chasing
Girls gags and mahjong action aplenty? This is
for you. Like Theresa Fu of Cookies? Well...given
her screen time, this may not be for you, but hey,
at least she's in the film. Wong Jing can't score
on all accounts, but he seems to be batting close
to .750. In Major League Baseball, that's enough to
win you an MVP award.
So once again, reviewing
this movie is probably not possible. Yes, it's bad
cinema, but it accomplishes what it intends efficiently
enough to earn the classification "Not the worst
movie you'll ever see." It's also not the best
movie you'll ever see, but again, if that's what you
were looking for then you should start looking for
more realistic goals, like proof that Michael Jackson
is a normal, well-adjusted human being. If you have
it in you to see Kung Fu Mahjong, then it does
what it should, and that's pretty much about it. This
is empty, sloppy moviemaking but nothing is truly
unforgivable - EXCEPT perhaps one moment. Wong Jing
puts Yuen Qiu into Uma Thurman's Kill Bill
togs for yet another The Bride vs. Gogo Yubari knockoff
scene that should induce more groans than laughs.
This is a gag that's uncreative and lame in its retread
status...hell, if they did it in Where's Mama's
Boy, then it should be avoided at all costs. Too
late, Wong Jing did it, which once again proves that
the man loves movies and loves ripping them off. Both
his loves are present and accounted for in Kung
Fu Mahjong - which means that from an auteur theory
standpoint, Kung Fu Mahjong is really a love
story, and even a successful one.
Okay, now I'm really reaching.

It Had To Be You

2008-09-02T08:12:00.006-07:00

Year:2005

Availability:

DVD
Region 0 NTSC
Mei Ah Entertainment
16x9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Cantonese and Mandarin Language
Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Removable English and Chinese Subtitles

Director:Andrew Loo Wang-Hin, Maurice Li Ming-Man
Cast:Karena Lam Ka-Yan, Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Bobo Chan Man-Woon, Hu Bing, Nicola Cheung Sun-Yu, Yan Ng Yat-Yin, Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung, Kiki Sheung Tin-Ngor, Hui Siu-Hung, Crystal Tin Yui-Lei, Chin Kar-Lok, Hayama Hiro
Description:
Ekin
Cheng and Karena Lam are sparring would-be lovers
in It Had To Be You, an urban romantic
comedy from the long-missed United Filmmakers
Organization . Once upon a time, UFO made
it their mission to create intelligent Hong
Kong movies about people and relationships,
and not kung-fu action epics starring a variety
of now-retired actors and actresses. The plan
worked, but since HK Cinema is now largely composed
of movies about people and relationships, the
sudden appearance of a UFO-branded film brings
higher expectations. Certain signifiers do need
to exist: urban trappings, upscale characters,
and slightly overdone existentialism among them.
However, given UFO's past pedigree, the movie
also has to be good. Hell, given the current
state of HK Cinema, it NEEDS to be good. Anything
less would be a disappointment.
Jack
and Jill are partners at work梐nd
on the short end of the relationship stick.
Though the two meet and spar in grand screwball
romantic comedy style, this pair of attractive
would-be lovers shares an unfortunate romantic
situation: both qualify as "the other guy/girl."
In Jill's case, she's stuck in a backup relationship
with bohunk doctor Chi On . She knows she's the other gal, but
deep down she's sure that Chi On will come around
and make her his one and only. Meanwhile, Jack
is still smarting over the revelation that longtime
gal Bobo Chan is seeing a bohemian airline pilot
. Actually, she was seeing him BEFORE
she started seeing Jack, a factoid he was unaware
of until only recently. Jack and Jill may start
off not liking one another, but given their
shared romantic plight, they have to be made
for each other, right?
Of course they
are! However, we're the audience, so we know
that already. In the heavily glossy world of
It Had To Be You, Jack and Jill are completely
unaware of their obvious heaven-made match.
Hell, even their coworkers know, as does Jill's
mom, Jack's uncle , and probably the
guy running the popcorn stand at the local theater.
But that's the rule of these glossy romantic
comedies: you know the two are getting together,
so it's the "how" that makes the difference.
Some animated misdirection, some feisty sparring,
and a couple of missed opportunities are enough
to get any audience primed for the inevitable
romantic pairing. So do writer-directors Andrew
Loo and Maurice Li deliver?
The waffling,
passive answer: not really. Though it looked
to be promising, It Had To Be You is
only average for a romantic comedy, and definitely
disappointing for a UFO-branded film. The "how"
is supposed to be the meat and potatoes of romantic
comedies, but the "how" of It Had
To Be You is less interesting than the "who"
and "where"梟ot the ideal formula
for this genre. The "who" is fine:
Ekin Cheng is a likable romantic lead, and he
shows a more mature charm than in his previous
romantic roles. It used to be that Ekin Cheng's
romantic screen persona was a grown-up kid who
suffered from arrested development; in It
Had To Be You, he appears to be a likable,
decent guy who really wants to find the right
girl梐nd actually makes a couple of cheer-worthy
choices to get there. Karena Lam is Karena Lam,
meaning she's lovely and oh-so-adorable, and
probably enough to get any heterosexual male
to sit up and pay attention.
As for the "where",
the two inhabit the attractive urban streets
of Central, which is where Casa Nostra, their
shared workplace, is located. A homey Italian
joint, Casa Nostra has delicious-looking food,
coffee that's described in a surprisingly tasty
manner, and nice, likable employees . It's also located right off the
Midlevel Escalators, meaning it's easy to find
if you're in Hong Kong and looking for a classy
joint to snag some grub. Make some reservations
and I'll see you there, though neither Karena
Lam nor Ekin Cheng will be around to satisfy
your star-gazing, star-stalking, or star-bashing
desire to take on Chan Ho-Nam in an impromptu
bar brawl梠r Italian restaurant rumble.
You'll have to make that date on your own.
But I digress.
The fact that I can go on and on about everything
but the film itself should tell you what you
need to know: It Had To Be You is recycled
stuff which looks and seems like it should be
a good movie, but unfortunately isn't. Jack
and Jill do grow closer in a relatively pleasing
manner, but the filmmakers resort to some out-of-nowhere
pathos of the urban UFO variety to make an impact
on the audience. At a pivotal moment, Jack and
Jill must tend to pal Jason , who shares
an offbeat and completely manufactured secret
that's supposed to be touching, but seems more
hackneyed and convenient than anything else.
Jack and Jill also mouth the words to a Faye
Wong song at the exact same time, which is supposed
to indicate a sort of unspoken closeness, but
the moment comes off as jarring and cloying
instead. To top off all the obvious romantic
comedy devices, Jill walks an imaginary dog
and talks to it as if it existed. The effect
is supposed to be endearing, but Jill ultimately
seems more loopy than lovable. When you have
a star like Karena Lam, you should find more
for her to do than recycle Meg Ryan's greatest
hits. At the very least, Ekin Cheng is more
attractive than Billy Crystal, but Cheng probably
would be a lousy Academy Awards host.
Again, I digress. On
the positive end, It Had To Be You has
plenty of talking points for the Hong Kong Cinema
inclined. It's a UFO film, it's got rising star
Karena Lam, falling star Ekin Cheng , an attractive
location in Central, and another patented supporting
turn by the sometimes effective, sometimes annoying
Eric Tsang. Plus, it actually tries to be intelligent
and sophisticated, which makes it a truly rare
Hong Kong flick, and enough to garner Maurice
Li and Andrew Loo an "A" for effort.
But the film itself? A C-plus, or maybe even
a B-minus, but if I give it that grade then
I'm truly being generous. Not to get overly
personal, but I really, really wanted to like
this movie. It had a lot of elements that made
it attractive to me, but if I did like it at
all, it was only because it featured the above
talking points, and not because it really was
a good movie. As it is, I was disappointed,
which wasn't entirely unexpected. If It Had
To Be You had really been good, I probably
would have been so flabbergasted that I would
proclaimed new hope for Hong Kong films. I also
would have renewed my membership in the Ekin
Cheng fan club, or at least gone to Causeway
Bay to see if I could enlist in Hung Hing. But
again, I digress. I seem to be doing that a
lot.

Home Sweet Home

2008-09-02T08:12:00.005-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Soi Cheang Pou-Soi
Cast:Karena Lam Ka-Yan, Shu Qi, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Tam Chun-Ho, Lam Suet, Li Peng, Matthew Chow Hoi-Kwong
Description:
Hong
Kong realtors had best steer prospective clients away
from Home Sweet Home. This horror thriller from
director Soi Cheang posits
the real estate buyer's nightmare. Imagine if you bought
a HK$4.5 million dollar flat in a swank new high-rise,
only to discover that the building is haunted by a disfigured
and emotionally unstable woman who rummages through
your trash and may even kidnap your kids. Of bigger
concern: the local cops suck hard and the housing management
is even more ineffectual. Not only do they let crazy
lady Yan Hong roam all over the estate,
but they let her nemesis, harried mother May ,
crawl through the air conditioning ducts and generally
make a mess of the place in search of her missing child.
Yes, it's sad that two emotionally damaged women are
fighting over lost children, but really, do they have
to make life hell for their neighbors?
But Home Sweet Home
is not the story of the inconvenienced neighbors, nor
is it a really much of a thriller. Instead, Home
Sweet Home is a dour, depressing, and downright
unrewarding melodrama about flawed women who get stuck
in distressingly sad situations. In May's case, she's
an introvert who only cares for husband Ray and son Chi Lo . May would rather
spend her time playing alone with Chi Lo than chatting
with her neighbors - though her passive nature gets
put aside when Chi Lo is snatched by grotesque Yan Hong,
who's eyed Chi Lo ever since he set foot into the complex.
Yan Hong's deal isn't revealed right away. In the beginning
she just appears to be a deranged woman who inhabits
the building like your proverbial "Phantom of the
Housing Estate". But, as the film progresses, her
sad, pathetic story ultimately gets revealed.
The revelation:
that Yan Hong had a sad, pathetic life that knew plenty
of misfortune. It also knew plenty of bad parenting,
as some of what occurs to Yan Hong isn't the fault of
anyone but herself. Karena Lam is photogenic in the
flashbacks and grotesque in the present day, and she
does a decent job selling the character in either physical
state. What she doesn't do is prove to us that Yan Hong
is necessarily worth sympathizing with. Sure, her lot
in life was crappy, and her emotionally-devastated stares
are heartbreaking. But ultimately, what's revealed about
Yan Hong isn't enough to make her that sympathetic -
especially when you factor in her acts of violence and
kidnapping.
In contrast, Shu Qi's
May is totally sympathetic, as she's an out-and-out
victim whose major fault is that she doesn't seem to
own any pants. In a minor, though ridiculous detail,
May always wears skirts - even when crawling through
ventilation ducts, or when preparing to meet Yan Hong
mano-a-mano. Still, despite May's lack of a functional
wardrobe, the audience should definitely be on her side,
and her plight takes on a noticeable intensity thanks
to that. Throughout the entire film, May must fight
alone, as the cops, her neighbors, and the nonexistent
management of the housing estate pretty much write her
off as paranoid and delusional. Of course, given the
fact that her kid did disappear in a frighteningly odd
way, you'd think that someone would show a little more
concern for her. The neighbors and housing management
seem to not care that a child abduction has occurred
in their supposed safe community. While May's solitary
struggle may be compelling, it's also somewhat unbelievable.
Director Soi Cheang does
create some genuine pathos, and his characters and their
situations can be remarkably felt. The resulting film
comes off as intense and compelling - if you can forgive
the film's lack of credibility. Aside from the mystifyingly
crappy neighbors, the cops are laughably ineffective,
and seem to exist only to act skeptical or get in May's
way. Home Sweet Home does possess a compelling
and gripping pace, but once the plot holes become apparent,
the film starts to seem overdone, and even borderline
inane. Karena Lam and Shu Qi's gutsy performances come
off as overacting, and the nakedly horrified performance
of child actor Tam Chun-Ho starts to look wild-eyed
and over-the-top. It would have been better if Home
Sweet Home had been tighter and more confined, but
the sheer expanse of the setting makes the plot holes
hard to cover.
Home Sweet Home does
possess a few emotional hooks that manage to leave an
impression. At some point, the line between the two
mothers blurs, and the resulting moments pack a solid
emotional punch. It's those one or two moments that
make Home Sweet Home at least partially worthwhile.
Soi Cheang works overtime to get the audience to care,
and if he doesn't succeed in even the tiniest way then
the viewer is likely a robotic human being that could
never grasp the sheer desperation and frustration of
a mother who's lost their child. The actresses certainly
spill sufficient sweat, blood, and tears to sell the
emotions, and their effort is appreciated. On emotion
alone, Home Sweet Home is pretty good stuff.
But as a complete motion picture, it's not so pretty.

Himalaya Singh

2008-09-02T08:12:00.003-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Wai Ka-Fai
Cast:Lau Ching-Wan, Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Wong Yau-Nam, Tsui Tin-Yau, Shing Fui-On, Lee Siu-Kei, Tommy Wong Kwong-Leung, Sanatan Mody, Gauri S. Kamik, Donald Tong Kim-Hong, Siu Yeah-Jim
Description:
If
you think your cinema tolerance is unusually high,
then Himalaya Singh is for you. A hodgepodge
of movie parodies, vaguely meaningful Hindu mythology,
and over-the-top everything else, this Lunar New Year
film echoes last year's Fantasia in that it
takes a cast of pretty big stars, has them act silly,
and supposes that it all means something. Both films
are completely weightless, and both feature a pronounced
manic tone that could leave you exhausted. However,
Himalaya Singh is much worse than Fantasia
- which is mystifying because really, the two films
are quite alike. Where did writer-director-producer-scapegoat
Wai Ka-Fai go wrong?
Ronald Cheng leads the
cast as Himalaya Singh, a sheltered dope born in the
Himalayas. Singh has attained the highest stage of
Yoga, and is sent out into the world by his parents
. His supposed mission
is to marry the cloyingly-named India Beauty , but Singh falls in with a Chinese beauty
instead: Tally , an undesirable wannabe
bride who thinks Singh should be hers. Too bad he's
promised to India Beauty, a fact that sends her into
a maniacal tizzy. Her plan: to turn Singh into a bastard
who will mistreat India Beauty, thereby exacting revenge
on the girl who gets the guys instead of her. Singh
goes along because his dad told him to try being a
bad guy, with the caveat that Singh can take a memory
loss potion to erase the memory of his evil deeds.
Of course, Papa Singh doesn't seem to care about collateral
damage, i.e. all the people affected by his son's
possible misdeeds; he just supports being a bad guy
because it's good experience. That's parenting for
you.
Meanwhile, Lau Ching-Wan
is an unlucky Hong Kong bloke on tour in India with
his two nephews . The nephews get sidetracked when they fall
in with Francis Ng, a fellow traveler whose adventurous
spirit causes all three to drink the same memory loss
potion mentioned above. The result: they can't remember
who the hell they are, and embark on a series of meaningless
adventures punctuated by Francis Ng overacting. Thanks
to the memory loss potion, Ng gets to pull the occasional
Memento joke, plus he gets the opportunity
to take on various personalities, including a Japanese
Yakuza, an Indian expatriate, and finally Himalaya
Singh himself. Ng's performance is actually fairly
decent, and he, Ronald Cheng, and even Cherrie Ying
manage amusing and effective performances. Just because
they're acting inane and insane doesn't mean we should
necessarily knock their effort.
However, all amusement
is thrown out the window with the arrival of Lau Ching-Wan's
character, a thinly-veiled knockoff of Mr. Bean. What
that means is Lau mugs, mugs, and mugs some more in
the service of a character that's mostly clueless
and all annoying. After getting separated from his
nephews, he ends up falling into a hallucinatory love
affair with Peacock , an ethereal
beauty whose entire shtick is to parody as many movies
as possible. Somewhere in Time, Titanic,
Kill Bill, Indiana Jones, and more get
skewered, though none of the jokes are really anything
more than curious distractions. Lau does a reasonable
job as the Mr. Bean clone, but there's one big problem:
this is Lau Ching-Wan, who shouldn't be wasting his
time with Rowan Atkinson's leftovers. Still, Lau gets
two love interests; besides Peacock, he also romances
India Beauty, which leads to his inclusion in a massive
yoga competition to win India Beauty's hand in marriage.
Cue a massive yoga race, featuring CGI that's reputedly
state-of-art, but really doesn't look like it. Apparently,
somebody bought their computer graphics workstations
at Walmart.
The above might sound
amusing to some...though if you're one of those people,
you should make an appointment at your local mental
health practitioner pronto. Then again, Fantasia
didn't sound that amusing either: three private-eye
brothers encounter weirdness with a genie dressed
up like Harry Potter, a couple of beehive-hairdoed
juvenile delinquents, and finally a CGI monster that
was more silly than scary-looking. The big difference:
Fantasia was based on the beloved Hong Kong
cinema of the sixties and seventies, and even the
CGI monster had a basis in past HK lore . The stars of Fantasia were playing
the Hui brothers, Josephine Siao, and Shek Kin, and
even the pseudo-hopeful message at the end of Fantasia
had local grounding. It's no wonder that Fantasia
struck a chord with local audiences because it was
really about Hong Kong.
Conversely, Himalaya
Singh isn't about Hong Kong, and it's definitely
not about India. Instead, it's a completely random
hodgepodge of jokes with no rhyme or reason, and after
a good ninety minutes of such pointless silliness,
a person could become insane if not agitated and downright
murderous. Movie parodies are sometimes cool, but
the ones here are thrown upon the audience with all
the cloying referential lameness of a Wong Jing production.
The lone exception to this: the large parody of Somewhere
in Time, which is notable because it's not a very
recent movie , and has no long-term
cultural significance. Those who saw the film might
find the parody to be worth a few giggles, but it's
still nothing worth writing home about. In fact, nothing
here is that interesting or affecting at all, which
makes the final message of Himalaya Singh
completely useless. When the "Go humanity!"
ending rolls around, Wai Ka-Fai seems to either be
A) kidding himself, or B) rubbing our faces in it.
You decide.
Overall, Himalaya Singh
is a decent curiosity for HK Cinema completists, and
really, it's not as bad as Where's Mama's Boy
or The Spy Dad. It's just tiresome and annoying,
and does nothing to make its continuous sensory assault
worthwhile. Fans of some of the stars might be okay
, and the locations and costumes are
pleasing to look at. At the very least, Himalaya
Singh actually seems to improve as the film goes
on, but that's a relative measure. Considering the
first 30 minutes are interminable, a slight improvement
for the remainder of the running time is like dislocating
your finger after breaking a limb. Basically, it's
not so bad in comparison, but it still sucks. To add
insult to injury, Himalaya Singh is currently
2005's highest-grossing Hong Kong film ! The terrible sadness of this cannot
be properly expressed.

Futago

2008-09-02T08:12:00.001-07:00

Year:2005

Hisako Shirata
Director:Fung Yuen-Man
Cast:Hisako Shirata, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Emily Kwan Bo-Wai, Samuel Pang King-Chi
Description:
Asian Horror gets another entry with the underwhelming
Futago. Hisako Shirata turns in a frightfully
average performance as twin sisters Asa and Mio Uchida,
a pair of Japanese girls with vastly different reasons
to be in Hong Kong. Asa came over to become a popstar,
but during her stay at a Tsimshatsui motel, she suddenly
disappeared. Enter sister Mio, whose sudden appearance
at the motel freaks out everyone else staying there.
Their overdone fright at Mio's appearance is because
A) something obviously happened to Asa and everyone
is acting guilty, and B) Mio walks slowly and in a bizarre,
zoned-out state, just like every creepy Asian girl since
The Ring. Everyone should be afraid; soon after
Mio appears, people begin dying left and right. You'd
think people dying would cause a mass exodus from the
hotel, but nobody leaves. The room rates must be good.
Mio's appearance could mean
many things. Is she a vengeful spirit out to avenge
her sister? A tourist just checking up on her sister
at the wrong time? Or a cheap knock-off of every other
creepy female in an Asian Horror movie? The answer:
a combination of the above. For a period of time, the
film does hold some intrigue. This is mostly due to
first-time director Fung Yuen-Man, who reveals the ins-and-outs
of Futago with a slow, patient style that's surprising
for a Hong Kong filmmaker. The film also has effective
cinematography and art direction, and manages some tense
and even effectively violent moments. Futago
doesn't reveal too much too soon, so those who find
the mystery of Asa and Mio Uchida interesting should
be on the edge of their seats.
Unfortunately, the mystery
of the twin sisters isn't really that interesting, so
whatever goodwill the film engenders is soon lost. After
a while, the film's tension gives way to unintentional
silliness. Actors start to overact, characters and situations
grow inconsistent, and an obvious costume change occurs.
Hisako Shirata ditches her white dress and shows up
in a red one, which is a dead giveaway in any Chinese
horror film that you should run away as soon as possible.
However, nobody takes the obvious hint, and continues
to let Mio Uchida have her way. Making matters worse
is investigating cop Ching , who qualifies
as possibly the worst cop in all of Hong Kong. Ching
is tortured by bad memories and a disintegrating marriage,
so he could be excused for being sloppy. However, Ching
doesn't seem to have any idea how to run an investigation
except show up after people are dead. As Ching, Tony
Ho makes a decent burnt-out cop, but he loses all credibility
when he begins to overact comically. But even before
then, Futago has already ceased to become anything
more than an unnecessary entry into an overcrowded genre.

The Eye 10

2008-09-02T08:11:00.008-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Danny Pang Fat, Oxide Pang Chun
Cast:Wilson Chen, Isabella Leong, Kate Yeung, Kris Gu Yu, Ray MacDonald, Bongkoth Kongmalai
Description:
From
haunting all the way down to marginally amusing. The
Eye films, products of those wunderkind Pang
Brothers, have consistently gone downhill since 2002's
stellar The Eye, leading up to this year's
frightfully silly The Eye 10. So what's the
problem? Are the Pang Brothers only one-trick wonders?
Or has the idea of seeing dead people simply run its
course? The answer probably skews towards the latter,
as the Pang Brothers do show enough style and verve
to warrant even more money thrown at them . Also, The Eye 10
has its merits style-wise, and the filmmakers should
get some credit for trying to shake up their formula.
However, if the forumla for Eye 10 is repeated
ad nauseum, then Eye 11, Eye 15, or
Eye 69 don't sound very appealing.
The previous Eye
films had solo female leads; not this time. The Pang
Brothers go the youth route and enlist a passel of young
actors for a supposedly creepy journey to Thailand.
Wilson Chen leads the pack as Ted, a typical Hong Kong
slacker vacationing with cousin May , pal Gofei , and Gofei's
girlfriend April . The
group is visiting the homeland of Thai buddy Chongkwai
, which means fun in the sun and plenty
of teen hijinks. On a dark night, the quintet begin
telling ghost stories, and Chongkwai offers up his
special invitation: to make their own ghost stories.
Duh, they agree, and the problems begin.
But not right away.
Chongkwai introduces his "seeing ghosts"
offer as a game, inspired by a mysterious book that
he bought from a shady bookseller. The book details
the "10 Encounters," i.e. the ten methods
enabling humans to see ghosts. The first two are "The
Case of the Cornea Transplant" and the "Case
of Attempting Suicide While Pregnant" - obvious
references to Eye 1 and Eye 2, complete
with stock footage of Angelica Lee and Shu Qi from
those films. Those two methods are not attempted by
the kids, but the rest - a Ouija board, playing "Hide
N' Seek" with a black cat, offering a midnight
meal on the streets - are fair game, as the kids try
their hardest to see ghosts and presumably scare the
bejesus out of themselves.
The
plan works; they see ghosts and freak themselves out,
though their fright isn't translated to the audience.
The ability to see ghosts seems to be completely non-threatening,
which actually echoes the previous Eye movies,
where the spirits were bad mojo, but nothing more.
Despite their freaky, pale appearance and accompanying
pulse-pounding soundtrack, the ghosts never really
hurt anyone. That knowledge wasn't necessarily given
in the beginning of those films, so tension and some
fright was still possible, but in Eye 10 seeing
ghosts seems like just a way to pass the time with
your buddies. This doesn't stay true for the whole
film, but even then the scares barely register.
Here's one reason why: these
kids are largely uninteresting. Wilson Chen and Kate
Yeung are both promising young actors, but their characters
are one-dimensional and don't engender much sympathy.
The most difficult part is probably given to Isabella
Leong, who brings lightweight photogenic appeal to
the increasingly distraught April. She gets all freaked
when bad stuff starts to happen, but still not much
tension is added. Again, the characters being uninteresting
is one reason, but another is the proliferation of
throwaway gags and jokes that get in the way of a
consistent frightening tone. Humor in horror pictures
is actually welcome because it can provide some relief
from the omnipresent doom and gloom. However, the
jokes in Eye 10 either stretch on for way too
long, or are lowbrow sophomoric stuff that would be
better served in a Wong Jing movie. When the characters
start farting as a way to ward off ghosts, it pretty
much seals the deal; Eye 10 is a sometimes
effective, but unfortunately silly motion picture.
The good stuff: production
values, the overwrought and sometimes bombastic soundtrack,
and even some well-directed moments. The scenes in
Hong Kong where Ted and May begin to spy ghosts are
vintage Pang Brothers, and echo some of the creepier
moments from the original Eye. However, despite
the effective direction, the scenes are completely
undermined by the ultimate silliness of everything,
and even the "10 Encounters" can get comical.
One of the prescribed ghost-seeing methods is to bend
over and look between your legs. Even in a serious
horror picture, that method is probably a little too
silly, but in the wacky, unaffecting world of Eye
10, it's just more silly stuff on an already egregious
silly heap. Eye 11, 12, 14, or
2046 may be better, but let's hope they shake
all the silly stuff out. .

Embrace Your Shadow

2008-09-02T08:11:00.007-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Joe Ma Wai-Ho
Cast:Fiona Sit Hoi-Kei, Dylan Guo, Cheung Kwok-Keung, Chung Ching-Yu, Samuel Pang King-Chi
Description:
Effective
direction and decent leads can't lift Embrace Your
Shadow, a frightfully average romantic drama from
director Joe Ma. The Love Undercover auteur's
second stab at drama, Embrace Your Shadow recycles
old themes and plot devices to tell a tale of love
on the wrong side of the tracks. Taiwan TV star Dylan
Guo is Juchin, a petty thief who loses his head when
he meets the pretty, but dour Ran .
Juchin enters Ran's
life when Shiayou , her six year-old
niece goes missing; Juchin bumps into Shiayou after
pulling a job and tries to bribe her into silence
with a digital movie camera. The girl just wants to
go home, so Juchin takes her home, whereupon he meets
Ran, her paralyzed older brother Feng ,
and discovers their unique troubles. Feng has a rare
hereditary blood disease that caused his paralysis,
and Ran could be in line for a similar fate. Juchin
is instantly sold, smitten, or suckered - soon he's
hanging with the family, taking them to barbeques,
and using his thievery to fund a possible operation
for Ran. Predictably, love and even more problems
blossom.
Joe Ma's first drama
was Funeral March in 2001, and Embrace Your
Shadow shares the same opaque directorial style
as Ma's previous effort. Unlike Ma's usual youth comedies,
the characters of Embrace Your Shadow do not
reveal themselves with witty existentialism or long-winded
exposition. Ma instead uses action and situation to
reveal his characters, and the change in style is
welcome. The film's script is spare and features less
soul-baring exposition than your usual Hong Kong film.
While that's not really saying a lot , the patience
displayed here is refreshing.
Unfortunately, the story
of Embrace Your Shadow is largely generic,
and given to predictable dramatic devices seen before
in many other films. The characters themselves possess
standard melodrama issues, and some are not fleshed
out enough to warrant the weight given to them. Chief
among these is the character of Fu ,
an evil triad with a largely unexplained distaste
for Juchin. The existence of Fu does allow for the
film's climax, but by that time the outcome has been
all but announced. If you've seen any films with a
lovelorn guy trying to escape the clutches of an evil
triad, you'll know how Embrace Your Shadow
ends.
Even more, the film
is perhaps too low key. The romance between Sit and
Kuo is given a warm, simmering build-up via initial
antagonism, followed by sidelong smiles, and finally
outright acceptance. But their love takes a backseat
to a bunch of other subplots, including the evil triad
nuisances, and those involving Feng, who has issues
with his ex-wife. The sequences do bring out some
potent drama, and do support the film's theme of unselfish
love. But if the romance between Dylan Guo and Fiona
Sit isn't that compelling, what reason is there really
to watch?
The film does have its
minor positives. Fiona Sit possesses a range unseen
in most Hong Kong actresses of similar age, and Dylan
Guo is handsome, if not a bit blank. Most of the cast
is effective in a low-key manner , and Ma manages a few defly directed
sequences. Fans of the stars will likely find much
to like in the generous screen time given to their
favorite idols. Still, everything that's been done
in Embrace Your Shadow has been done before,
and usually much better.

Dragon Reloaded

2008-09-02T08:11:00.005-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Vincent Kok Tak-Chiu
Cast:Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, Miki Yeung Oi-Gan, Cheung Tat-Ming, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Tang Chi-Fung, Mimi Chu Mi-Mi, James Wong Ka-Lok, Ken Lo Wai-Kwong, Kary Ng Yiu-Fei, Theresa Fu Wing
Description:
Nobody
claimed they wanted it, but Hong Kong Cinema is giving
it to us anyway: a sequel to the 2003 surprise hit
Dragon Loaded. A quick recap: in Dragon
Loaded, wacky cop Lung Wai wasted
time, made some faces, kicked some butt , and did nothing truly important
or interesting. He also won the the heart of cuddly
Stephy Tang despite looking like Ronald Cheng - an
impressive feat indeed. The movie scored, making Cheng
an instant comedy star. Now Cheng returns for Dragon
Reloaded, a plotless comedy sequel that hinges
on the exact same conceit as the original film. Basically,
it's all about the star. If you can't stand Ronald
Cheng, then Dragon Reloaded will not change
your mind. But if you like him, then this can be fun
stuff. Pick your side.
Lung Wai returns, along
with pals Gold and Hei ,
though one wonders why they haven't been fired from
the force yet. Aside from running a station house
like a nightclub, the trio also appears on a "Hong
Kong's Most Wanted" TV show, which is little
more than another excuse to see Ronald Cheng in drag.
The trio get uprooted for the sticks when they vacation
to Golden Pond Village with former chief Tang . However, they irk the rough and tough SDU/OCB
squad, who are led by the steel-jawed Rock . The tough cops are after a local villager
who stole a Goddess Statue, thereby bringing bad luck
to the village and annoyance to people far and wide.
During an ensuing chase, the cops almost get their
man, but Lung Wai and his pals predictably get in
the way. Rock gets pissed, and the cop trio gets punished.
Said punishment: take the
place of the local police on Golden Pond Village to
possibly find the criminal. This would imply some
sort of assignment, but by the way these guys act,
you can hardly tell that they're cops. Instead of
actual work, the trio attempt to swindle the locals,
hit on any female in sight, and basically mess around
for a good ninety minutes. The highlights: they unearth
a local ancestor for a quick Mr. Vampire reference,
incur the wrath of the ever-mischievious locals, and
engage in comic face-offs with local bully Tiger . Lung Wai also attempts
to romance Miki Yeung, who takes over for Cookie bandmate
Stephy Tang as the love interest du jour. Eventually
stuff happens and the case gets solved, though actual
police work is never in evidence. If you think that
sounds like a plot, then you're an extremely forgiving
person.
Still, using most Hong
Kong comedies as evidence, it's obvious that plot
is NOT the main issue here. The point of any Ronald
Cheng comedy vehicle - and possibly any comedy directed
by Wong Jing heir-apparent Vincent Kok - is simply
shtick, shtick, and more shtick. Occasionally there
are attempts at romance or other gooey feelings, but
even then it's barely in evidence, as everything is
so broadly played by Ronald Cheng that nothing seems
to matter at all. True drama? Real emotions? Actual
tension? None of it exists because Cheng punctuates
everything with such eager-to-please comic gusto that
he's basically smacking us over the head with a giant
comedy-sized mallet. Cheng and Kok are in this for
the cheapest laughs possible, and they mine local
pop culture, old Hong Kong flicks and genres, and
out-of-nowhere gags that sometimes manage to be surprisingly
funny. Case in point: an inspired bit where the SDU/OCB
guys name their operation the "Hong Kong Film
Awards," and go by the codenames Wong Kar-Wai,
Johnnie To, Wong Jing, and Tsui Hark. It's totally
nonsensical and absolutely pointless, but hey, it's
funny.
At least, it's funny
part of the time. Comedy is hard, and again using
most Hong Kong comedies as evidence, it's nearly impossible
to hit the mark with any real consistency. Dragon
Reloaded follows suit and sometimes proves interminable
and downright uninteresting. Vincent Kok doesn't exactly
enhance his filmography, and really seems to have
lost a step from his earlier pictures . Back
then, it seemed that Kok would be able to handle comedy
and occasional touches of real emotion, but his recent
output has all been on the mo lei tau side.
At the very least Kok is less annoying a director
than Wong Jing, but by the same token, his work is
less interesting, and almost bland because it doesn't
reach the extremes that Wong's work does. Wong Jing
can REALLY annoy with his work, but at least he's
reaching you. Sometimes, Kok barely does that.
But the big factor here:
Ronald Cheng. Hong Kong's comedy prince shows up in
fine form, and though he can be annoying at times,
he's really a very likable, competent comedy lead.
Cheng possesses no shame about hamming it up, and
possesses none of that pesky self-aggrandizing baggage
many stars do. Hong Kong Cinema was once popularized
by its self-effacing, likable stars, and Cheng seems
cut from the same cloth. He's still a somewhat raw
comedy performer, but he does possess enough charisma
to be both laughable and likable, and he can engage
an audience's emotions even when he's not cutting
up. Cheng is enough to make Dragon Reloaded
an amusing timekiller - and the fact that the film
itself manages a few more laughs is almost a bonus.
If you're not a fan of Cheng or nonsense comedies,
then Dragon Reloaded will not convert you to
the cause. But for what it is, Dragon Reloaded
is occasionally amusing and even surprising - and
really, it's hard to ask for more than that.

Demoniac Flash

2008-09-02T08:11:00.003-07:00

Year:2005

Anthony Wong takes up a new hobby
Director:Tony Leung Hung-Wah
Cast:Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Nicola Cheung Sun-Yu, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Natalie Ng Man-Yan, Ken Wong Hap-Hei, Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Jason Chu Wing-Tong, Elise Liao, Bella Zhang
Description:
Everyone in Demoniac Flash suffers from delusions.
If you picked up this DVD expecting some sort of quality
filmgoing experience, then you probably suffer from
delusions too. Director/writer Tony Leung Hung-Wah
follows up his underwhelming B-movie PTU Files
- Death Trap with a completely underwhelming horror
flick. This movie is so underwhelming that you will
likely forget what happened only moments after it
occurs onscreen. It's that uninteresting.
Anthony Wong leads the cast
as crippled fellow Mo, who became so thanks to tragic,
yet oddly laughable circumstances. In the opening
moments of Demoniac Flash, we witness the truly
awful parenting that leaves Mo in crutches. While
reading a paper, Mo let his son get run over by a
truck, and the resulting trauma of being such a lousy
father psychologically induces Mo to lose the use
of his legs. Thanks to Tony Leung Hung-Wah's direction,
you might lose control of your bladder. While it's
awful to watch a tyke get totaled by a truck, the
scene is staged so ineptly that A) you know the kid
is going to get run over, and B) you'll probably want
to slap Anthony Wong for phoning in his performance.
Ah, but it gets worse. Nicola
Cheung shows up as the comically delusional comic
artist May. Basically, everytime she falls asleep,
she either A) sees a person in a white shirt get stabbed,
or B) gets chased by a hunchback garbage lady. On
the bright side, May's nice guy co-worker Ken Wong

dotes on her like a lovestruck dope. Meanwhile, his
sister Natalie Ng is a shrieking social worker who
has delusions of getting sexually assaulted by one
of her female patients. She also runs around calling
May crazy, which would be all right if she weren't
so batty herself. All of these characters either live
in or wander around Rose Villa, an impressive condo
establishment that also houses Sam Lee and a bunch of his friends,
who are in town to work on a movie. Then someone dies,
a couple of gangsters show
up and overact, and things start to make even less
sense.
"Pointless"
would be the best description for Demoniac Flash,
though "interminable", "mind-numbing",
and "mystifyingly bad" could qualify too.
Tony Leung Hung-Wah assembles a massive cast of characters,
though some are so unnecessary that it's a wonder
they even made the final cut. Sam Lee looks to either
be A) visiting the set, or B) doing someone a favor.
Anthony Wong actually does appear to act on occasion,
though his character's ultra-nice attitude could merely
be the actor channeling his boredom. Nicola Cheung
is fetching but mechanical, and everyone else in the
cast either overacts or can't act at all. It's hard
to say who's to blame, the filmmakers or the actors
themselves. To be safe, we should probably just blame
everyone.
The killer to all of this:
none of the characters are remotely compelling, and
the situations are incredibly uninteresting too. Horror
should have some basis for affecting you, be it characters
who matter or situations that are unnerving in their
primal familiarity. That doesn't happen here. Though
the "scary long haired woman" does appear
once or twice to remind you that this is an Asian
horror film, most of the scares here are too character
specific to get under your skin. Even worse, 90% of
them occur in dream sequences. Too often we are introduced
to moments of mild horror, only to have the character
suddenly wake up. This probably happens only a dozen
times, but thanks to the miracle of filmmaking, this
"wake up after a bad dream" narrative device
seems to occur no less than 10,000 times. The lesson
here could be to never fall asleep, because if you
do, you'll see some wacky hunchback garbage lady goose-stepping
towards you in an abandoned warehouse. Either that,
or you could dream that you're watching Demoniac
Flash again. If that happened to me, you could
count on me staying awake until the end of time.

Crazy N' The City

2008-09-02T08:11:00.001-07:00

Year:2005
Director:James Yuen Sai-Sang
Cast:Eason Chan Yik-Shun, Joey Yung Tso-Yi, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Yan Ng Yat-Yin, Chloe Chiu Shuet-Fei, Meng Zhang, Kara Hui Ying-Hung, Lam Suet, Hui Siu-Hung, Chin Kar-Lok, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Henry Fong Ping, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Crystal Tin Yui-Lei, Liu Kai-Chi, Daichi Harashima, Elena Kong Mei-Yi, Waise Lee Chi-Hung, Ella Koon Yun-Na
Description:
If Crazy N' The City is any indication, Hong
Kong Cinema won't be that bad in 2005. A return to that
beloved Hong Kong genre called the "Cop Soap Opera,"
Crazy N' the City manages to channel entertaining
life with some tried-and-true movie themes and something
we can only describe as "that Hong Kong feeling."
Eason Chan is Chris Chan, a beat cop whose years on
the force have reduced his once hot-blooded nature into
something only lukewarm. Chris has never used his gun
in the line of duty, and approaches his job with a weary,
cynical laziness that could easily earn him a starring
role in Kevin Smith's upcoming Clerks sequel.
To Chris, it's all just a job, and nothing more. He
cares nothing for his colleagues, hates sucking up to
superiors, and doesn't want to walk uphill unless it's
on his prescribed beat. He could be poster child for
Gen-X slackers everywhere.
Enter Man Liu ,
a too-idealistic 23 year-old rookie who's looking to
matter. Man Liu is egregiously wide-eyed, and jumps
at the chance to do things like save cats, help old
ladies, and help Mainland tourists. Man Liu is a bit
of a caricature, but she serves her purpose. In the
standard formula, she's the half of the cop team that's
idealistic and young, while Chris is the cynical, frustratingly
old half. If the filmmakers followed the formula to
the letter, you could place a hefty wager on the young
cop inspiring the old cop, with their growing friendship
a catalyst for a cathartic ending where Chris exclaims,
"I'm a cop!" while pumping his fist in the
air. Also, with both Eason Chan and Joey Yung in the
leads, the potential for a Chris-Man Liu romance is
too obvious to ignore. If you drop your dollars on the
DVD thinking that's what you're going to get, nobody
would blame you.
Happily, that's not what
writer-director James Yuen does. Most notably, there
is no Chris-Man Liu romance, which probably pissed off
music company EEG , but is a welcome break from the norm for the
rest of us. Even more, Man Liu doesn't really inspire
Chris; instead, each slowly pulls the other towards
a more realistic center. Man Liu experiences minor burnout
from her too-pronounced enthusiasm, while Chris finds
a minor reawakening from the attentions of two teenage
girls who
become his biggest fans after he takes down a pervert
in front of them. This leads to teasing from his colleagues,
and a stint as their guest self-defense instructor.
Meanwhile, slightly-insane former brassiere salesman
Shing meets his pretty new neighbor , and a daring rapist/murderer starts a crime
spree in Wanchai. All this plus numerous cameos, human
interludes, minor characters, and even some death. It's
a cop film after all.
But not a normal cop film.
In the "Cop Soap Opera" genre, just as much
time is spent on the mundane and minuscule as the dire
and the deadly. In the case of Crazy N' The City,
the scales tip heavily in favor of minor character happenstance
and not primo cop stuff. Chris, Man Liu, and even Shing
undergo change in the course of their daily lives, with
each character's story serving to strengthen and support
the other. Shing, in particular, undergoes a massive
change, as his new love interest shakes him from his
shell-shocked norm into something resembling a fully-functional
human being. A series of harrowing personal setbacks
once drove Shing to the brink of suicide, and he's now
a shell of a man, talking into a broken cell phone as
if it were still two years ago. The character is a tough
sell, especially since his story arc is so patently
unrealistic, but Francis Ng helps by making Shing a
righteous, charming village idiot and not just a raving
loon. Joey Yung doesn't exactly come off as the next
Gigi Leung, but she gives Man Liu a likable, though
sometimes tiresomely cute demeanor. At the very least
Yung doesn't seem like the complete waste of an actress
she first appeared to be.
On the opposite end of
the acting spectrum, Eason Chan turns in the film's
strongest performance. Chris is a grouchy, yet likable
lout who somehow regains his sense of moral duty, and
though the change is expected and trite, Chan makes
it seem real and even earned. Chan manages to hit the
right notes, which is something to be thankful for because
otherwise Crazy N' The City appears uneven, and
even cloying. Though much of the character work is intriguing,
well-drawn stuff, when the film hits the eighty-five
minute mark, James Yuen starts to get cloying and obvious.
Would-be dramatic flourishes and inspirational music
become standard practice, which is usually the audience's
cue to start laughing in disbelief at the straight-faced
seriousness of it all. Self-conscious restraint sometimes
helps , and without it, Crazy N' The City
starts to look a little cheesy.
Then again, knocking Crazy
N' The City for getting too serious is probably
too much, as it's those emotional extremes that actually
make the film successful. Rapid transitions from endearing
comedy to pulse-pounding tension have long characterized
Hong Kong Cinema, and to the filmmakers credit, they're
able to take Crazy N' The City from slightly
disturbing farce to life-and-death drama in a credible,
and sometimes even moving fashion. Unexpected emotional
highs and lows are delivered, and though the delivery
is occasionally hackneyed, it's still enough to affect.
The rich location and attention
to both the inconsequential and the important gives
the film a likable, homey charm. There's an appreciable
local flavor to the film that enriches the characters
and makes them seem real梐nd that in itself makes
Crazy N' The City infinitely better than most
of Hong Kong cinema's recent output. The whole is still
a bit uneven, but this feels like a Hong Kong
movie - which is a rare and welcome thing indeed.

Colour of the Loyalty

2008-09-02T08:10:00.007-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Wong Jing, Billy Chung Siu-Hung
Cast:Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Shawn Yue, Suki Kwan Sau-Mei, Emme Wong Yi-Man, Liu Kai-Chi, Lam Suet, Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung, Samuel Chan Kin-Fun, Peng Wai-On, Wu Qing-Zhe, Chapman To Man-Chat
Description:
Wong Jing attempts seriousness with Colour of the
Loyalty, and he succeeds at just that: being serious.
He also succeeds at producing a halfway decent motion
picture, but the qualifier here is "halfway decent".
Eric Tsang dons screwy eyebrows to play Brother Dragon,
a charismatic gang leader who's retiring. However,
he's sitting on a whole bunch of triad money, and
many of his colleagues aren't too pleased about it.
When word arrives that a hit is out on Brother Dragon,
the immediate suspects are his triad brothers, who
ostensibly would gain tons of dough were he rubbed
out. His solution: to pretend to do nothing. Increased
security would tip off his foes, he reasons, so he
pretends to not care. How crafty.
In secret, however,
Brother Dragon has a plan: a group of hidden hitmen
will protect him from the shadows, thus making them
unable to take a bullet for him because they're too
far away. This fault in the plan is revealed to the
audience when Dragon gets into an underground garage
shoot-out, which leaves everyone but Dragon dead,
whereupon his band of protectors shows up too late
to do anything important. This lapse of logic can
be attributed to poor screenwriting, AKA Wong Jing.
Regardless, nobody in the film seems to realize that
this "protect from the shadows" plan is
pretty stupid, so they keep it up. The group is led
by Brother Dragon's old comrade , plus
a bunch of young Turks looking to take their first
steps into the triad underworld.
In particular, there's Fat
, a tough SOB who's obviously the main brawn
of the gang. He's also ultra-intense to a fault, and
seems to be in inner turmoil 24-7. It's clear to Brother
Dragon that Fat has skills, so he pumps up the young
kid with praise and the promise of something greater.
However, there are rules to be followed, namely "Hung
Kwai", the wacky rules of the underworld that
prevent a simple job promotion or congratulatory slap
on the back. Basically, to climb the triad ladder
you have to sacrifice and demonstrate your extreme
loyalty. In Fat's case, he has to endure seeing his
buddy get beaten up out of loyalty to Brother Dragon,
and he has to endure the "stealth action hero"
role that Brother Dragon has assigned him. There are
other problems: it's not entirely clear who's out
for Brother Dragon's head, and the number of possible
players seems to extend beyond Dragon's triad colleagues
. Plus, there's a dopey
lower-level triad who has it in for
Fat, and there are the obligatory females sporting worried expressions in the
background. Plus, people must die. That's what these
films are about, right?
Saints be praised: Wong
Jing manages a semi-decent genre picture with Colour
of the Loyalty, though the actual success of the
film has more to do with a dearth of similar product
than an actual standout film. The title recalls the
excellent 2003 picture Colour of the Truth,
though that's where the similarities end. Instead
of a compelling, fleshed-out crime thriller, Colour
of the Loyalty tries to subvert the conventions
of the "hero" film. In "hero"
films, the honorable triad dudes believe in loyalty
and honor above all else, and when they get backstabbed,
they still band together for some rousing heroic bloodshed.
Colour of the Loyalty takes a different tack,
and puts the hero in an even crappier position. Basically,
the triad underworld has big rules , and you have to follow them. And
if you don't like the Hung Kwai? Well...then life
sucks, especially since there's something called Murphy's
Law which makes the Hung Kwai bite even harder. Wong
Jing attempts some thematic depth by mashing these
concepts into ninety minutes of triad genre goodness,
and basically promising that by the end, something's
gotta give.
Well, something does
give, which is probably the film's signature moment
and biggest surprise. However, it's not completely
earned. Previous to the film's final compelling moment,
we're treated to a predictable plotline, and workable,
though uninspired performances. Eric Tsang is charismatic
as Brother Dragon, though he creates little sympathy
for the man. The same can be said for Shawn Yue, who
apes Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in intensity but not in actual
acting skill. Fat is the central figure of Colour
of the Loyalty, but the character isn't as fleshed-out
or as complex as he should be. The girls are similarly
uninteresting, and seem to be around to show up at
the wrong times and cry. The best performance is turned
in by Liu Kai-Chi, and the rest of the cast is hit
or miss. Thankfully, Billy Chung and Wong Jing pace
the film fairly well, and add some harrowing violence
to get your attention. Even if you're largely bored,
the sight of someone getting their fingers sledgehammered
should make an impression.
Ultimately, Colour of the
Loyalty is interesting mainly because it's a decent
attempt at a triad thriller in a time when there are
none. Back in the late eighties - and then the late
nineties - gangland thrillers were a dime a dozen,
and Colour of the Loyalty is more-or-less average
when compared to the entire field. It's got dark atmosphere,
bad guys who glower in an ineffectually menacing manner,
and sudden bursts of violence that should make you
wince. It's also got a decent premise that isn't ably
supported, and the usual marks of sloppy Wong Jing
filmmaking, including bizarre dialogue ,
and a cameo that's jarring in its complete lack of
necessity . Colour of the Loyalty
isn't really a standout Hong Kong film; it's just
passable stuff in a time where there's frightfully
little stuff out there. So, Wong Jing did all right.
This time.

The China's Next Top Princess

2008-09-02T08:10:00.005-07:00

Year:2005

Race Wong and Rosanne
Wong
Director:Steve Cheng Wai-Man
Cast:Race Wong Yuen-Ling, Rosanne Wong Yuen-Kwan, Isabel Chan Yat-Ning, Renee Dai Mung-Mung, Viann Leung Wai-Ka, Yoyo Wong, Edwin Siu Jing-Nam, Mimi Chu Mi-Mi, Lee Siu-Kei, Lee Sze-Chit, Cyrus Wong Ka-Ming, Mui Siu-Wai, Alvina Kong Yan-Yin
Description:
Don't let the crappy knockoff English title fool you
- The China's Next Top Princess is not a comedy.
It does possess its funny parts, but it's more of a
drama than a comedy. Sadly, that drama is of the ultra-light,
afterschool special variety, which is odd given the
fact that the film is more Dallas-in-the-Palace
than a costume version of Beverly Hills 90210.
To use Chinese references, The China's Next Top Princess
is like a watered down cross between Lover of the
Last Empress and Raise the Red Lantern. It's
also much crappier, and doesn't feature Gong Li or even
her modern knockoff Zhang Ziyi. But fans of the Hong
Kong edition of Maxim Magazine needn't fret: this movie
has 2R.
Pearl and
Yuen-Yang are two wannabe princesses
who answer an Imperial edict to report to the palace
and take part in a princess competition. Basically,
the winner gets to be a new court lady and bedmate for
the Emperor . The losers become servants
at the palace, and must wait upon their competitor until
the end of time. Luckily, the two girls came from the
same village, so they become instant pals. Sadly, that
friendship is threatened with destruction by the winner-takes-all
competition between the potential princesses. Their
main competitors include your standard types, including
bitchy rich girl Isabel Chan, who will engage in chicanery
to better her chances. But there's an even tougher,
more dangerous player here: Pearl. Once Pearl catches
on to the rules of the game, not even Yuen-Yang
may be safe from her scheming.
If you choose not to see this
movie, nobody will ever blame you for it. While better
than one might expect, The China's Next Top Princess
is still too lightweight to register as a serious film
- which is weird, because the subject matter is ripe
for your expected commentary about femme vs. femme scheming
in Ancient Chinese society. Specifically, this tale
of corrupt cute girls could have meant more than two
sisters playing strangers-turned-friends who let some
dopey Emperor get in the way of their magical friendship.
Sadly, the film doesn't accomplish more than that, and
seems content to go about its could-be sordid tale in
a light and blithely charming fashion. The result can
be mindlessly pleasing, like flipping through an issue
of Yes! and looking at the pictures. The girls
are largely cute, and Race Wong continues her streak
of capable, better-than-average acting jobs in movies
that nobody ever sees. Rosanne Wong is fetching as the
pure-hearted one of the pair, and puts on a knees-weakening
shy girl act that's a fine counterpoint to her tougher-seeming
- and arguably more attractive - sister. We're easy
to please over here.
Debating the acting and/or
photogenic talents of 2R doesn't qualify as hard-edged
film criticism, but The China's Next Top Princess
doesn't inspire anything beyond a dismissive "That's
nice." This is not a film worth mentioning, and
its eventual relegation to the bargain DVD bin is not
a fate worth wringing your hands over. If anything,
we should just be glad that director Steve Cheng managed
to make another movie after the near-criminal Where's
Mama's Boy, and exec-producer/writer Lee Lik-Chee
actually still works post-Stephen Chow. One would hope
the actual film possessed more than a passing resemblance
to substantial filmmaking, but that might be asking
too much. In today's Hong Kong Cinema world, we should
just be glad that a movie doesn't all-out suck. The
China's Next Top Princess doesn't all-out suck.
However, calling it a good film would be a mistake too.

b420

2008-09-02T08:10:00.003-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Matthew Tang Hon-Keung
Cast:Miki Yeung Oi-Gan, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Ben Hung Jin-Ming, Betty Luk, Winston Yeh, Ivy Wong, Zeni Wong, Lee Fung
Description:
A
rare Hong Kong attempt at indie filmmaking, b420
is actually one of the better films to come out of
Hong Kong in 2005. Newbie director Matthew Tang manages
to craft something approximating life; his trio of
slightly struggling youth feel real and immediate,
and their stories make for an interesting if not essential
ninety minutes. b420 is a minor, but not unworthy
little film.
Miki Yeung
stars as Koey, a highschool dropout who lives in Macau
with her grandmother. Koey conceals her lack of education
from dear old grandmom, and concerns herself with
making money plus possible emigration to join her
parents. She works at a curio store alongside Simon
, a wannabe ballet dancer who can't nail
his auditions. Simon is also massively in love with
Koey, and has been since they were children in the
same ballet class - though Koey has no recollection
of this. Simon believes love can be built slowly,
and befriends Koey quietly, through both their work
connection and the Internet. Simon has another identity
online, as Jenny, a fictional female confidant to
Koey. Meanwhile, Koey meets Willy , a former
motorcycle racing champ who now sells DVDs for a living.
The three form tentative friendships, each littered
with white lies and supposedly hidden attractions.
The overarching storyline
of b420 is a bit overwritten. Koey once participated
in a highschool video project called "b420"
along with two female friends. In the ensuing years,
the girls have grown distant, the turning point being
an evening of irresponsible mischief that ended with
bad consequences. That past plot detail resurfaces
in the present, along with a possible pregnancy, suicidal
lesbians, debilitating personal tragedies, and the
plan to fund a ballet school via a fake kidnapping.
The converging plotlines start to feel very contrived,
not unlike a catch-all film school thesis, and the
attention given is sometimes too cursory to matter.

Thankfully, director Matthew
Tang has a good handle on character interaction, and
makes his trio of lead characters into interesting
and even complex people. Koey, Willy, and Simon are
all recognizably flawed, and their off-and-on interaction
proves involving. Furthermore, Tang uses his Macau
location exceptionally well, highlighting the city's
gorgeous uniqueness without over romanticizing it.
The movie sometimes seems to tell its own story, which
helps make the abundance of sometimes contrived details
feel more fresh than the vast majority of Hong Kong's
recent attempts at "youth filmmaking." Whereas
most Hong Kong youth films are cloying fluff-fests
aimed at pushing empty popstars, b420 actually
attempts something resembling filmmaking. It may not
add up to anything that conclusive, but the trip is
worth it. In comparison to stuff like Moments of
Love or The Unusual Youth, b420
deserves a chance.

Ah Sou

2008-09-02T08:10:00.001-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Wong Ching-Po
Cast:Annie Liu , Karena Lam Ka-Yan, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Liu Ye, Yuen Wah, Liu Kai-Chi, Lawrence Cheng Tan-Shui
Description:
Last
year, Wong Ching-Po made Jiang Hu, a ballyhooed
mob film that announced his appointment as a "Hong
Kong Cinema director of the future." The label
was spread about by everyone from Eric Tsang to Andy
Lau to probably Wong Ching-Po himself, though it was
actually fairly accurate. Jiang Hu didn't reinvent
the Hong Kong gangster film, but it was legitimately
interesting and exceptionally well-made. The main
flaws: an inflated sense of self-importance and a
predictable twist ending. Wong Ching-Po's follow-up
film Ah Sou is also
interesting and exceptionally well-made, and thankfully,
doesn't have a twist ending. Unfortunately, Ah
Sou is also self-important, and on a scale that's
staggering in its sheer garishness. Prepare to be
bludgeoned.
Newcomer Annie Liu turns
in an unimpressive debut performance as Phoebe, a
young woman who survived a family massacre at the
hands of blazing angry mob sister Nova . Phoebe's dad handed her to respected big brother
Gent , who brazenly claims that Phoebe
will one day become his wife when she turns eighteen,
the implication being that if Nova offs the girl,
she'll be offing the future Mrs. Gent. The claim doesn't
deter Nova one bit, but a nice slapdown from Whacko
stops her right quick. Whacko is an
old triad pal of Gent's, and is joined by Buddy and Chance to form a quartet of
too-awesome triad dudes, all of whom would give their
lives for Phoebe. The girl grows to young womanhood,
and comes to know Gent as her father, and the other
three as her uncles.
But Nova is still out there,
thirsting for Phoebe's life. When Phoebe returns from
her schooling in the states, there's an immediate
attempt on her life, but it's stopped by her four
protectors, plus Gent's bodyguard Pilot , who seemingly would also give his life for
Phoebe. Basically, everyone loves Phoebe - though
occasionally they need to be shocked into remembering
that. When Phoebe is actually promoted to the head
of the triad, some of her protectors seem to forget
that they cared for her in the first place, leading
to plenty of spilled blood, misplaced anger, and bad
stuff that could have been avoided by a nice little
chat. At the center of this Phoebe struggles to maintain
her innocence, even as Nova reappears with a still
blazing grudge against the young girl. Can Phoebe
stop her uncles from wiping each other out? Can she
solve her differences with Nova? And will she realize
her puppy love with the pizza boy who wears the red
hat? And do we even care?
The answer to that:
sometimes yes, sometimes no. In Pizza Boy's case,
it would be amazing to find someone who actually found
his subplot to be integral or interesting, but Wong
Ching-Po and screenwriter Szeto Kam-Yuen throw it in there anyway.
Of greater interest are the murky partnerships/rivalries
between Whacko, Chance, and Buddy, made so in large
part due to the actors playing them. Simon Yam and
Anthony Wong are two of the coolest actors around,
and Alex Fong - while not on the same level of cool
as the other two actors - has solid screen presence.
Eric Tsang overacts somewhat, but is every bit the
triad big brother, and Wong Ching-Po gives each classic
introductions. The four are first glimpsed preparing
gifts for Phoebe's return from the states, and the
sequence not only defines each man's personality,
but sets an involving tone and atmosphere for the
film. Thanks to the excellent camerawork and effective
style, Wong Ching-Po seems to be signaling in the
opening minutes, "Hey, this is going to be one
damn good movie." It would be great if he could
deliver.
Unfortunately, he doesn't.
The opening sequence is a combination of cinematic
dazzle and obvious film school technique, but it works.
The problem is Wong Ching-Po doesn't stop. From minute
one he pounds on the slow-motion style and cinematic
excess, rendering Ah Sou an overdone bit of
filmmaking that proves to be just too much. The music
score is effective at first, but soon grows overbearing.
The cinematography and camerawork, while beautiful
and even mesmerizing, get distracting and even obvious
in their showy "look at me" flourishes.
When Wong turns the camera on its side to follow Phoebe
running down the street, the only thought is, "What
the hell was that for?" The same goes for all
the slow motion, which is sometimes effective and sometimes annoying
. Wong's varied use of filmmaking technique
is appreciable, but after a while it becomes just
too much.
Still, such overdone
technique is not the kiss of death for every film
or every filmmaker. Witness Wong Kar-Wai, whose films
are loaded with MTV-style film technique and still
manage to earn the admiration and respect of cinephiles
worldwide. However, what Wong Kar-Wai does manage
to do is tie emotion to technique, and he balances
his "director as star" tendencies with fine
acting and an undercurrent of actual emotion. Wong
Ching-Po's love of obvious filmmaking technique seems
less about character and story and more about pulling
a new rabbit out of his filmmaking hat every ten or
so minutes. Some restraint would be nice.
But Wong Ching-Po's excess
of technique isn't the ultimate reason for the "thumbs
down." The big reason for Ah Sou's fall:
it tries to mean too much. When the final moments
of the film roll around, Wong Ching-Po proffers ultimate
significance with his "girl among the gang"
fable, as if he had just accomplished something grand
in the film's 90-minute running time . Even Pizza Boy with the red hat is given massive
significance, as if his presence gives meaning and
weight to the film. Big surprise: Pizza Boy doesn't
deserve the meaning given him, and neither does Phoebe
nor the entire film. Ah Sou tries to find meaning
in clichéd and maudlin storytelling, and the
fact that its played so straight makes it either A)
grave and meaningful, or B) totally ridiculous. Sadly,
Ah Sou leans towards the latter, which is a
shame because it wastes great locations, a solid genre
plot, and some fine acting from the likes of Anthony
Wong, Simon Yam, and Liu Ye. Sometimes a film should
just be a film, and shouldn't try to be more. By loading
the film with egregious verbalized meaning, Wong Ching-Po
buries Ah Sou beneath its own undue self-importance.

2 Young

2008-09-02T08:09:00.006-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Derek Yee Tung-Sing
Cast:Jaycee Chan, Fiona Sit Hoi-Kei, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Candy Yu On-On, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Hui Siu-Hung, Lam Suet, Raymond Tso Wing-Lim, Jamie Luk Kin-Ming, Henry Fong Ping, Chin Kar-Lok, David Chiang, Tommy Yuen Man-On
Description:
2
Young looks like a step down for Derek Yee. Last
year's Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards, Yee
eschews complex themes or clever narratives for this
rather generic youth drama. This isn't a tough motion
picture with difficult things to say. In fact, everything
about 2 Young is simple to the point of probable
annoyance. Yet despite that - or maybe even because
of it - 2 Young turns out to be an enjoyable
and surprisingly engrossing melodrama, and Yee's handling
has plenty to do with it. This is nowhere near the heights
of Lost in Time or One Nite in Mongkok,
but considering HK Cinema's alarming current state,
2 Young is probably one of the best two HK films
of the year - so far. It's hard to say if that's a good
or bad thing.
Action star progeny Jaycee
Fong is Fu, a poor kid who can't finish Form 4, and
spends his time playing football with his pals and doing
nothing of any import. Fu is attracted to rich princess
Nam , which looks
like a bad idea. Not only is she waaay up on the social
ladder than he is, but she attends a prestigious girls
school, and has not one, but two high-powered lawyers
as parents. Fu's parents are completely the opposite:
dad is a minibus driver , and mom works at a restaurant.
The most recent Derek Yee produced and directed films
seem to share a common thread, i.e.
an affection for the working class guys and gals in
Hong Kong. Basically, it's hard not to like Fu or his
parents. Despite being not that smart, Fu is generally
a good kid, and his parents may be noisy and rude, but
in a lovable, familiar, if not too cartoonish way.
Meanwhile, life in Nam's household
is a minefield of propriety and expectations. Her dad
is a media-famous barrister, while mom
has retired so she can follow dad everywhere.
Nam sometimes rebels at home, which catches her father's
ire. Nonetheless, she's disappointed at her lonely,
sad home life and materialistic, shallow girlfriends
, so going the full
distance to rebel is not out of the question. What that
means is she accepts Fu's awkward advances and the two
begin to date in blissful, rich-girl-meet-poor-boy style.
She's introduced to his life of cheap eats and public
football games, and before you know it, the young couple
has surpassed first, second, and third base. At the
same time, her father begins to get an inkling of her
dating habits, which is cause for him to get concerned.
Then Nam gets pregnant. Welcome to Hell.
Facing parental disapproval,
the kids have precious few choices. Abortion gets tabled
quickly, and soon the two choose to make it on their
own. Pals get them cheap digs out in the sticks, and
from there they basically play house, though with tougher
responsibilities and consequences than taking your toys
and going home. Fu needs to work, which leads to a variety
of realistic and surprisingly interesting problems.
Aside from learning to keep a job, Fu also has to contend
with stepping on triad toes, uncool bosses, and realizing
that maybe he and Nam have nothing really to talk about.
Nam has to deal with her new low-income home, which
actually is less of an issue than one would think. As
played by Fiona Sit, Nam is egregiously chipper about
exchanging high-class life for low-class living. Still,
the happy-go-lucky attitude Sit puts on gives way to
more realistic fears, and when she starts to voice her
doubts to her unborn child, the moment is felt. Derek
Yee basically lets Jaycee Fong and Fiona Sit act like
themselves for all 100 minutes of 2 Young, but
it works. They're genuinely likable and seemingly real,
and neither carries any movie star baggage with them.
It's good that Yee didn't cast Edison Chen and one of
the Twins; 2 Young could have been a nightmare.
But it isn't, and this
is largely due to Derek Yee and his choice of actors.
Yee gives 2 Young little overt artifice. Despite
the loaded storyline and scads of moments that seem
to echo an afterschool special, most of the interest
is found in the day-to-day struggles, relationships,
and the individual characters. The quartet of actors
playing the parents are exceptional; the performances
from Tsang, Mo, Wong, and Yu seem real and complete,
such that their individual characters manage to balance
out the eventual narrative necessities a film like this
has. Eventually, there are big moments, i.e. soapbox
speeches that are as alienating as they are unrealistic,
and 2 Young manages two in the final fifteen
minutes that are so jarring that they threaten to stop
the movie cold. One, in particular, involves a character
essentially shooting himself in the foot because it's
the right thing to do; while this may be true, it's
hardly realistic. But the performances work well enough
to cover such obviousness.
2 Young has a few
other problems. Some plot details are glossed over,
and in a film with this much personal detail, the lack
of certain explanations can be jarring. Also, the whole
feels rather light, which is odd because the film is
essentially about social problems and family dysfunction.
At the same time, 2 Young manages to be quietly
accomplished and involving, and manages a surprising
emotional hold on the viewer. Yee's work here isn't
truly noteworthy, but the solid storytelling and appreciable
humanity make 2 Young a decent, though minor
entry in the filmmaker's body of work. Oddly enough,
2 Young is surprising and welcome stuff. Yee
takes unexceptional subject matter and wrings something
genuinely engaging out of it, which in its own way is
cause for minor celebration. Plus, Fiona Sit is all
but guaranteed to earn a Best New Artist nomination
at next year's Hong Kong Film Awards, and Jaycee Fong
demonstrates that perhaps he didn't deserve the universal
criticism he got from Twins Effect 2. It seems
there are surprises everywhere.

Wo Hu

2008-09-02T08:09:00.005-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Marco Mak Chi-Sin
Cast:Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Miu Kiu-Wai, Jordan Chan Siu-Chun, Julian Cheung Chi-Lam, Shawn Yue, Sonja Kwok Sin-Nei, Kenny Wong Tak-Bun, Yueh Hua, Qin Hailu, Joe Cheung Tung-Cho, Johnny Chen , Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Patrick Tang Kin-Won, Lam Chi-Sin, Zuki Lee Si-Pui, Nie Yuan, Na Wei
Description:
It's more undercover action and angst courtesy of
Marco Mak and Wong Jing, who've turned out some semi-decent
crime/cop thrillers in the last couple of years. Wo
Hu is the latest
from the duo, and it owes an immediate debt to the
seminal Infernal Affairs. Besides the obvious
casting nods , Wo
Hu references the film explicitly. When looking
for fresh undercover recruits, one cop character suggests
that they hire Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, and the film's
prologue ends with a mass of potential undercovers
leaving the police academy like Shawn Yue in the original
IA. The premise here is that the cops aren't
sending in just one undercover cop, they're sending
in a whole army to take down the triads. Dubbed "Wo
Hu", the operation involves cooperation between
the cops and the massive amount of undercover agents,
supposedly numbering between 500 to 1000 people. That's
a pretty large number.
Naturally, the triads
get wind of this undercover activity, and soon react.
Respected triad boss Jim singles out
Eric as an undercover, and sends a low-level
triad to assassinate him. The triad carries
out the hit, but is unsuccessful at fleeing Hong Kong,
meaning he may come back to haunt Jim one day. Meanwhile,
the other triad bosses, including genial Walter and hot-headed Tommy , are ordered
to maintain a low profile to keep the cops off them.
That's a tall order, because there are rivalries between
various parties, some which grow to murderous proportions.
The glowering Tommy is pissed because he thinks his
triad brothers are using the increased pressure from
the cops to take his assets from him. The first victim
of an undercover sting, Tommy must flee, and leaves
his businesses to Jim. However, he doesn't trust Jim's
nice guy act, and begins to plot against him. Meanwhile,
lead cop Wai oversees everything behind
a cool pair of designer shades. Somewhere in all of
this there's supposed to be a movie.
Well, there is a movie
in all of this, but it's not the heavy crime film
that the cast and genre may lead us to believe. Though
there are supposed to be 500+ undercover agents out
there, the film contains few indentifiable ones. Other
than Timmy Hung's undercover, who gets dispatched
early in the film, we only meet two other undercover
officers, and one of them isn't really on the job
anymore. Officer Wai was once an undercover, but he
may have participated in some shady stuff while posing
as a triad, adding some shades of gray to his role
as the officer in charge of "Wo Hu". The
fiilm's main focus is how the triads are dealing with
the supposed surge in undercover activity, as they
try to take advantage of each others losses while
holding onto their own territories and assets. Still,
while there's some tension in the two-faced dealings,
it's not exceptionally potent. The film concerns itself
with an abundance of subplots, not all of them crime-related,
which sucks some energy from the narrative. Sometimes
the overarcing "Wo Hu" plotline seems more
perfunctory than crucial; when Wai finally calls in
all his markers for the grand finale of "Wo Hu",
it's just a quick montage of a bunch of people being
dragged in. A riveting thriller, Wo Hu is not.

What it is, however,
is pretty entertaining. The film lacks much momentum,
and even seems to meander, but there's involving and
even fun stuff in the film's shifting focus. Some
of the triad issues are played to comic effect, such
as when Walter gets his assets frozen, his own triad
followers try to escape paying his dinner bills. Likewise,
triad boss Fei is comically henpecked
by his wife, and sometimes does his job in a hilariously
poor manner. Fei is in charge of recruitment, but
it's not very threatening when he recruits old men
or guys who can't stop laughing to show up at tense
restaurant-set standoffs. Wo Hu possesses an
interesting take on the triad life, presenting triad
members less like caricatures and more like regular
guys. Jim is righteous and caring to a fault, and
Walter spends a lot of time worrying about his violinist
son, who, in an amusing bit of casting, is
played by the same young actor who essayed Simon Yam's
scarred son in the Election movies. Even the
cartoonishly intense Tommy has a soft spot for his
ailing mother.
This attention to ironic
detail and human themes is what makes Wo Hu
a surprising triad flick, though there are some details
that seem suspiciously manufactured. Eric Tsang gets
an odd romance with former Miss HK Sonja Kwok, who
plays a perky window dresser that apparently comes
from fantasy land. Her character is hard to buy because
she's single, enormously pretty, adorably quirky,
and actually finds Eric Tsang attractive. Still, despite
the cheesy unbelievability of such a pairing, the
actors make it work, and the romance does have some
thematic payoff. One of the major concerns of Wo
Hu is the good/bad dichotomy between cops and
triads. Wai is supposed to be good, but he did some
bad stuff while undercover, while both Jim and Walter
are surprisingly decent guys beneath their triad titles.
It helps that Jim and Walter are played by Eric Tsang
and Francis Ng, both of whom bring humanity and heart
to their characters. The two actors anchor the film
with their sympathetic performances, but the rest
of the cast helps too. Wo Hu is loaded with
recognizable actors, most of whom bring instant presence
to even the most minor characters.
There are a few
more problems with the film. Some the script's drama
is obvious and overdrawn, and Marco Mak's stylish
direction occasionally crosses the line into laughably
melodramatic. However, Mak also stages some startlingly
dramatic sequences, including one brutal beating that
gets its point across powerfully. Still, despite the
flashes of violence, it's the quieter moments that
manage to stick with the audience. At one point, Jim
and Walter sit around and muse if they're really good
guys, and the moment underlines what's enjoyable about
Wo Hu. Even though they're supposed to be "bad"
guys, the two men are really quite likable, such that
it's easy to care for them when they finally meet
their fates. Wo Hu's uneven direction and wandering
focus prevent it from being rated as truly exceptional,
but it's a clever and entertaining film worthy of
the Hong Kong Cinema label. Wong Jing, we owe you
an apology.

Wise Guys Never Die

2008-09-02T08:09:00.003-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Wong Jing, Bosco Lam Ling-Hung
Cast:Nick Cheung Ka-Fai, Wong Jing, Alice Chan Wai, Jolie Chan Yuen-Kei, Eddie Cheung Siu-Fai, Ben Ng Ngai-Cheung, Lo Hung, Jeffrey Chow Chun-Fai
Description:
Ah,
Wong Jing: sometimes you're on the right track, but
then you go and ruin it. Hong Kong's tackiest auteur
returns to a favored genre with Wise Guys Never Die,
but despite the friendly trappings and a workable premise,
things go south. Fast. Nick Cheung stars as Nick, an
accountant sentenced to prison for allegedly embezzling
a ton of dough. The joint is tough on Nick; he receives
the Tim Robbins Shawshank Redemption treatment
right away, meaning he's ostracized from other inmates,
his glasses get broken, plus he makes some new "friends"
and eventually has a tough time sitting down. These
details officially ruin any chance that this film will
be fun, but at least they should make impressionable
youngsters think twice about commmitting white collar
crimes.
Back to the movie. Nick makes
bad bunkmates in the joint, but he also meets Teddy,
a shrewd grifter who has the respect of the other inmates
and offers to watch Nick's back. Fortunately, Teddy
is smart and connected; under his watch, Nick learns
plenty of useful card sharking, and no longer has to
suffer the indignity of being romanced by fellow inmates.
Unfortunately, Teddy is played by Wong Jing. That wouldn't
be so bad if Teddy were wacky comedy relief, but Teddy
is supposed to be charismatic and rather cool, kind
of like a shorter, rounder Chow Yun-Fat from those classic
Prison on Fire films. But again, Teddy is played
by Wong Jing. If you find the idea of Wong Jing playing
a cool, charismatic conman to be disturbing, then congratulations:
you're sane.
Nick and Teddy bond big time
in prison, such that Teddy offers Nick a job as soon
as he gets out. Teddy wants Nick to help him grift people
out of their hard-earned cash, with the first target
being Dragon , a tough gangster who runs
an illegal gambling den. However, Nick senses a betrayal
from his supposed buddy. Teddy behaves disingenuously,
and even acts mean to his ultra-hot girlfriend Lola
. Nick takes special offense at this because
he finds Lola incredibly alluring, an attraction which
develops when he spies Lola straddling Teddy in the
hot tub. She also licks Teddy's naked torso and engages
in numerous steamy love scenes
with him. Uh...yeah. We'll get back to that later.
After getting a peek at her
generous form, Nick begins to lust after Lola big time.
He grows jealous of Teddy, and begins to get all itchy
despite having a loving girlfriend at home.
Though he tries to remain content, he simply can't get
the image of Lola and Teddy bumping and grinding out
of his mind. It's possible the audience won't be able
to get the scenes out of their mind either, because
it's Wong Jing in them, dammit! Yeah, his character
is supposed to be charismatic and cool, but does anyone
out there really buy it? And do we have to actually
see Alice Chan groping his chubby figure as if it were
supposed to be titillating? Seeing Wong Jing go the
distance as the co-lead in Wise Guys Never Die
is a bit puzzling. Couldn't they have gotten anyone
better for the role? Were Francis Ng or Anthony Wong
really too busy? And if not, couldn't they have at least
gotten Eric Tsang?
This abundance of vitriol towards
Wong Jing's casting is probably a bit extreme. Really,
he's not that bad at what he usually does. As a writer
and director, Wong Jing can put together some funny
and entertaining films, and when he tries out dark themes,
the lengths to which he goes can sometimes be surprising
and even effective. Wise Guys Never Die is one
of Wong's darker efforts, and possesses some intriguing
ideas, among them its protagonist Nick, who reveals
layers of ugliness that ultimately challenge the audience.
Nick Cheung tackles the role with a commendable seriousness,
and Alice Chan at least fulfills the sexy portion of
her role. Plus, Wong Jing really isn't that bad as Teddy.
The character has a certain likable quality, and Wong
Jing can do likable.
However, that last statement
only applies if one forgets that Wong Jing is at the
helm of this sinking ship - and really, it's hard to
forget that he is. There's a decent noirish plot in
Wise Guys Never Die, but Wong Jing's direction
is too unconvincing and unimaginative to get it to work.
Too many sequences are dragged down by boring exposition,
plus there are some scenes which seem merely confusing
and/or unnecessary. Wong doesn't develop his situations
properly; Nick's attraction to Lola is supposed to be
a big deal, but the chemistry between Nick Cheung and
Alice Chan is rather weak. Teddy is also not sufficiently
developed. If Wong Jing's acting is supposed to make
him fascinating and/or worth caring about then the filmmakers
must be drunk, or expecting that their audience will
be. The characters aren't attractive either, and ultimately
it's hard to care what happens to them. Worst of all,
the film fails to entertain on even the most basic level.
I could go on forever.
Perhaps
this is all about expectations. The poster for Wise
Guys Never Die features a scene of Nick Cheung playing
poker with a dog, a crocodile, and a smarmy Wong Jing
- images that make one think they're in for one of those
trademark Wong Jing laffers. No dice: the plot begs
seriousness, with murder, betrayal, and other sordid
stuff in the offing. The problem is that Wong Jing can't
seem to channel seriousness into the story, and even
his big twists and turns sometimes play like Scooby
Doo-level reveals rather than the dark surprises they
should be. Also, it's unfortunate to say it, but Wong
Jing is hard to take seriously as an actor. One just
has to look at the guy and the giggles begin. In the
end, this is just another failed attempt from a filmmaker
who apparently still struggles to be taken seriously.
And if Wise Guys Never Die wasn't supposed to
be taken seriously, then they failed too, because it's
not fun or entertaining, and is only mildly diverting
in that "oh wow, they actually made this movie"
sort of way. Unfortunately, that isn't enough.

Wife From Hell

2008-09-02T08:09:00.001-07:00

Year:2006

Candy Lo and Andrew Lin
Director:Law Wai-Tak
Cast:Andrew Lin Hoi, Candy Lo Hau-Yam, Zuki Lee Si-Pui, JJ Jia, Matthew Chow Hoi-Kwong, Jackie Lui Chung-Yin, Bonnie Wong Man-Wai
Description:
Andrew
Lin gets a rare starring role in Wife From Hell,
a horror-drama-snoozefest about a man's midlife crisis
and the collateral damage that comes with it. The
Alive member plays Ken Kwan, who's married to the
loyal, sweet May . Ken apparently could
have been a contender in the medical profession, but
his wife's medical condition has held him back. Her
asthma once cost him a precious overseas internship,
and prevented him from becoming a medical superstar.
Now he runs a clinic, where he spends his time treating
common patients and looking bored.
That's not the end of Ken's
marital misgivings. May is sweet and dotes on Ken,
but life with her is rather mundane, plus Ken's pal
Peter constantly rubs bad marital advice
in his face. A grade-A lout, Peter never goes home,
is always visiting prostitutes, and offers sage advice
extolling the virtues of a dead wife versus a live
one. Ken disagrees, but something about his current
life obviously gnaws at him; he's often morose around
his wife, plus he finds himself attracted to a bar
owner , and even considers "going happy"
with a local prostitute . When a former school chum
shows up dangling a rich job opportunity,
Ken begins to ask the obvious: is this the life he
wants for himself? And what can he do about it?
The answer: nothing,
because Ken seems to be a pretty decent guy who actually
cares for his wife. However, doubt creeps in enough
such that Ken makes a few bad choices, leading to
a spiraling series of events that can only be called
"just desserts". The development of May's
eventual transformation into the "wife from hell"
is relatively low-key, and is handled with straight-faced
seriousness by director Law Wai-Tak. The material,
however, is pretty ham-handed, and only seems sensitive
because it's got an obvious moral message. After about
forty minutes, the movie joins May in hell, as its
narrative starts to become clumsy and sloppy. Many
details emerge in supposedly clever or touching ways,
but most are simply obvious plot devices. By the time
the poorly-edited climax rolls around, it's understandable
if you simply don't care.
As Ken, Andrew Lin handles
his character's bubbling discontent well, though sometimes
the script requires him to act in egregiously laughable
ways. Candy Lo is affecting as May despite her relatively
minor screentime. The rest of the cast overplays their
characters, making whatever suspense exists into unintentional
comedy. Wife From Hell is well-meaning in that
tries to handle its subject manner without sensationalism.
However, some over-the-top emotions might have served
the film better than the inert and heavy-handed feelings
the film evokes. The payoff ultimately isn't worth
the time spent, and the film is hard to recommend
even to hardcore fans of the stars. At the very least,
the filmmakers tried, and we applaud them for their
effort. Sadly, effort isn't everything.

We Are Family

2008-09-02T08:08:00.005-07:00

Year:2006

Hacken Lee and Alan Tam
Director:Lo Kim-Wah
Cast:Alan Tam Wing-Lun, Hacken Lee Hak-Ken, Hu Jing, Joey Leung Wing-Chung, Law Koon-Lan, Clifton Ko Chi-Sum, Ng Hui, Jeff Wang, Particia Mok Siu-Ling, Bey Logan
Description:
Hacken
Lee must meet the parents in the 2006 comedy We Are
Family. Lee is Kit, a rising manager who aims to
be his company's next CEO. When his boss
tells him he's a candidate for promotion, he also hints
that it would be best for him to get married, because
married men are stable and make better CEOs. Or so they
say. Kit promptly proposes to his longtime girlfriend
Fong , who gives a conditional yes.
The condition: Kit must meet
and win the approval of her various family members,
including Grandma , Dad , Mom , and her Older
Brother . Somewhere in there,
Kit also must meet Fong's younger brother , as well as her nanny , and various other people who hang out around
her obviously eccentric family. Kit is game because
he wants to rise in his company's ranks and solidify
his position as a power player. Oh yes, he's also doing
it because he loves Fong. Can he make her family love
him?
Duh, of course he can.
This is a commercial comedy and not some biting satire
about the folly of man. Ergo, a happy ending is all
but guaranteed. We Are Family is a throwback
to the feel-good Cantonese comedies of the late eighties
and early nineties. Basically, take a bunch of stars,
throw in romance and family complications, milk every
cultural joke you can, and instruct your actors to overact
accordingly. The result: 90+ minutes of easy entertainment,
which hopefully engenders more actual laughs than chuckles.
One can only hope.
Using the above definition,
We Are Family ranks as more of a chuckle film.
Some of the performances amuse, including Law Koon-Lan
as Fong's strangely horny mom, and Alan Tam in his quartet
of roles. The cultural gags get decent mileage too;
Kit must visit China, where he gets accosted by the
locals and fed all sorts of gnarly stuff that would
make the uninitiated puke their guts. Major plot kicks
in when Kit visits Fong's older brother, who runs a
Chinese medicine shop in Singapore. His shop is about
to get a new competitor, which is financed by Kit's
company and endorsed by a charlatan Buddhist doctor
. This leads to Three's Company-style
situation comedy and even more scenes of Alan Tam overacting.
It's like comedy Heaven.
Or not. As mentioned before
We Are Family is more benign than balls-out hilarious,
and is ultimately tolerable stuff for those predisposed
to seeing stuff like this. What the film isn't is particularly
noteworthy, and the cast doesn't do a lot to shore things
up. Hacken Lee is probably only interesting to die-hard
Hong Kong entertainment fans - and that's more for his
singing than acting prowess. Alan Tam mugs up a storm
in his four roles, and generally does a decent job,
though his pronounced overacting occasionally crosses
the line into annoying. Director Lo Kim-Wah strings
things together with muted sitcom finesse, such that
the whole thing registers as neither necessary or bothersome.
This is just standard fluff with little or no planning
or pretension, and it does its job well enough that
knocking it for its lack of accomplishment would be
unduly harsh. They used to make a trillion movies like
this is Hong Kong. One more on the pile certainly doesn't
hurt.

Undying Heart

2008-09-02T08:08:00.003-07:00

Year:2006

Andrew Lin and Flora Chan
Director:Gary Mak Wing-Lun
Cast:Flora Chan Wai-Shan, Andrew Lin Hoi, Natalie Ng Man-Yan, Carl Ng Ka-Lung, Lam Suet, Lau Cheu-Kei, Ken Wong Hap-Hei, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Law Lan, Eddie Peng Wai-On, Otto Wong Chi-On, Roderick Lam Chung-Kei
Description:
Undying Heart barely
had a theatrical release in Hong Kong, playing precious
few theaters before being shunted to DVD courtesy
of Kam & Ronson. All things considered, you may
not wish to know anything more about the film. Andrew
Lin stars as Wah, an average Hong Kong guy with an
unenviable yuppie lifestyle. Wah's live-in girlfriend
Karen pesters him to get married, plus
she also harangues him for smoking, not folding the
laundry, and watching TV with the volume on too loud.
They even have scheduled sex every Wednesday, though
one wonders why such a lousy home life hasn't made
him impotent yet. One also wonders why Karen hasn't
dumped Wah for being morose and uninteresting.
Wah perks up when his old
flame Nam reenters his life. Nam disappeared
from school under mysterious circumstances, and was
previously mute and a little frumpy. Now she's sexy
and has full command of her voice. Wah begins to spend
all his spare time with Nam such that he can realize
his long-gestating dream: to bake her a cake for her
birthday. However, there's suspicious activity afoot.
Nam sometimes coughs like she's mysteriously ill,
Nam's uncle Fat is spying on Wah and Karen,
and Nam even has her cousin Ken shadowing
Karen at work. With Wah off attending to Nam, Karen
starts to fall for Ken, and the movie looks like it's
going to become some sort of sappy K-Drama rip-off
special. But there's also the case of old college
pal Matt , who gets all jittery whenever
he sees Nam. What's his deal, and more importantly,
why has Nam returned after all these years?
Undying Heart
seems to be a mixture of genres, which would be fine
if it could deliver on any of them properly. Unfortunately,
it can't, leaving audiences with a limp relationship
drama spiced up with occasional forays into mystery,
revenge thriller, and supernatural romance. The key
behind Nam's return could prove unsettling, but the
drama is handled in an incredibly ill-conceived manner.
Basically, Nam suffered a terrible ordeal during her
college days, which should leave her burning for some
sort of revenge. However, instead of seeking revenge,
she treats everyone benevolently, like a walking billboard
for Christian values. Not that there's anything wrong
with that message, but considering what happened to
her, the filmmakers get it all wrong. Tough situations
should be treated with tough emotions, and Undying
Heart infuriatingly sidesteps that. What should
be the film's most pressing conflict practically becomes
a footnote.
With revenge a non-factor,
it's the soap opera lives of the various couples which
take up the most screentime - which is an unfortunate
turn of events because nothing that happens with the
couples is novel or interesting. Gary Mak's direction
is colorless, making the screenplay's faults all the
more noticeable. Characters behave in bewildering
ways, and some revelations are treated without the
impact they probably should be. This may not matter
anyway, as it's hard to imagine that anyone other
than hardcore fans of the actors would give Undying
Heart the time of day. At the very least, the
film delivers on the promise of Flora Chan's "sensual
performance" , which
in Hong Kong Cinema terms means an exposed back and
some heavy breathing during her love scene with Andrew
Lin - not stuff to get all hot-blooded about, really.
Still for hardcore Flora Chan fans, this may be big
news, and the DVD makers even reward the faithful
by compiling all the multiple takes into a DVD extra.
If you consider yourself one of those faithful, then
congratulations: Undying Heart is meant for
you. It's just not meant for the rest of us.

The Third Eye

2008-09-02T08:08:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Carol Lai Miu-Suet
Cast:Race Wong Yuen-Ling, Wong Yau-Nam, Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung, Liu Kai-Chi, Otto Wong Chi-On, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Samuel Pang King-Chi, Farini Chang, Joman Chiang Cho-Man, Fu Yuet-Mai, Sze Mei-Yee, Sarika Choy
Description:
Premiering at the 30th
Hong Kong International Film Festival, but taking
over a full year to finally make it to home video,
The Third Eye has been all but forgotten in
the meantime. One might think that an Andrew Lau-produced,
HD Video-shot suspense thriller starring Race Wong
and Wong Yau-Nam would at least get some buzz, but
so far nada. Honestly, has anyone out there ever said
two words about The Third Eye after its fest
premiere? If they did, then yay for them, because
The Third Eye deserves some attention
- though not that much, as it's really little more
than a competently shot and conceived slasher/thriller
that uses its limited resources well. The film ultimately
goes nowhere, but it possesses interesting visuals
and some effective performances, and the amount of
blood spilled is rare for a Hong Kong film nowadays.
We're looking hard for positives over here.
Wong Yau-Nam is Leung,
a slacker voyeur who shows up at a rural motel located
in Tai O on Lantau Island. He got there by following
a comely flight attendant named Amy ,
and once he checks in, he goes about rigging the motel
with hidden cameras in order to spy on the hotel inhabitants,
as well as broadcast their hopefully sordid exploits
on the Internet. Despite his less-than-noble intentions,
he gets drawn into the lives of his neighbors, who
possess differing secrets and degrees of sin. Writer
Gum is working on a disturbingly bloody
novel, and it's curiously set in a rural motel with
characters quite similar to the people around him.
Gum has a thing for Fa , a depressed
young girl who spends all her time taking care of
her invalid father, who gravely talks about how he'd
be better off dead. Fa sometimes receives drugs from
Lik , a dealer who lives in the motel
and grows his own inventory in his room. Lik also
deals to Zheng , a barrister who visits once
a week to sleep with his longtime mistress, Susan
.
Running the motel is
the pretty Ka Kei , who lost both her parents
at a young age and has a boyfriend named Wai , who urges her to leave Lantau and emigrate
to Australia. Leung strikes up a friendship with Ka
Kei, but is warned off by her uncle ,
a local cop whose manner is overprotective and curiously
menacing. Regardless, Leung stays on, but things start
to go very bad - though at first, they actually seem
to be getting better. Fa and Gum start to act on their
romantic feelings, and Leung and Ka Kei seem to get
closer. too. However, while in a drug-induced stupor,
Leung dreams that Fa murders Amy, and Gum always seems
to think that someone is watching them - besides Leung,
that is. There is another voyeur or maybe even two
watching the inhabitants of the motel, and people
even start to disappear. The situations and relationships
eventually come to a head, and when the answers are
spilled, so are copious amounts of blood. Who's watching
everyone, and are their reasons for doing so sound
or senseless?
The Third Eye
sets up its characters and the mystery rather effectively,
the highlight being a surreal drug-induced montage
midway through the film where everyone trips out on
Lik's homegrown goods. There's some interest in simply
trying to figure out who's offing who in the motel;
the film sets up clues that make the proceedings involving
for those who are actually paying attention. The motel,
with its green-painted walls and claustrophobic spaces,
makes for a fine location, and the actors are okay.
Wong Yau-Nam is effective at creating amoral, though
interesting protagonists and Race Wong is able to
project vulnerability or even danger through minute
facial expressions. Liu Kai-Chi is always worth watching,
especially when he's allowed to go over the top -
which he eventually does. The big reveals in The
Third Eye are welcome because they answer all
the film's nagging questions, some of which go unanswered
from the first minute of the film. When everything
gets explained, at least it all makes sense, with
some details neatly falling into pre-planned place.
Director Carol Lai has a good handle on technique,
which she also demonstrates in her later horror effort
Naraka 19, and she's good with visuals too.
There are a couple of problems with the HD Video image,
such as the expected video noise during low-light
scenes, but considering the obvious low budget, this
is a good effort.
However, when everything
finally ends in The Third Eye, a possible response
could be: "So?" Audience identification is tough here,
as the characters are not terribly sympathetic, and
when the big explanation comes down, it's mostly a
connect-the-dots exercise, with some new information
thrown out that fills in all the gaps. The explanations
don't really resonate with the characters, however,
and the film fails at connecting their issues to the
film's overarching theme. The film's Chinese title
translates as "Be careful of the eye," which possesses
a double meaning. One, it references the many instances
of voyeurism, which occur via binoculars, hidden cameras,
or just peepholes. The second meaning is richer, referencing
the omnipresent "eye in the sky", who watches over
everyone to see if they've been good little boys and
girls. That meaning gets mentioned in the film, but
it doesn't really add much to what came before, plus
it's delivered during a protracted, goes-on-forever
ending that goes from interesting to simply interminable.
At a certain point, the film slows to a crawl to indicate
that there was more thought behind this film than
your standard horror exercise. However, it's questionable
if the filmmakers truly accomplished all they seem
to imply they did. The Third Eye is a decent,
but not entirely successful effort, and it doesn't
end in a way that convinces of its self-supposed meaning.
But for a while, it's better than its reputation -
or lack of one - would indicate.

Superkid

2008-09-02T08:07:00.006-07:00

Year:2006

Gordon Lam protects the kids in Superkid
Director:Cha Yuen-Yee
Cast:Daichi Harashima, Cho Jeong-Eun, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Crystal Tin Yui-Lei, Eunis Chan Ka-Yung, Amy Yan, Siu Yee
Description:
When was the last time Hong Kong Cinema made a movie
for kids? It's been years since those excreble "Shaolin
Popey" films and nowadays, what passes for kiddie
fare is anything starring the Twins. Enter the 2006
release Superkid, which seems like an obvious
kid flick because it actually stars two kids. Daichi
Harashima of Lost in Time is the eponymous Superkid;
he plays Si Zhe, a super genius tyke who became so thanks
to years of eating "Super Baby", a miracle
children's food that may not be FDA-approved. Plenty
of adults protest the chemically-enhanced benefits of
Super Baby, but that won't stop Super Baby president
Chloe from trying to make a big deal with
a US corporation to get Super Baby distributed in Walmarts
worldwide. With her exagerrated hairdo and comic attire,
Chloe is obviously a "bad" adult. That's Lesson
#1 for the kids.
Lesson #2 is that even
the good adults lie. Si Zhe decides to take a break
from being a super genius, and escapes the Super Baby
headquarters for a non-sanctioned furlough. Without
a place to stay, he goes to meet his net friend Xin
Tong, played by Cho Jeong-Eun. Cho played the young
Lee Young-Ae in the megahit Korean drama Dae Jang
Geum, meaning that Cho is obviously dubbed. It doesn't
matter, because Daichi Harashima is dubbed too - even
though he knows Cantonese. The likely reason that the
kids are dubbed is because multiple takes with kid actors
is probably an expense that your typical Hong Kong production
cannot afford. What bearing this has on the overall
film: not much at all. The kids still charm even though
they're dubbed, though their acting is far from subtle.
But again, they're kids, and Superkid is just
a title. All things considered, both Harashima and Cho
do a decent job.
Back to the lesson. Xin
Tong lives with her single parent dad, Tian Ji , who treats her so lovingly that the two are constant
competitors in the "One Parent Happy Family"
contest. It's just a facade though; the father-daughter
team keep more secrets from one another than a married
couple. Chief among these deceptions is the truth about
Xin Tong's mom. Xin Tong works at being good so that
she can finally get a chance to meet her mom, but Tian
Ji may not be telilng the whole story about his ex-wife's
whereabouts. Meanwhile, Si Zhe treats his stay with
the family as kind of a personal experiment, meaning
he basically grouses and insults the pair using his
intelligence and obviously undeveloped social skills.
Ultimately Chloe and her goons come chasing after Si
Zhe, but not before Tian Ji and Xin Tong have a minor
falling out over their dishonest relationship and Si
Zhe begins to pout incessantly about non-super people.
After extended exposure to this one-parent family, Si
Zhe becomes bitter, anti-social, and generally annoyed
about how regular humans are not picture-perfect. His
negativity is due for some sort of readjustment, but
will it be before he gets killed?
Yes, Si Zhe could get
killed. Apparently, he needs the Super Baby formula
or he'll turn a sickly ashen grey and get carted off
to Superkid heaven. Or, he may fall prey to the omnipresent
hypodermic needles of Super Baby Corp., who shoot up
the kids assembly line-style to make them "super".
They also use needles to help dispose of any "faulty"
kids, a detail which is sure to leave some younger viewers
with scarred psyches. This scandalous info sounds like
it should be the part of some somber whistle blower
film, but Superkid is largely light stuff, with
slapstick action and kid-friendly emotions. The lessons
learned are your standard afterschool special variety,
including "people make mistakes", "don't
rat on your friends", and "always tell the
truth." There are also some questionably happy
lessons, including "even parents will betray their
kids", and "violence is okay as long as it
happens to bad people". Factor in too many scenes
of kids getting threatened with hypodermic needles,
and you may ask yourself: are these really things that
kids should see?
Then again, if you're
reading this you're probably not a kid, in which case
Superkid can entertain in the same way the
Home Alone movies do, though with less comedy, violence,
and syrupy stuff. Again, some of the stuff presented
does not seem very kid-friendly. The idea of kids as
lab rats is not very wholesome, plus there's even a
reference in the subtitles to the notorious 1988 gorefest Men Behind the
Sun! Director Cha Yuen-Yee
occasionally portrays things in an oddly dark manner,
and the film manages to subvert many of its expectations - but don't worry, the bad guys do get theirs. All
told, Superkid is really a mixed bag, but as
it surpasses its kiddie flick expectations we'll give
it a thumbs up. The situations do prove occasionally
moving, and the kids aren't annoying - at least, most
of the time they aren't. For any film starring two kids,
that's already a recommendation.

Rob-B-Hood

2008-09-02T08:07:00.005-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Benny Chan Muk-Sing
Cast:Jackie Chan, Louis Koo Tin-Lok, Michael Hui Koon-Man, Matthew Medvedev, Gao Yuanyuan, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Chen Baoguo, Yuen Biao, Teresa Carpio, Candy Yu On-On, Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Terence Yin, Conroy Chan Chi-Chung, Andrew Lin Hoi, Ken Lo Wai-Kwong, Hayama Hiro, Guk Fung, Ken Wong Hap-Hei, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Winnie Leung Man-Yi, Don Li Yat-Long, Mandy Chiang Nga-Man, Gill Mohindepaul Singh, Bonnie Wong Man-Wai, Daniel Wu, Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Asuka Higuchi, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Joe Cheung Tung-Cho, Hui Siu-Hung, Jason Tobin, Sarika Choy
Description:
If
you can't beat them, join them - or, in this case,
hire them. Any discussion of a new Jackie Chan film
must reference the action actor's advancing age, and
that isn't meant to be a slight to Chan at all. Let's
face it, the man isn't as spry or durable as he was
back in the days of Project A, and departing
youth also means fewer of the crazy stunts and action
antics that Chan is known for. Well, for Rob-B-Hood,
Chan has hired youth - and we're not talking about
younger actors like co-stars Louis Koo or Charlene
Choi. Chan has gone and hired a complete infant for
his latest action-comedy: baby Matthew Medvedev is
the selling point for Rob-B-Hood, and his oversized
noggin gets more acreage on the movie's poster than
either Chan or his costars. In hiring a tyke, Chan
has gone blindingly commercial - but hey, it works!
Rob-B-Hood is pandering and obvious, but also
fun, unexpected, and a swell time at the movies. At
least until the ending. We'll get to that.
Chan is Thongs, who
partners with Octopus and Landlord to form a trio of safecracking cat burglars.
The three regularly get together to relieve wealthy
citizens of their valuables, which range from cash
to jewelry to even gourmet shark fin. Thongs and Octopus
have been taught by Landlord that thieves still have
scruples; the trio may rob, but they don't rape, murder,
or kidnap. That is, not until tonight. When Landlord's
retirement stash gets pilfered, he willingly takes
on a big assignment that involves the kidnapping of
an adorable baby . Octopus and Thongs
would never go for it, but by the time they catch
on, the baby is in their bag and they're already fleeing
the crime scene. The hand-off collapses, however.
Landlord crashes the getaway van, but Thongs and Octopus
manage to escape with the baby. When Landlord checks
in with them from the slammer, he reveals that the
kid is the offspring of an insanely rich tycoon. Instead
of the expected $7 million payday, the payoff could
be much, much more.
But Octopus and Thongs
must first take care of the kid for the 1-2 weeks
needed for Landlord to get released from jail. Not
surprisingly, this is a bit of a chore for a couple
of blokes like Thongs and Octopus, especially when
you consider just how selfish they are. Thongs consistently
gambles his money away, and is deep in debt, much
to the shame of his family, who get harassed by loan
sharks in his stead. Meanwhile, Octopus tries to seduce
rich young women to snag a share of their family fortunes,
while badgering his pregnant wife Yan
to get an abortion in Shenzen right away. Yeah, both
guys kind of suck, but once they're charged with caring
for the kid, everything changes. The emasculating
situations and poop jokes start flying fast and furiously,
and the two are forced out of their me-first comfort
zones. The first evening, the baby can't stop crying
so Thongs and Octopus have to charm him with their
questionable singing skills and games of peek-a-boo.
It's still not enough, so they enlist the aid of comely
young nurse , who teaches
them the ins and outs of baby care. Cue a five-minute
montage where Thongs and Octopus go from accidental
baby-sitters to full-fledged parents. Man, that was
quick.
But not unexpected.
Rob-B-Hood possesses a very common formula,
about a bunch of selfish masculine types who get softened
by the goo-goo eyes of an adorable little kid. The
script is as original as as your average Wong Jing
flick, and leans on several clichés to wring
the expected tears and laughs from a presumably family-filled
audience. It's all very calculated and even crass,
but hey, it's also very effective. Rob-B-Hood
may be retread stuff, but it hits its marks well,
and does what it should with credible commercial efficiency.
Benny Chan directs the film smartly, mixing the jokes,
the "aw shucks" baby moments, and Jackie
Chan's trademark creative action into a well-rounded,
entertaining whole. There are the occasional detours
into the maudlin, and most of the lead characters'
personal issues aren't terribly inspiring. Still,
the conflicts are resolved in ways that seem to strike
the correct emotional chords. Thongs may be a bad
son, but hanging with the baby makes him a good father.
Octopus wants Yan to get an abortion, but the baby
makes him change his mind. Landlord's wife once had a miscarriage, so he cheers her up
by introducing her to the baby. It's not surprising
stuff, but at least it doesn't embarrass or offend.
A lot of this is due
to the cast, which mixes rising stars with old faves,
character actors, and even a couple of surprise cameos.
Jackie Chan and Louis Koo are far from the most subtle
of actors, but both are willing to put their manhood
on the line in order to score some laughs. Koo, in
particular, lampoons his lady-killer image with an
amusing, almost nauseating glee. Michael Hui is still
an ace at both comedy and drama, and Yuen Biao, who
has a supporting role as Thongs' police officer pal
Mok, is still able to hold his own during Chan's creatively
choreographed action sequences. The supporting players
are used effectively too. Charlene Choi is refreshingly
moody as Yan, and Gao Yuanyuan gives her too-angelic
character a sincere appeal. A minor surprise occurs
thanks to Nicholas Tse, who is shockingly funny in
a brief cameo as an armored car driver. Sadly, the
same cannot be said for Daniel Wu, who plays Tse's
partner and delivers the movie's worst line, a colossal
groaner that suffers from a too-obvious setup.
But the most pivotal
actor in the entire film may be little Matthew Medvedev,
who has more screen charisma in his oversized head
than most screen actors could probably ever hope to
possess. Considering just how much peril the baby
is put in - which includes getting put in washing
machines, almost getting crushed in traffic, or being
dangled from the window of a Lan Kwai Fong apartment
building - it's helpful that the kid they cast is
so damn cute. Eventually it's revealed that a crimeboss
wants the baby to prove his family lineage,
and when the baby cries after being separated from
kidnappers/adopted parents Thongs and Octopus, it's
hard not to feel something for the little guy. It's
supreme manipulation on the filmmakers' part, but
thanks to the baby, it works. Frankly, the baby is
so cute and expressive that one wonders if he's not
some sort of robot. If so, sign him up for Rob-B-Hood
2 and 3.
Rob-B-Hood has
received some nominal press coverage because it presents
a "bad" Jackie Chan who's not a cop or a
do-gooder, but instead a thief and a gambler. The
claims are a bit overstated; the character of Thongs
is really not that bad. He may be robbing a hospital
of its chemotherapy medicine when he first appears,
but before long he's demonstrated a conscience, and
the film's climax hinges on him sacrificing himself
to save a vulnerable child. Honestly, it may nearly
be impossible to ever see Chan as a full-fledged baddie
unless he's playing the Asian version of Hannibal
Lecter, and even then the reaction would probably
be, "Hey look, it's Jackie Chan trying to act
like Hannibal Lecter!" Chan's screen persona
is so affable and genuine-seeming that it's easy to
root for him, and adding the baby and the eclectic
cast to the mix gives Chan enough new tools to play
with such that this latest screen outing doesn't feel
as stale as some of his previous ones. Rob-B-Hood
is fun because it allows Chan to play to his current
strengths - comedy and inventive action sequences - and does so in an efficient, entertaining manner.
That is, up until the
film's climax, which reintroduces us to Jackie Chan,
the sweaty overactor. Rob-B-Hood frequently
puts Thongs and the baby in over-the-top peril , and while most of the sequences
are entertaining, it is possible to go too
far. The filmmakers do so in their overdone climax,
which pairs Chan with another sweaty overactor in
Louis Koo. Seeing the two wig out while desperately
trying to save the baby can be affecting at first,
but as the minutes tick by and their acting grows
egregiously sweaty and twitchy, it all starts to feel
uncomfortable and even a little creepy. Their method
of saving the baby is also incredibly ridiculous,
such that it's possible to be taken completely out
of the movie by the time the familiar outtakes-over-the-credits
begin to play. To make matters worse, the overlong
ending pads the film to over 2 hours, plus it seems
suspiciously designed to please Mainland censors.
Still, these quibbles are aimed only at the last twenty
or so minutes of the film, and anyway, the concessions
are made in order to earn mass audience appeal, which
the film handily does. For the majority of its running
time, Rob-B-Hood is amusing commercial stuff
that should be fun for nearly the whole family. However,
if you have your own kids at home, please take better
care of them than these guys do.

Kung Fu Mahjong 2

2008-09-02T08:07:00.003-07:00

Year:2005
Director:Wong Jing
Cast:Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Yuen Qiu, Yuen Wah, Terence Yin, Wong Tin-Lam, Sammy, Tiffany Lee Lung-Yi, Philip Keung Ho-Man, Zuki Lee Si-Pui, Wong Jing, Matthew Chow Hoi-Kwong, Lee Kin-Yan, Yuen King-Tan, Otto Wong Chi-On, Gill Mohindepaul Singh
Description:
Kung
Fu Mahjong 2 is the best sequel thus far to a
film made in 2005. It's also the worst and only sequel
to a film made in 2005. Thanks to the above two statements,
everyone can win...that is, except filmgoers seeking
actual movie quality. We're stuck with a sequel to
a film that didn't need a sequel, and one that's cheaper
and more annoying to boot. Apologists will say that
the film is supposed to be that way, and indeed Kung
Fu Mahjong 2 can be funny in a lowbrow, "meets
expectations" sort of way. But really, it's not
a good movie, and it's doubtful anyone seeing it will
expect it to be good, either. To many people, movies
are junk; this movie is for those people.
Cherrie Ying is Fanny,
an extraordinarily skilled mahjong player and young
housewife, who's usually forbidden from her tile-clicking
addiction by husband Johnny .
However, when Johnny falls in with bastard gambler
Demon , Fanny gets sent packing. Johnny
takes up with Demon's femme fatale sister Curvy , and Fanny is left alone.
Worse, she seems to lose her mahjong-playing skills.
Luckily, she receives additional training from her
mahjong sifu Three Tiles , who
also schooled Auntie Fei from Kung Fu
Mahjong 1, as well as sexy player-in-training
First Love . With the aid of her mahjong
sisters, brother Ronaldhino , plus Auntie Fei's
annoying husband Chi Mo Sai , Fanny regroups in time to take
on Curvy, Demon, and Johnnie at a climactic mahjong
tournament. Cue Kung Fu Mahjong 3.
Or maybe not. Unlike
the first Kung Fu Mahjong, KFM2 couldn't
eke out a number one box-office showing, so sequel
talk may be premature. On the other hand, KFM2
looks like it cost about $15 to make, so maybe it's
still money in the bank. Wong Jing seems wary of his
purse strings in KFM2, using cheap sets and
an even cheaper plot. Standard gags involving Cantonese
wordplay, media parodies, comic violence, and mahjong
training abound. Wong Jing specifically targets Korea
and Japan for his media gags, with stuff skewering
Kamikaze Girls, Dae Jang Geum, and Korean
megastar Rain. Comic violence shows up in the form
of First Love's patented breast-grabbing torture technique,
plus even more scenes of Yuen Qiu beating up Yuen
Wah. The mahjong training sequences are more universally-understood
than the usual primer on esoteric winning hands, though
those show up in abundance too. Be warned: knowledge
of mahjong is a necessity to enjoy Kung Fu Mahjong
2.
However, you might ignore
that warning if you like Cherrie Ying. She gets a
starring role in Kung Fu Mahjong 2, a first
for the usual Johnnie To supporting player. The actress
isn't very subtle, but she's a game performer who
manages enough girlish charm to carry the film. Tiffany
Lee shows sexiness as First Love, and Yuen Qiu and
Yuen Wah earn their paychecks sufficiently - when
they actually appear. Unfortunately, there's far too
little of the Kung Fu Hustle duo in Kung
Fu Mahjong 2, and the fight sequences have been
reduced to quick bathroom-set beatings. Instead, we
get plenty of Cherrie Ying, plus an enlarged role
for Sammy and off-color racial jokes masquerading
as humor. The final mahjong competition features an
international collection of foes, including an Indian
who smells of curry and uses his feet to play, and
an Italian imaginatively named "Mr. Spaghetti."
There's even a Muay Thai mahjong guru called Tony
Jaa-Jaa. On a culturally-insensitive level, the above
can be funny, but from a creativity standpoint it's
the height of laziness.
Of course, this is Wong
Jing we're talking about, so laziness is standard
operating procedure. The auteur even returns as villain
Tin Kau Gor, though apparently everyone has forgiven
him from the first film. Tin Kau Gor shows up in time
for Fanny to triumph in the final mahjong battle -
which is a spoiler only if you're expecting some sort
of risky filmmaking from Wong Jing. No dice. This
is as by-the-numbers as Hong Kong Cinema gets nowadays,
which means the film meets expectations with all the
excitement of a wet dishrag. Depending on who you
are, this movie is cheap, easy fluff that can be funny
on occasion, or standard, uninspired crap from a filmmaker
who seems to have run out of ideas. Take your pick
as to which definition suits the film best; either
way, Kung Fu Mahjong 2 will never win any awards.
And if it does, I'll eat a bug.

The Postmodern Life of My Aunt

2008-09-02T08:07:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Ann Hui On-Wah
Cast:Siqin Gaowa, Chow Yun-Fat, Vicki Zhao Wei, Lisa Lu Yan, Guan Wenshou, Wang Ziwen, Shi Ke, Fang Qingzhou
Description:
The
Postmodern Life of My Aunt doesn't possess much
of a plot, but it isn't supposed to. Director Ann
Hui's surprising comedy-drama isn't a driven narrative;
instead, it's an episodic look at an aging single
woman, as she finds her comfortable Shanghai-set life
slowly and inevitably slipping beyond her reach. We
first meet Ye Rutang , the eponymous
aunt of the title, when she picks up her nephew Kuankuan
at the train station. Rutang is loud
and brassy, and probably more than a little annoying
to her embarrassed nephew. Kuankuan's stay with his
aunt introduces both he and the audience to Rutang's
unique existence. She lives alone, disdains her nosy
neighbor Mrs. Shui ,
owns a flock of birds that she sets free in the apartment
daily, and is - above all else - fervently alive.
We may not cotton to Rutang's personality, but she's
a person with a righteous and admirable will.
However, that will soon gets
tested. Kuankuan befriends a disfigured young woman
, and decides to help pay for her surgery
by conning Rutang. He arranges his own kidnapping
and attempts to wring money from his tightfisted aunt,
but the results of his scam are surprising, and even
a little funny. Rutang meets one colorful character
after the next, and each person has a unique and sometimes
questionable story. Rutang hires a new domestic helper
named Jin Yonghua after seeing her bleeding
in a local noodle restaurant and taking pity on her.
However, Yonghua has a complex life; her baby is seriously
ill and has been hospitalized, and Yonghua has creative
methods of making money on the side. Rutang also meets
roguish amateur opera singer Pan Zhichang , who charms
her over lunch and proceeds to scam her for a small
sum of cash. After a later chance meeting, the contrite
Zhichang befriends Rutang, and the two begin an entertaining
and poignant courtship. But Zhichang comes up with
a unique moneymaking scheme - they'll invest in funeral
plots - and invites Rutang to be a part of it. Is
Zhichang really trying to help Rutang, or is this
yet another scam?
Ye Rutang encounters plenty
of conmen in Postmodern Life of My Aunt, among
them acquaintances, family members, trusted individuals,
and possibly even herself. There's entertainment value
in watching each character display their inner ugliness,
but all the conning also reveals China's rapidly changing
values. Throughout the film, Ye Rutang is portrayed
as a righteous and dignified woman, who will call
the cops to bust a street vendor for littering, but
will also stand up for family members who've committed
minor crimes. Her principles are admirable, but she's
apparently a bit of a relic. She clings to older,
more innocent values, while the people around her
have become impersonal, sometimes sacrificing others
just to make an extra buck. Still, the filmmakers
compassionately reveal the characters' humanity in
the process. People are dishonest and greedy, but
they're also human and identifiable, and none of them
can truly be classified as "bad people".
Postmodern Life of My
Aunt is seen largely from Ye Rutang's point of
view. She may suspect that some of her trusted friends
are using her, but the truth is not always known.
However, the feeling of possible betrayal - along
with its accompanying loneliness and despair - is
enough to affect her. Siqin Gaowa turns in a fine
performance as Rutang, giving her a strong, memorable
personality that's colorful without being a caricature.
She also gives a measured physical performance; Ye
Rutang is animated and lively at first, but as the
film progresses, her expressions and posture grow
weakened and weary. The weight of the world seems
to be falling upon Rutang, and as she goes, so does
the film. At first, Postmodern Life of My Aunt
sometimes resembles a fantasy, with bright, eye-catching
colors and a score by Joe Hisaishi that evokes wonder and life. Ann Hui's
Shanghai is simultaneously deglamorized and also idealized.
We don't see the gleaming, tourist-friendly Shanghai
here, but Ye Rutang's local haunts are given generous,
affectionate focus. To Ye Rutang, Shanghai is home,
the place where she feels most comfortable and desperately
wants to be. Initially, it seems Rutang's vision of
Shanghai is true; it does seem like a wonderful place
to be, and the art direction and score make it seem
as attractive to us as it does to her.
All that changes, however,
as the film progresses. Rutang's life takes a turn
for the worse, and the film eventually changes locales,
from lively Shanghai to stark, dusty Manchuria. Ann
Hui reveals in her typically opaque, sure-handed style,
letting the audience observe instead of feeding them
meaning. Ye Rutang initially withstands the difficulties
she faces, but eventually it all gets to her, turning
the film from an ironic comedy-drama into a melodramatic
downer that may turn off the people who decided to
plunk down their cash to see the movie in the first
place. Marketing for Postmodern Life of My Aunt
is a bit puzzling; the posters for the film are either
bright and lively or disingenuously zany, and seem
to promise a witty comedy of manners. The film defies
expectation, however, becoming more and more unfulfilling
as it progresses. Characters grow from charming to
suspect to sometimes unlikeable and even bothersome.
It's a tough journey for any filmgoer, and Hui's hands-off
touch doesn't make it easy to get involved with the
characters. When Vicki Zhao shows up as Ye Rutang's
estranged daughter, the film has already begun a downward
spiral of unhappy emotions. The common reaction may
be to ask what it all means.
Well, it clearly means something - in fact, that meaning can probably be gleamed only
forty-five minutes into the film. Once Rutang has
met her second conman, a pattern seems to emerge:
she meets a person, gets taken in, gets screwed over,
and her existence seems to dim a little bit each time.
Ultimately, nothing about life seems as nice as it
does in reflection, a thought that makes Rutang's
destiny bittersweet - though the scale certainly
tips more towards bitter than sweet. Even the film's
key revelation, which partially explicates one character's
need for rose-colored glasses, just piles on the gloom.
The only hope seems to lie with Kuankuan, whose maturation
still promises hope, though one wonders if his life
won't become as desperate as Rutang's. Ann Hui may
be revealing some truths with her pessimism, but there's
little to celebrate in the revelation. Ultimately,
it all just feels depressing.
Is that really a reason to
knock Postmodern Life of My Aunt? That its
happy colors may fool the unsuspecting customer? Possibly.
Expectations play a large part in how one views a
film, and if a person can't get what they expect then
it's understandable if they're a little nonplused.
Postmodern Life of My Aunt simply may not be
meant for an audience with expectations, as viewing
the film as a narrative can lead to disappointment.
There's no real arc and no real ending. All we get
is a slow realization that life, for all intents and
purposes, is always better in the rearview mirror,
and that sometimes virtue really isn't its own reward.
That's hardly the stuff of feel-good moviegoing, but
there's a humanity and a keen intelligence in Ann
Hui's work that makes the film worthwhile. Despite
the sometimes exaggerated irony, the film radiates
humanity, and life, be it joyous and melancholy, is
easily seen in the characters and their lives they
lead. Hui seems to have brought a great deal of personal
attention to the film, and it shines through in the
affectionate, if not always flattering way in which
she presents her characters. Postmodern Life of
My Aunt may not be an easy film to enjoy, as the
path it leads audiences down is not very friendly.
However, appreciating the film is possible, and even
deserved.

Nothing is Impossible

2008-09-02T08:06:00.004-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Lam Wah-Chuen
Cast:Dayo Wong Chi-Wah, Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Debbie Goh, Andy On Chi-Kit, Lam Kwok-Bun, Leung Ka-Yan, Tin Kai-Man, Joe Cheung Tung-Cho, Lin Wei, Ken Wong Hap-Hei, Hayama Hiro, Chung Fat, Zuki Lee Si-Pui, Asuka Higuchi, Jessica Xu, Tony Leung Siu-Hung, Chik King-Man
Description:
Are
Hong Kong drinking games really worthy of a full-length
feature film? Who the hell really knows, but they
made a movie about them anyway. Deal with it. Nothing
is Impossible is the gambling film-like tale of
a drinking game zero who graduates
to fists-flying hero. However, the fists in question
seldom land on someone else, and instead are used
to outsmart, redirect, or just plain annoy people.
Called "Speed Fists" in the subtitles , these drinking games
require players to use hands, fingers, body movements,
and plenty of yelling to one-up their opponents. The
loser downs a pint or fifteen, while the winner gloats
and gets to insult the loser with all the snarky Cantonese
insults they can muster. Woohoo! Obviously, everyone's
competitive juices must be flowing after that description.
There'll be a sign up sheet later.
Trying to fool us into believing
that anyone would desire supremacy at Speed Fists
is a stretch, so the filmmakers hand us a plot instead.
Vivian Siu is a successful professional
tutor, who sells her lessons - as well as her photogenic
wares - to Hong Kong's in-need-of-education youth.
The background: in Hong Kong, professional tutors
have a strange form of celebrity that gets their Photoshopped
mugs splashed onto billboards and the sides of buses.
The practice is sometimes dubious, as some tutors
are more known for their physical qualities rather
than their ability to help kids make the grade. Nothing
is Impossible could have gone for some satire
on this subject, especially since Cherrie Ying is
photogenic enough to ensure heavy enrollment in such
pay-for-education courses. However, the film doesn't
go there, opting out of any satire for its wannabe
inspirational gambling film plotline.
But I digress. Back
to the plot: Vivian gets dragged into the world of
Speed Fists when she finds her boyfriend Jason cavorting with the local Speed Fists champion
Mango . After getting humiliated
by Mango in a game of 15-20 , Vivian joins up with Mango's former partner
Turtle , proprietor of Turtle Castle bar,
and a former Speed Fists champ himself. Vivian wants
Turtle to train her into a Speed Fist expert in order
to show up Mango, but Turtle has plenty of issues
that get in the way, including a crappy ex-wife, a
wayward son, and mounting bills on Turtle Castle.
Vivian has zero issues initially, but because she's
so adamant about becoming a Speed Fists queen, she
takes up a second job in Turtle's bar, thereby risking
her regular job , plus possibly
disappointing her father . With the
next championship approaching, will Vivian become
skilled enough to take down Mango, win back her boyfriend,
and presumably keep her teaching job?
The answer to that last
question may be irrelevant, because in the process
of working at Turtle's bar, Vivian discovers the "joy"
of Speed Fists. Quantifying that joy is hard to do
without sounding silly, but basically, Vivian learns
to love the game. She becomes so absorbed in the world
of Speed Fists that it becomes her obsession. Before
long, she's throwing herself into the high-stakes
world of professional Speed Fists with every inch
of her body - including her soon-to-be-in-danger
liver. Yes, there are tough lessons that Vivian must
learn on the way to Speed Fist supremacy, including
how to deal with the stress of too much alcohol, as
well as the threat of public ridicule for dumping
a teaching job for a life of binge drinking in a navel-baring
waitress outfit. Cue expected message about how dropping
respectable jobs for irresponsible alcohol-imbibing
competitions is a poor career choice.
However, that message belongs
in another, less commercial film. Director Lam Wah-Cheun
once made the interesting, though thematically simplistic
Runaway Pistol, which chronicled the journey
of a used firearm in sometimes absurd fashion. Despite
its one-note lesson, Runaway Pistol contained
a genuine attempt at a social message. Here, there
is no social message, merely another variation on
the gambling film/martial arts parody that typifies
many works from Wong Jing. True to those genres, there
are varying levels of Speed Fist technique, sometimes
practiced by hidden masters in rural areas of Hong
Kong. Seeing Vivian meet and learn from these masters
can be amusing stuff, and there's even an odd fascination
in seeing the drinking games in action - though that
may be because they're so fast and furious that the
uninitiated are probably racking their brains trying
to decipher what these games are all about. Either
that, or they're marveling at the parade of Hong Kong
Cinema bit players, including some who haven't been
seen in years. And if those things don't prove interesting,
there's always Cherrie Ying's naked navel to gawk
at. There's something for everyone here.
What isn't here is a movie
necessarily worth recommending. Nothing is Impossible
is a mix of standard commercial clichés and
parodies, including a perfunctory romance between
Dayo Wong and Cherrie Ying, plus the Top Gun-like
moment where a character feels like quitting because
their talent may have resulted in a fatality. Yes,
someone manages to kill someone through a drinking
game, which could actually be interesting if the film
weren't so throwaway. In the end, everyone comes together
for the big drinking competition, which manages to
solve personal, professional, financial, and possibly
even legal issues in a 20-minute marathon of fists-flying
Speed Fists games - which, amusingly enough, is covered
like the World Cup on every television in Hong Kong.
The ridiculousness of that is too huge to mention,
so it may be better just to sum things up this way:
Nothing is Impossible is mildly amusing stuff
that warrants a skip from anyone expecting challenging,
affecting, or possibly even average-quality cinema.
It's not blindingly bad, but it's definitely unnecessary.
On the positive end, the
film does present another chance for Cherrie Ying
to expand on her comic repertoire. The Johnnie To
regular is a likable comedic performer who can bring
charm, wit, and sex appeal to even a film as uninspired
as Kung Fu Mahjong 2, and she's in fine form
here. Debbie Goh and Andy On also provide eye candy,
though the dubbed On has the unfortunate task of playing
a character that makes next to no sense. Fans of Dayo
Wong should be happy to know that he's his usual snarky
self, turning in a performance that is neither offensive
nor noteworthy. That description could easily apply
to the whole film, as Nothing is Impossible
glides by so quickly that even its 100 minute running
time doesn't seem that long. By the time it's all
over, the prevailing thought may be, "Well, it
could have been worse." Considering the fact
that 2006 has given us Dating a Vampire and
Love Undercover 3, I wholeheartedly agree with
that assessment.

My Name is Fame

2008-09-02T08:06:00.003-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Lawrence Lau Kwok-Cheung
Cast:Lau Ching-Wan, Huo Siyan, Candy Yu On-On, Lai Yiu-Cheung, Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Fiona Sit Hoi-Kei, Fruit Chan Gor, Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung, Niki Chow Lai-Kei, Guk Fung, Elena Kong Mei-Yi, Samson Chiu Leung-Chun, Stephen Tung Wai, Henry Fong Ping, Gordon Chan Car-Seung, Ann Hui On-Wah, Jo Koo, Lau Dan, Calvin Choi Yat-Chi, Edmond So Chi-Wai, Remus Choi Yat-Kit, Jamie Luk Kin-Ming, Vincent Tsui
Description:
Lau
Ching-Wan lampoons himself in director Lawrence Lau's
entertaining comedy-drama My Name is Fame.
The actor takes on a delightfully juicy role that
simultaneously skewers and reveres his career, which
is notable for being highly-regarded and virtually
unrewarded . In My Name is Fame, Lau plays
Poon Ka-Fai, a supporting actor/bit player type who
possesses an intense appreciation and devotion to
the craft of acting. Poon is so focused on quality
that he regularly dispenses fiery, sometimes abusive
advice to crew members and other actors in the middle
of shoots - a habit that rightfully pisses off his
colleagues. After years of berating his peers and
bitching about the crappy state of the entertainment
industry, Poon is experiencing a serious career slide.
He's fallen off the casting wagon, and is even recalled
in the past tense by more than a few industry players.
Enter Faye Ng , neophyte actress and Poon Ka-Fai groupie,
who attaches herself to the aging actor despite his
none-too-subtle instructions to buzz off. Ka-Fai seems
to have no interest in Faye's fannish attitudes, but
after seeing her attempt to act, Ka-Fai takes her
under his wing. He teaches her acting craft and technique,
and soon discovers that she may just have a knack
for the biz. She quickly ascends from bit player to
stuntwoman to in-demand flavor of the month. Meanwhile,
Ka-Fai finds himself becoming enamored of his younger
protégé, though the emotion is subtle
at first. When Faye gets a shot at a bigtime Hong
Kong film that requires her to disrobe, Ka-Fai puts
his emotions out there. Will Faye and Ka-Fai find
everlasting love with one another? Or will she rise
to unprecedented success, leaving him a bitter shell
of a man? And haven't we seen this movie before?
We probably have, because
the story of an aging entertainer who takes a female
protégé/lover under his wing is tried-and-true
cinema stuff. The most famous variation is undoubtedly
the 1937 US film A Star is Born and its numerous
remakes, though My Name is Fame doesn't approach
the intense emotions of those films. As Faye's star
rises, one would expect Ka-Fai's to continue descending,
to the point that his bitter downward spiral becomes
a tragic crash. That's not what happens here; My
Name is Fame goes the uplifting route, with Ka-Fai
choosing to reapply himself instead of becoming a
self-absorbed mess. He sobers up from his mild drinking
habit and starts offering constructive instead of
abrasive criticism. It's more of a 120-degree turn
than a complete 180, but the character's change is
felt. The fact that it's Lau Ching-Wan playing the
role only makes it better.
A closer comparison to My
Name is Fame than A Star is Born is probably
the 1999 Stephen Chow film King of Comedy.
In that film, Stephen Chow's character Wan Tin-Sau
managed to find purpose through a fervent, even obsessive
dedication to acting. In Chow's film, acting brought
Wan Tin-Sau respect, love, and even relative success - after a series of parodies and wacky screwball
jokes, of course. My Name is Fame goes a similar,
though completely non-wacky route, drilling home the
point that if we try hard on our chosen path, then
we'll most definitely succeed one day. It's a nice
lesson, and one that really carries weight in the
film. After all, it's drilled home in multiple loaded
conversations, including one between Poon Ka-Fai and
Leung Ka-Fai , who reminds
Ka-Fai that dedication will pay off.
A veteran of more than one career slide, Tony Leung
Ka-Fai - who incidentally is the most recent recipient
of a Best Actor Hong Kong Film Award - should know
the value of dedication.
The audience should
know too, because that lesson could qualify as a key
point in Hackneyed Screenwriting 101. Using a disarmingly
effervescent young thing as the catalyst for Ka-Fai's
transformation qualifies as even more hackneyed writing,
but My Name is Fame manages to sidestep most
of the obvious clichés. The screenwriters don't delve too far
into bitter emotion; Ka-Fai may be on the downside
of his career, but his bitterness only manifests itself
as a chronic crankiness and not an exaggerated spiral
of self-destruction. The filmmakers don't play up
the older guy-younger girl thing either. The romance
between Faye and Ka-Fai seems to develop more in the
background than the foreground, and manifests itself
in a refreshingly natural way. Instead of being concerned
with the romance, the filmmakers spend all their time
talking about the movies. The Hong Kong film industry
is given a gentle needling, with references to the
Cookies, Lau Ching-Wan's former jobs , and all
manner of HK Cinema luminaries. Ekin Cheng, Fiona
Sit, Niki Chow, and others make token appearances
as themselves. The likely audience response is probably
to marvel at all the unnecessary namedropping.
But the namedropping
pays off. Director Lawrence Lau
gives the film industry generous focus, spending plenty
of screentime time on the joys of moviemaking. Much
time in My Name is Fame is spent merely watching
actors, directors ,
crew members, and even stunt coordinators collaborating.
Frequent moviemaking montages show up, and they prove
to be fascinating and affectionate of their subject
matter. Lau Ching-Wan is perfect for this movie; he's
a solid leading man who's got charisma and talent
to spare - but somehow he always loses out to peaking
prettyboys or edgier actors who chew up the scenery.
In some ways, Lau Ching-Wan plays himself in My
Name is Fame, and he does so with considerable
self-effacing charm. He also creates a fine rapport
with the lovely and expressive Huo Siyan, who impresses
as the starstruck Faye. The abundance of cameos by
familiar Hong Kong faces helps too. It may be a little
unnecessary, but it's always fun to spot the stars.
If any complaint could
be directed at My Name is Fame it's that the
film is perhaps a little too warm and fuzzy. Show
business is filled with ugliness and ugly people , but My Name is Fame
seems to be a story with only one direction: up. The
characters work harder, they achieve greater success,
and the ugliness and ugly people in the biz barely
make an appearance. The story of Poon Ka-Fai and Faye
Ng may seem like it should be going the Star is
Born route, but the filmmakers go easy on the
audience, sending us in a direction that, if it isn't
really "feel good", is at least "feel
better". The truly bad stuff in the industry
gets only minor acknowledgment, while the good stuff - recognition, respect, sane human beings - seems
to be everywhere.
The script's lack of disclosure
feels slightly disingenuous, but the overall film
is never anything less than enjoyable. My Name
is Fame succeeds handily as a valentine to the
movie business, and finds much to celebrate in the
local industry's rushed productions, ensemble casts,
and blue-collar work ethic. Acting and filmmaking
are presented here as hard work that will pay off
if one remembers to stay dedicated and respectful
of others. Screw pessimism - at the end of this rainbow
there's a pot of gold, or at least a stack of good
reviews and possibly a Hong Kong Film Award waiting
for whoever gives it their all. A lesson this earnest
may be too nice for righteous truth-seeking audiences,
but in these dark Hong Kong Cinema days, positive
thinking can only help. Good movies would help, too.
Thankfully, My Name is Fame qualifies.

Mr. 3 Minutes

2008-09-02T08:06:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Gordon Chan Car-Seung
Cast:Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Au Ka-Hing, Richard Ng Yiu-Hon, Theresa Fu Wing, Lawrence Ng Kai-Wah, Hui Siu-Hung, Joe Cheng Cho, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Fung Min-Hun
Description:
Get your mind out of the gutter. The title of Ronald
Cheng's latest film, Mr. 3 Minutes, has nothing
to do with his sexual prowess. Instead, it's a reference
to the Japanese icon Ultraman, who can only exist on
Earth for three minutes before having to return to his
human host. The connection to this film? Well, Scott
Chung is supposedly a lucky fellow who makes
all his decisions in just three minutes. How that exactly
relates to Ultraman is still questionable, but let's
pretend the connection isn't paper-thin and buy in.
Anyway, the result of Scott's three-minute powers is
his current lot in life. He's the successful owner of
a bridal boutique, and is also renowned as a premier
playboy on the upscale clubbing circuit. However, this
supposedly hedonistic, self-involved individual receives
an unwelcome surprise. At his latest bridal fashion
exhibition ,
Scott meets 10 year-old Wayne , who he thinks
is a pickpocket. He's wrong; much to the avowed bachelor's
shock and surprise, Wayne is actually Scott's son.
Well, that's what Wayne says.
It's pretty much Wayne's word against nobody's, and
Scott and his right-hand woman Jo commission
a DNA test right away. However, they have to wait two
weeks for the results, which means plenty of time for
hijinks and manufactured events masquerading as character
development. Wayne takes Scott and Jo to visit his mom,
who's pushing up daises at the graveyard, making it
hard for Scott to get a face-to-face confirmation of
the mother's identity. Obviously, however, the kid had
to be living somewhere before, so Scott hires a private
dick to shadow Wayne, eventually discovering the kid's
current next-of-kin: his aunt, Yuk . Yuk
should probably be punished for leaving Wayne with a
bastard like Scott, but she really needed a break from
Wayne, as she holds two jobs and has a nonexistent social
life despite looking just like Cherrie Ying. Also, Wayne's
mother originally wanted Wayne to be brought up by his
father, so Yuk gladly obliged by sending Wayne packing
to his crappy dad. The lesson here: even being a lousy
guardian can be justified in the movies.
The problem is Scott hates
kids. At least, that's what the ad copy says, and Ronald
Cheng seems to nominally inhabit that role for about
fifteen minutes. The height of Scott's cruelty towards
kids seems to be telling Wayne that he can't play with
his collection of toys, and also attempting to parent
Wayne in 3 minutes a day - which, given the whole 3
minute premise, is probably what the screenwriters suppose
that Ultraman would do when faced with surprise offspring.
But, in a narrative move that's surprising only to those
who've never seen a movie before, Scott grows into the
parent role. He befriends Wayne and even tries to help
out the sometimes-hostile Yuk. He even dumps his womanizing
ways for something resembling warm-and-fuzzy sensitivity.
Basically, Scott grows from materialistic, womanizing
jerk into an all-around swell guy, leading to smiles
all around and an inspirational message for us would-be
Scotts. Message to the screenwriters from the would-be
Scott club: thanks for the empathy!
Unfortunately, it's hard to
buy that Scott is a womanizing jerk because he sure
as heck doesn't seem like one. Scott is supposed to
be a naughty fellow who thinks only for himself, but
the moments that detail this are few and far between.
The most evidence we get of Scott's crappy character
is him sitting around talking about chasing tail or
being a jerk, instead of actually demonstrating this
actively. Ultimately, Scott comes off more like a big-talking
dope than the active horndog he's reputed to be. If
Scott is really supposed to be a nice guy and not a
creep, then Ronald Cheng nails the character from minute
one. Aside from not seeming like a womanizing playboy,
Ronald Cheng doesn't portray Scott as someone the audience
should feel scorn for. He simply seems like a nice guy,
such that his ultimate "good father" act is
easily believable and sometimes even affecting. Cheng's
comic acting can sometimes be a bit much, but he does
have a certain charisma, and he can frequently find
the emotions behind his characters' annoying attitudes.
In Fatal Contact, Cheng gave his wacky sidekick
role hidden depth, and likewise he seems to bring more
to Mr. 3 Minutes than the script truly provides.

However, that thumbs up to
Ronald Cheng comes with a collective slam against the
screenwriters. The writers - and there are five credited
here - provide plenty for words, themes, and ideas
for Mr. 3 Minutes, but not much of it really
convinces. For one thing, Scott's character arc seems
to be only nominal, and not something that really occurs
in the film, as the character itself becomes too nice
too early. Also, Ronald Cheng, despite turning in a
surprisingly effective performance, seems miscast as
someone who's supposed to be a womanizing playboy. Wayne
seems too wise for his years, and Au Ka-Hing plays him
in a rather unrealistic manner. The plot also unfolds
unnaturally, cramming way too much into just two weeks.
Worst of all, the film dips into maudlin and hackneyed
sentimentality with a third act plot twist that attempts
to add pathos to a film that probably required little.
The plot twist happens to be overused , and also occurs too late in the film for
proper development. The icing on this uneven, soggy
cake is a post-credits coda that pretty much undoes
whatever poignancy the filmmakers were trying for with
their attempted tearjerker ending. Message to filmmakers
everywhere: when you try to challenge your audience
by subverting their expectations, please stay the course.
Pulling into reverse - even after the credits - just
makes it seem like nobody behind the scenes has any
guts.
Before he became king
of semi-authentic action , Gordon Chan was once famous
for his yuppie comedies, which mixed trite observations
on urban life with manufactured sentiment and awkward
existentialism. Despite that negative description, the
mixture did work back then, as Hong Kong Cinema was
messier and sloppier than it currently is, and Chan's
attention to solid filmmaking technique made him a quality
filmmaker when Hong Kong had precious few. Mr. 3
Minutes seems cut from that same cloth, but times
have changed, and perhaps Hong Kong Cinema needs more
than movies that just seem like they're well-made. They
could use consistent characterization and original storylines,
not obvious plot devices and undue existentialism. As
a director, Gordon Chan is capable of telling these
stories, and Ronald Cheng would probably do fine as
the lead actor. Which means pretty much one thing: Hong
Kong Cinema needs better screenwriters.

Midnight Running

2008-09-02T08:05:00.004-07:00

Year:2006

Derek Tsang and Maya Rumiko
Director:Wong Chung-Ning
Cast:Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung, Maya Rumiko, Calvin Choi Yat-Chi, Carl Ng Ka-Lung, Samuel Pang King-Chi, Wing Cheung Wing-Yin, Roderick Lam, Winston Yeh
Description:
A bunch of second generation Hong Kong stars take
center stage in Midnight Running, a crime caper
comedy that's mildly entertaining, if not really that
good. Timmy Hung is Paul, a down-on-his-luck cop who
gets caught up in a triad mix-em-up on Christmas Eve.
Paul accidentally gets wind of a big deal involving
the Tung Hing Group, and it may just be his ticket
back into respectable law enforcement. A gratingly
cute Japanese pickpocket named Mari
steals a briefcase which contains a list of all Tung
Hing members, which sends the entire triad into a
tizzy. Nice guy bartender Peter gets
drafted by the Tung Hing dudes to chase down Mari
because he knows barely passable Japanese. When Paul
gets involved in the mess, he, Peter, and Mari find
themselves at odds - though if they joined forces,
they might each get what they're looking for. Meanwhile,
triad boss OD fumes
over the lost name list.
Semi-clever detail number
one: the lead characters are named Peter, Paul, and
Mari. Given the film's setting , one
assumes that the reference here is to the followers
of Jesus, and not the sixties folk group. If that
bit of cleverness doesn't bowl you over, then check
this out: both Peter and Mari carry photos of a beach
in Cuba as a tribute to their idol, Ernest Hemingway.
That connection, plus a shared addiction to mojitos,
turns the two from antagonists into instant soulmates,
the idea being they can blackmail Tung Sing for the
list of names and use the ransom to open up a bar
in Cuba - again, as a tribute to their idol, Ernest
Hemingway. Paul wants the name list to show up Inspector
Lee , whose smarmy attitude annoys him. While
at a Christmas party, Paul submits this earnest wish:
to see Lee get a bullet in the buttocks. Wow, do you
think that might actually happen by the end of the
film?
I'll give it away: it
does, along with pretty much every other predictable
occurrence one could imagine. Midnight Running
telegraphs every one of its clever plot twists such
that they cease being clever and start becoming cloying.
When the story isn't trying to be clever, it's just
plain lazy. After realizing that Mari has taken off
with the name list, the Tung Sing group mobilizes
to find her - which they do, by either walking into
the correct bar or bumping into her on the street.
Hong Kong seems to be about three blocks large in
Midnight Running - which isn't so bad, since
the three blocks include Lan Kwai Fong, Exchange Square,
and some trendy bar locales. Factor in an appearance
by the Star Ferry Walkway, and it's old home week
for expatriates who never leave Hong Kong Island.
If you don't live in Hong Kong, the cheery Christmas
atmosphere may prove charming. Action junkies might
go for the one or two hand-to-hand fights, which are
less creative than they are simply a relief from the
hokey happenings. Midnight Running starts introducing
faux double-crosses, shifting allegiances, and blatantly
comic characters as a means of keeping things interesting,
and to be fair, interest is kept. It's marginal interest,
but interest nonetheless.
But of more interest:
a possible Spawn of the Lucky Stars film! Midnight
Running features the offspring of three of the
Lucky Stars, including Eric Tsang's kid Derek, Richard
Ng's kid Carl, and Sammo Hung's kid Timmy. If they
had coralled the kids of John Sham, Stanley Fung,
or maybe even Charlie Chin or Miu Kiu-Wai into appearing
then they could have rode the Lucky Stars connection
for perhaps an extra $500 of box office money. Sadly,
nobody in marketing noted the connection, so Midnight
Running got only a nominal cinema release and
a fanfare-less DVD release.
In fairness, the lack of
attention is not undue; while amusing as a time-killing
measure, Midnight Running is also completely
unnecessary and really not that good. It tries hard
to be a fun caper comedy, such that a mostly-sincere
thumbs up can be given based solely on effort. If
you're scraping the barrel for new Hong Kong films
to watch, you should definitely check this film out
before Dating a Vampire or even Love Undercover
3. Still, Love Undercover 3 has more obvious
star wattage in Fiona Sit, which could sway the some
cinema hounds that direction. Whether or not you dial
up this film out may have a lot to do with what A
or B level stars float your boat. If you like Timmy
Hung, Derek Tsang, or the gratingly cute Maya Rumiko,
then Midnight Running is here to answer your
call. For everyone else: see nothing and read a good
book instead.

Men Suddenly in Black 2

2008-09-02T08:05:00.003-07:00

Year:2003
Director:Zhong Qing
Cast:Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Marsha Yuan Ji-Wai, Josie Ho Chiu-Yi, Gia Lin, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Jordan Chan Siu-Chun, Cheung Tat-Ming, Wong Yau-Nam, Sandra Ng Kwun-Yu, Jim Chim Sui-Man, Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting, Carl Ng Ka-Lung, Lam Chi-Chung, Lam Chi-Sin, Farini Chang, Emily Kwan Bo-Wai, Carlo Ng Ka-Lok, Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Samuel Pang King-Chi, Ken Wong Hap-Hei, Gabriel 揟urtle�Wong Yat-San, Peter Lai Bei-Tak, Alvina Kong Yan-Yin
Description:
Women
get equal time in Men Suddenly in Black 2,
a follow-up to the surprise 2003 hit titled, duh,
Men Suddenly in Black. This time around, the
women are seeking revenge against their still-philandering
husbands, whose schemes to obtain booty have not been
quelled by their failed attempts in the previous film.
That film was directed by Edmond Pang Ho-Cheung, whose
razor-sharp, though sometimes self-satisfied wit make
him a potential Hong Kong Cinema savior. Sadly, it's
not Pang at the helm of this film. Men Suddenly
in Black 2 was directed by epic filmmaker Zhong
Qing, who is a complete unknown with zero other film
credits to his name. Zhong Qing may not even be a
"he", as press coverage prior to the film's
release touted Aubrey Lam as
the film's director. Lam still has writer credit,
but if the final credits are correct, it wasn't her
in the director's chair.
What gives here? No
one here really knows, but it's possible that the
name switch occurred due to the
true director's objections over *gasp* cinema quality.
Men Suddenly in Black has yet to achieve classic
status, but it was a smart black comedy and a tough
act to follow. In its own way, Men Suddenly in
Black refused to pull punches, and delivered a
witty, sometimes surprising commentary on the unspoken
game of marital infidelity. Men Suddenly in Black
2 expands upon that game, but it goes further
by attempting to deliver a hard, and conspicuously
female-centered lesson about why men and women really
cheat - or at least attempt to. The lessons learned
are common and even felt, but they're presented in
a way that could make the audience cringe. If someone
really did have an issue with film's direction and
requested that their name be removed from the credits,
then their objection should be understood, and even
respected. To say it explicitly: Men Suddenly in
Black 2 may be amusing, but it can't compare to
Men Suddenly in Black 1.
Like the first film,
Men Suddenly in Black 2 presents four couples
whose minor bickering has escalated into threatened
non-marital sexual relations. Eric Tsang, Teresa Mo,
Jordan Chan, and Marsha Yuan return as two of the
warring couples, with Wong Yau-Nam, Gia Lin, Cheung
Tat-Ming, and Josie Ho replacing previous couples
Chapman To, Candy Lo, Spirit Blue, and Tiffany Lee.
Apparently, the men have not learned from their previous
exploits and are looking to officially carouse once
more, but the wives have their own plan to snack on
the side. However, the men catch on, abandon their
own plans, and proceed to follow their wives, leading
to more awkward and off-color situations than you
would probably ever want. Basically, the women jump
through various hoops to get back at their husbands
while the men follow, spy, and sometimes attempt to
intervene. The chase leads to Macau hotel, where the
various couples spar in funny, surprising, and sometimes
uncomfortable ways. What we ultimately get is an examination
of the pain and emotion suffered by women whose husbands
stray - or self-gratify - in order to satisfy their
sexual needs. Plus there are movie parodies, and plenty
of them.
Immediately, Men Suddenly
in Black 2 earns points for its copious Election
and Election 2 parodies. Since the first MSIB
likened the solidarity of male cheaters to triad brotherhood,
it's only natural that MSIB2 go the full distance
and actually make them a full-fledged triad, complete
with elections to nominate a "boss" - who's
actually just the guy who arranges the infidelity
outings. The women also get their own bosses, however.
Sandra Ng shows up as the wife of Ninth Uncle, the
martyred lothario played by Tony Leung Ka-Fai in the
original film. She arranges the girls' weekend out,
but she has a goal in empowering the females to cheat
on their spouses. Basically, she instructs them that
men cheat for fun, but women cheat to keep the marriage
together. The idea is that trying to cheat on their
husbands will get the men to rethink their straying
ways, and value their suffering wives more - a concept
that actually makes sense if you think about it. Having
the women go to such lengths to hold their marriages
together proves to be amusing stuff, especially when
you throw in the abundance of off-color jokes which
tax the film's Category IIB rating. Many of the jokes
are specifically for local Hong Kong audiences, so
not everyone everywhere will get what the ha-has are
about. Still, enough jokes slip by to amuse.
Where the film falters
is in its ultimately straightforward aims. Unlike
the first film, which pushed its situations to a scathing,
and slyly inconclusive degree, Men Suddenly in
Black 2 shoves its themes down the audience's
throats full force. MSIB2 is billed as the
women's turn, and it certainly is. Little happens
in their initial forays into infidelity, save effective
situation comedy and some funny cameos from Carl Ng,
Jim Chim, and Alfred Cheung, among others. Still,
the point of their infidelity - that they're doing
it to save their marriages - is never far from the
surface, and when the film dumps its big moments on
us, the revelation is "Wow, men really do suck."
The guys get the guilt trips, along with a heavy dose
of desperate overacting, courtesy of exec-producer/co-screenwriter/star
Teresa Mo, who delivers a lengthy crying jag/monologue
that already seems earmarked for an awards show clip.
The point behind her overacting clinic is also a bit
labored, and could have been handled with more subtlety.
As the saying goes: less can be more. The film shifts
from comedy to drama almost instantly, and the sudden
change is like slamming your car into reverse while
turning hard right, engaging the handbrake, and reading
a newspaper at the same time. Basically, it gets ugly.
The comedy can get ugly,
too. Political correctness goes on vacation in Men
Suddenly in Black 2. Aside from the obvious pitfalls
of lampooning failing marriages, there's a tasteless
gag mixing Filipino domestic labor and the dog kennel
scene from Election 2. The film also references
Election during its closing moments, where
the filmmakers manage to undo absolutely everything
they tried to accomplish in the preceding 100 minutes.
The thematic flip-flopping is frustrating enough to
an audience; if this is the reason why the director's
identity is a mystery then we wholeheartedly sympathize.
One hopes that filmmakers would try to do more than
just outdo Wong Jing, but Men Suddenly in Black
2 accomplishes only that.
The film's middling success
is a shame because the material is intelligent enough
to accomplish more, and the performances are largely
effective. Besides Teresa Mo, Marsha Yuan also gets
a revealing "big moment" that manages to
be affecting, and Jordan Chan, Eric Tsang, and Cheung
Tat-Ming walk the line between likable and loathsome
rather well. The numerous cameos are also fun, with
Jim Chim once again chewing scenery and stealing the
show. Men Suddenly in Black 2 definitely had
the tools to at least compare to its predecessor,
but the filmmakers couldn't pull it off. Still, what's
left is amusing enough for undemanding audiences,
and even the hard-to-please may find some measure
of fun. Just don't confuse this with an actual good
film.

Love Undercover 3

2008-09-02T08:05:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Joe Ma Wai-Ho
Cast:Fiona Sit Hoi-Kei, Takuya Suzuki, Hui Siu-Hung, Sammy, Raymond Wong Ho-Yin, Lee Ka-Wing, Chow Ka-Sing, Matthew Chow Hoi-Kwong, Donald Tong Kim-Hong, Yuen King-Tan, Chow Chung, Lai Yiu-Cheung, Jun Nei, Sasha Hou Sa-Sa, Bonnie Xian
Description:
Four years ago, Miriam Yeung
shot to box-office stardom with the original Love
Undercover, and now it's Fiona Sit's turn. The
charming breakout star of last year's 2 Young
gets her shot at box-office superstardom with Love
Undercover 3. Director Joe Ma, who handled the
original and its sequel, returns to helm this installment,
which places series regulars Fong and
Man in Europe to watch the World Cup.
Fong's fake father, Chung is struggling
with Man's father over visitation rights
to Fong's child. Basically, the child is not really
Chung's grandchild, so he should stop visiting someone
else's grandkid and go get his own. This plot setup
is detailed in an over-the-top opening sequence where
Chung and his team unsuccessfully attempt
to visit the tyke, after which they get into an auto
accident, which - in the real world - would be a
just end for these useless policemen.
However, they live.
The five-man squad is saved from the wreckage by sprightly
delivery girl Fan Shi-Wao , whose desire
to help is only overshadowed by her earnest desire
to make money. The gang takes an immediate shine to
her, and presto: they have their new girl. The group
immediately enrolls Fan into the police academy, where
they dote on her and cheat to make sure she graduates.
Fan does, and immediately becomes a part of their
team, which is widely known for its complete lack
of effort and general uselessness. Purpose arrives
when Japanese Interpol officer Suzuki shows up to whip the force into shape.
Fan is immediately smitten by the handsome, blank
Suzuki. Meanwhile, the rest of the guys want to fool
him because he seems like such an uptight stick-in-the-mud.
There are other plotlines too, involving disenchanted
otaku Vito , who gets annoyed at the
world and forms a criminal ring of models to exact
his silly revenge, and Fan's future as a police officer,
which is supposed to be promising if not for her allegiance
to Chung's crappy police team.
Still, why anyone thinks
Fan's police career is filled with promise is a complete
and utter mystery, because she doesn't demonstrate
anything resembling actual law enforcement skill.
Then again, logic is hard to come by in the world
of Love Undercover 3 because few of the characters
or situations make any sense. The first Love Undercover
film actually had a story, and a variety of wacky
and straight characters to play with. The second film
also had a story, but it added extra subplots and
jettisoned the straight characters, leading to a sometimes
funny, but overall nonsensical film. This third film
follows this pattern exceptionally well; now, there
are wacky subplots, wacky characters, and NO STORY.
Love Undercover 3 makes zero sense from the
get-go, and presents characters and situations that
don't seem to connect. Characters come and go, and
new plotlines appear simply to introduce gags. Mileage
may vary here, as many of the jokes rely on wordplay
or Hong Kong-specific references that international
audiences may not necessarily get. Still, even with
complete knowledge of what's happening, it's not all
giggles and guffaws. Some of the gags can amuse, while
others stretch on for an unfunny eternity. If the
laughs in Love Undercover 3 were measured like
batting averages, we'd say that the filmmakers bat
close to .350. However, that average is only good
in baseball; in a comedy, it's not that hot.
But surprisingly, the
main problem with Love Undercover 3 may not
be the funny factor. No, the big shocker is how uninteresting
and one-dimensional Fiona Sit is in the lead role.
As Fan Shi-Wao, Sit displays a lovable sweetness that
goes from likable to finally uninteresting and even
tiresome. Unlike Sit's natural, realistic role in
2 Young, Fan Shi-Wao is all movie-made artifice;
she's the girl-next-door sweetheart, or the "jade
girl" described in the film's Chinese title.
Sit gets the sweetheart part right, but she fails
at conveying anything else besides occasional dissatisfaction.
She never gets angry or upset, and her shows of sweetness
sometimes border on nauseating. The blame isn't entirely
Sit's; had the writers written a more complete role,
then maybe we wouldn't be knocking her performance.
The original Love Undercover films got a ton
of mileage out of Miriam Yeung's mouthy insubordination,
and even though it's debatable whether Fong Lai-Keun
had any character arc, she showed enough variation
to make her interesting. Fan Chi-Wao has almost no
variation, and even seems to take a back seat for
huge portions of time to her wacky male protectors.
Those paying to see Hui Siu-Hung, Sammy, and Raymond
Wong act silly will get their money's worth, but those
expecting Fiona Sit to carry the film will likely
be unsatisfied.
That said, the supporting
players do take a large burden off Fiona Sit by carrying
many of the funny parts - and they do it well enough
that Love Undercover 3 can sometimes suffice
as a brainless time-killer. Though many of the jokes
fall flat, there are some surprising ones here or
there that can amuse. Hui Siu-Hung is always funny
as Chung Sir, and even Sammy earns a few decent laughs.
Those who look upon Hong Kong Cinema as throwaway
crap may forgive Love Undercover 3 as a typical
product of the industry, not unlike one of Wong Jing's
many quickie comedies. Love Undercover 3 seems
to fit that definition, but given the fact that the
original actually seemed better than a crappy Wong
Jing also-ran, Love Undercover 3 can only be
viewed as a disappointment. Since his strong first
features over ten years ago, Joe Ma's work has only
become more inconsistent and uninspired. But as depressing
as it is to see Joe Ma flounder, it's even worse watching
Fiona Sit fail to impress. Sit showed plenty of promise
with 2 Young, and even her turn in the middling
Embrace Your Shadow
was better than average work. For the promising Sit,
Love Undercover 3 is a high-profile misstep.
The girl deserves better than this. We deserve better,
too.

I'll Call You

2008-09-02T08:04:00.004-07:00

Year:2006

Viann Leung and Alex Fong
Director:Lam Chi-Chung
Cast:Alex Fong Lik-Sun, Viann Leung Wai-Ka, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Chan Kwok-Kwan, Macy Chan Mei-Si, Lam Suet, Yuen Qiu, Poon Hang-Sang, Wellson Chin Sing-Wai, Andy Lau Tak-Wah
Description:
Famously huge Stephen Chow crony Lam Chi-Chung wrote
and directed I'll Call You, a surprisingly solid
comedy-drama about the perils of modern romance. Swimmer/singer
Alex Fong Lik-Sun is Manny, a too-nice fellow who finds
chance romance with pretty shopping channel host Karen
. The two meet at a bar and share an instant
attraction, but they may not be right for one another.
Manny is entirely too serious about relationships, and
allows himself to be completely owned by the girls he
dates. Karen is a flaky party girl who likes Manny,
but also likes the other guys she hangs out with during
her frequent all-nighters at Lan Kwai Fong. What that
means is she likes Manny enough to hold his hand, but
not enough for more than that. She's also hideously
late to their dates, though Manny usually greets her
punctuality problems with immediate forgiveness. However,
the incompatibility issues pile up. Clearly, these two
are headed for something resembling a break up. Big
surprise, they do break up - but they'll get back together,
won't they?
Actually, maybe not. Though
it stars popstar-friendly Alex Fong and pretty TV personality
Viann Leung, I'll Call You is not really like
other youth romantic comedies. More specifically, it's
not concerned with the pair's journey towards gooey
couplehood, and is instead set on examining the emotional
states of two people with different approaches to love.
Manny's far too serious, so his break up with Karen
sends him into an emotional tailspin. He goes from too
devoted to too depressed in an almost alarming manner;
Manny basically becomes a prisoner to his own obsessive
self-pity. Lam Chi-Chung conveys Manny's state of mind
by actually placing him in a prison onscreen, where
he chooses to imbibe alcohol instead of eating solid
food, and soon finds company in Biggie, the overly-muscled
monk from Running on Karma .
Biggie threatens to sing Andy Lau songs while Manny
continues to choose alcohol over regular food, turning
his prison stay into one long self-pity binge. If you're
confused by this description, raise your hand.
Obviously, Manny isn't
really meeting Johnnie To characters in the film. Lam
stuffs I'll Call You with many sequences of fantasy
exposition, the goal being some sort of creative combination
of absurd humor and narrative metaphor. Surprisingly,
Lam's film school-worthy technique works; the self-conscious
storytelling gimmicks prove creative and interesting.
That the scenes reflect recognizable and sometimes painful
emotions makes them all the more compelling. Alex Fong
and Viann Leung make an oddly familiar pair; they're
a couple of maybe-they-shouldn't-be lovers who may miss
some chances at love, but still manage to grow as people.
Lam gets his message across in an offbeat and enjoyable
manner, and his quirky characters and humor ultimately
come off as funny instead of cloying. The film sometimes
seems aimless, and some gags are more obvious than funny,
but this is a fine showing for first-time director Lam.
I'll Call You is
the debut entry in Andy Lau's Focus First Cuts Film
Series, an HD-video project that gives fledgling directors
a chance at telling their own stories. If this first
film is any indication, the series is well worth a chance,
as I'll Call You demonstrates that the Focus
First Cuts films may be creator-driven and not slaves
to some money-hungry marketing plan. Lam Chi-Chung's
debut feature shows effort and thought, and while it
may not be truly accomplished, the attempt is more than
enough. Hong Kong Cinema needs more movies like this.

Moments of Love

2008-09-02T08:04:00.003-07:00

Year:2005

Ron Ng and Race Wong
Director:Billy Chung Siu-Hung
Cast:Ron Ng Cheuk-Hei, Race Wong Yuen-Ling, Yan Ng Yat-Yin, Hins Cheung King-Hin, Steven Cheung Chi-Hung, Don Li Yat-Long, Deep Ng Ho-Hong, Natalie Tong Si-Wing, Macy Chan Mei-Si, Vivian Yeo , Wilfred Lau Ho-Lung, Liz Kong Hei-Man, Tommy Yuen Man-On
Description:
A
group of younger Hong Kong faces gets their big screen
shot in Moments of Love. The story of five
crisscrossing youth romances, Moments of Love
gets immediate cred for good use of its overcrowded
Mongkok location, plus a couple of bonus points for
the occasional telling moment. It also gets a quick
dismissal for an abundance of useless moments, annoying
storytelling devices, and sometimes uninteresting
acting. But hey, at least they tried.
TVB star Ron Ng leads
the cast as a marketing peon who engages in a fiery
professional/personal spat with colleague Race Wong.
Meanwhile, a high school student V begins
to pay too-close attention to her young teacher . Sassy waitress Yuki begins getting
mysterious text messages, and she thinks they're from
a cute guy who's been giving her the eye.
Sadly, she spends more time running into geeky guy
Ronald , who wears pronounced braces
and sings karaoke pretty damn well. Sing
discovers a suicide note, and looks for the writer
to placate his girlfriend Fong , but
his behavior starts to get a little loony. Finally,
loutish Doby has a nasty breakup with his
girlfriend Wiz , which involves him shouting
at her despicably. Regretting his outburst, he opens
a business where customers pay to express their angry,
and sometimes violent feelings towards him.
As youth romances go,
Moments of Love has its positives. The occasional
rumination on love and youth manages to work, especially
in light of the film's disjointed narrative. Some
of the actors are decent, if not noteworthy, and director
Billy Chung uses his Mongkok location exceptionally
well. Though the stories themselves sometimes lack
credibility, they do seem to take on more life when
set against the teeming masses on the Mongkok streets.
Unfortunately, the film also possesses its share of
missteps, including mistimed attempts at comedy, sometimes
unearned sentiment, and a performance from Deep Ng
that should have been reined in via riot police, or
at least a good straitjacket. Furthermore, the film
is far too cursory
to truly affect. There are some moments in Moments
of Love, but ultimately they're rather mild ones.

Heavenly Mission

2008-09-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:James Yuen Sai-Sang
Cast:Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Stephen Fung Tak-Lun, Julian Cheung Chi-Lam, Ti Lung, Eric Kot Man-Fai, Niki Chow Lai-Kei, Lai Yiu-Cheung, Hu Jing, Wong Yau-Nam, Huo Siyan, Carl Ng Ka-Lung, Zhang Yi, Liu Jie, Kwok Fung, Berg Ng Ting-Yip, Henry Fong Ping, Samuel Pang King-Chi
Description:
Hong
Kong's greatest accidental superstar, Ekin Cheng,
returns to familiar territory in director James Yuen's
Heavenly Mission. The man formerly known as
Chan Ho-Nam plays Autumn Yip, a seasoned triad who's
just completed an eight year tour of duty in a Thai
prison. Previous to his incarceration, Autumn was
reportedly fiery and a bit wild. The leather pants-wearing
bad boy got nabbed by the authorities during a massive
machete melee on the streets of Bangkok, where he
protected a sexy female arms dealer named Doctor . Now out of prison,
Autumn is apparently a changed man, and possesses
the calculating demeanor of an overly serious high
school teacher. The first thing he does after getting
out of the joint is to go see Doctor to secure a multimillion
dollar loan - which he obtains with the promise of
a 200% return on investment in just a year's time.
What could this once legendary
triad be planning? The media fuels the speculation,
trumpeting Autumn's return from the slammer on the
front page. Immediately, the cops get involved; anti-triad
cop Ming thinks Autumn will step out of
line soon, and forms a team of investigators to shadow
Autumn upon his return to HK. Autumn certainly acts
suspicious; he corrals a bunch of his ex-triad buddies
into helping him invest his multimillion
dollar loan into a supposedly legitimate corporation
designed to go public and make tons of fast cash on
the stock market. Autumn achieves this by getting
a media makeover, appearing as a charitable benefactor
who respects the elderly, kisses babies, and gives
money to the poor. Within days Autumn Yip becomes
the media sensation du jour, leading to increased
confidence by the public and the ridiculous notion
that people would actually pony up large sums of venture
capital to join his business.
As the days pass, Autumn's
Q-rating continues to rise, meaning even more pressure
on Ming. Autumn's out there making a good name for
himself and earning public support, and the cops can't
help but interpret Autumn's saintly behavior as a
metaphorical middle finger directed at them. But the
cops aren't the only ones unhappy with Autumn's return.
A bunch of Autumn's former triad brothers are nonplused
by his good guy act, leading to plenty of grousing
during dimsum gatherings. Enter mid-level triad boss
Ghost , a particularly emotional fellow
who seems to be more obsessed with Autumn than his
hot girlfriend . Ghost and Autumn cross
paths thanks to their mutual relationship with Boss
Hung , and something about Autumn rubs Ghost
the wrong way. Once Ghost decides he doesn't like
all this nice-guy reformed triad stuff, he decides
to take the fight to Autumn, and he's not above using
chicanery, kidnapping, or other non-righteous means
to do so. Meanwhile, Ming must decide who's the worse
criminal, Ghost or Autumn. All this plus plenty of
shots of Ekin Cheng brooding.
When Autumn first gets
out of the slammer, he says he's going to do something
"big", which almost seems to hint at something
illegal. No dice; before too long it's obvious that
Autumn's big plans are all from the heart. Autumn
is your ultimate pious gangster, a reformed bad guy
who desperately wants to do good, and will even resort
to such laughable lessons as "stay in school",
which he instructs Ghost to do to prevent a life of
eternal thuggery. Ekin Cheng gives Autumn earnest
integrity, but provides little depth of emotion, such
that it's really hard to see that he's changed so
much from his supposedly sordid past. Autumn is supposed
to have been one rough bastard, so some display of
tortured inner emotion may be appropriate. However,
most of the time Ekin Cheng just seems mildly preoccupied,
like a guy who's thinking about the stack of papers
sitting on his desk at the office. At the same time,
Cheng is a natural for the role because, well, he's
Chan Ho-Nam. At this point in Hong Kong Cinema history,
Ekin Cheng qualifies as an icon, and Heavenly Mission
milks Cheng's iconic presence for everything it's
worth. It's easy to buy Cheng as Autumn Yip because
if we don't, then we spit on the Hong Kong Cinema
classics of the past decade. Minus For Bad Boys
Only, of course.
Iconic is a word that
also applies to Ti Lung, who brings grizzled presence
to the role of Boss Hung. Heavenly Mission
possesses a very large cast of Hong Kong Cinema names,
and many make an impact. Decent turns are had from
Eric Kot, Julian Cheung, Wong Yau-Nam, and Huo Siyan
, among others. Alex Fong
gives Ming convincing charisma and emotion, which
is good because Fong frequently has to play off the
stoic Ekin Cheng. Faring worse are Carl Ng, who overacts
as Ming's loose cannon subordinate, and Stephen Fung,
who can barely make Ghost more than a two-dimensional
baddie. The film places great weight on the Autumn-Ghost
relationship, with a parallel drawn between the person
Autumn once was and the person Ghost currently is.
However, it's a detail that's hard to buy, because
the actors are so far apart in their portrayals of
their characters. Ekin Cheng is too stoic and righteous,
whereas Stephen Fung is too emotional and even detestable.
If the film's themes were to carry appropriate weight,
then we should want Ghost to "stay in school",
just like Autumn wishes. However, given Ghost's behavior
for the majority of the film, the likely response
is to hope that he gets what's coming to him, and
preferably with a tire iron.
Also, some of the film
feels unbelievable. Autumn Yip and friends get their
company listed on the stock market almost immediately,
and Autumn's rise to respectability seems far too
easy to take seriously. The righteous themes of Heavenly
Mission feel too earnest and simplistic, with
much of the expected complexity never touched upon.
What seems to be important in the film is Autumn Yip's
big plans, and not Autumn Yip himself, which represents
a missed opportunity on the filmmakers' part. The
character needs to be more than a nominal figurehead
that everyone chases, but that's all he appears to
be. Still, writer-director James Yuen manages to create
some tension with his characters and situations, and
the film is technically quite solid. Heavenly Mission
is the second film from BMA Productions, and the company
is clearly trying to put out quality work, hiring
solid film professionals who actually seem to care
about stories and characters. The film does feel rather
disappointing because James Yuen's last film was the
excellent Crazy N' The City, and BMA Productions
first film was the also excellent My Name is Fame.
Heavenly Mission doesn't come close to either
of those films, and more than anything represents
an unrealized opportunity. However, we'll give them
points for trying.

Half Twin

2008-09-02T08:03:00.005-07:00

Year:2006

Candy Lo and Carl Ng
Director:Yip Wai-Ying
Cast:Candy Lo Hau-Yam, Eric Kot Man-Fai, Carl Ng Ka-Lung, Bella Zhang, Michelle Zhang
Description:
Half Twin is the latest from filmmaker Tony
Leung Hung-Wah, the man behind the underwhelming PTU
File - Death Trap, plus the all-out terrible Demoniac
Flash. Leung only wrote and produced Half Twin,
and left the directing duties to Yip Wai-Ying, the
man behind the forgettable I Want To Get Married.
The teaming of these two purveyors of average cinema
should lead any self-respecting filmgoer to seriously
doubt the quality of Half Twin. Fortunately,
the film is actually better than expected - meaning
it doesn't completely, absolutely blow. Obviously,
that's not a ringing endorsement.
Candy Lo does double
duty as twin sisters Lok Ling and Lok Yan. A grainy
flashback reveals that the two were separated when
only nine years old, with Yan going with her father
to Shenzen, where he climbed the corporate ladder
and gave Yan a decent upbringing and a solid future.
Ling, on the other hand, was taken to Hong Kong by
her mother, who soon died, leaving Ling to face an
unfortunate life without any sort of parental guidance.
Ling and Yan meet thanks to corporate sleaze Ko , who's on Yan's bad side due to some bad business
decisions at Yan's company. The first meeting goes
poorly; Ling doesn't really want to reconcile with
Yan, plus Ko has something nasty up his sleeve. Ko
plans to have Ling pose as Yan and cede control of
the company to him, thus giving him ultimate power
and revenge against the woman who called him a crappy
employee. But will Ling go along?
Yes she does, because if
not there wouldn't be a movie. Half Twin focuses
heavily on Lok Ling, and Candy Lo gives her noticeable
inner life, if not the darkness necessary for the
role. Half Twin possesses the workings of a
dark and twisted potboiler, and even throws out such
sordid details as first-degree murder and the rape
of a 10 year-old girl . Still, despite the
darkness presented, the film goes soft when it begins
to focus on Ling's burgeoning self-discovery. After
falling in with Ko and subsequently getting annoyed
at his smarmy ways, Ling befriends Yan's boyfriend
Wing , who's under the impression that she's
Yan. Ling plays along, the two experience a semi-cute
pseudo-romantic interlude, and Ling finally learns
that maybe it's not so helpful to be pissed off all
the time. For screenwriting students, that's called
a character arc.
Ling's rediscovery of her
good side is a likable detail, and the filmmakers
manage a few moments of subtle character interaction.
The scenes are sometimes lifted from other films,
or they're staged in a curiously light manner, but
there does seem to be some attention to character
in Half Twin. That Tony Leung Hung-Wah and
Yip Wai-Ying even bothered trying is worthy of mention,
and possibly even credit. Sadly, this attention to
character is complemented by a largely predictable
thriller plotline that's only tense because the overbearing
musical score demands it. For a supposed thriller,
predictability + lack of tension + a curiously light
tone can only equal one thing: mediocrity. Half
Twin achieves that handily, such that whatever
character or tension the film creates doesn't seem
to matter all that much.
Sometimes there's even too
much character; great pains are taken to explicate
the motives of even the most unlikable individuals,
presumably because the filmmakers want the characters
humanized. Maybe they are made slightly more human,
but given the heinous acts they're supposed to have
perpetrated, gaining sympathy seems to be asking too
much of the audience. None of the bad guys in this
film are charismatic or developed enough to be tragic
or sympathetic, meaning their personal pains are merely
distracting and not that interesting. The actors could
be blamed, though it may be more appropriate to blame
the filmmakers. Half Twin is ultimately very
bland, and is only better than expected because expectations
are rock-bottom already. Here's another relative measure:
Half Twin isn't bad for a Tony Leung Hung-Wah
movie. That may not mean much, but it's something.

Feel It Say It...

2008-09-02T08:03:00.003-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Bennie Chan Chi-Sun
Cast:Eric Kot Man-Fai, Candy Lo Hau-Yam, Tiffany Lee Lung-Yi, Anson Leung Chun-Yat, Tats Lau Yi-Tat, Jerry Lamb Hiu-Fung, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Chin Kar-Lok, Simon Lui Yu-Yeung, Emily Kwan Bo-Wai, Asuka Higuchi
Description:
They
could be the new Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng. Okay, maybe
not. Regardless, Eric Kot and Candy Lo are suddenly
the hottest screen couple of 2006 by simple virtue
of getting paired up too many times this year. First
came their odd pairing in Cocktail, followed
by the "one Eric and two Candy" love triangle
in Half Twin. Now, thanks to Feel It Say
It..., they've hit the 2006 trifecta. The proper
response is probably to clap politely at their continued
casting success. Of greater importance: the movie
ain't half-bad.
Eric Kot is Zmon Heung, a
dedicated dermatologist whose main goal in life is
to insure that people in Hong Kong have fully-functioning
equipment. His skin care clinic caters almost exclusively
to those who possess sexually-transmitted diseases,
and is even located in a remote region to enhance
his customer's privacy. Aiding him is Ma Hiu-Yeung
, his workaholic assistant who cares for
the daily operation of the clinic, as well as some
portions of the doctor's personal life. Zmon is seeing
Fei Fei , a buxom model who may be more
than he can handle. The film is barely 15 minutes
old when it's discovered that Fei Fei has a sweaty
attraction to stuttering masseuse To Bing ,
who just so happens to be Ma's boyfriend.
Not surprisingly, To Bing
returns Fei Fei's affection and the two are soon locking
lips and hips. Meanwhile, Zmon and Ma continue to
cure the VD-afflicted, all the while not realizing
that A) they both are wearing green hats, and B) they
are truly meant for one another. When the two finally
catch on that their other halves may be seeing one
another, they stake out To Bing's apartment until
they get some official confirmation. In the meantime,
they also do role-play, running through the myriad
emotions that a person feels when they suspect that
their boyfriend/girlfriend may be snacking on the
side. When they discover that their suspicions are
confirmed, role-play becomes reality. Luckily they
still have the clinic - and more importantly, each
other.
Feel It Say It...
earns points with its minor, if not too postmodern
look at the uncertainties of finding one's better
half. The eventual courtship of the lead characters
is subtly affecting in that the moments experienced
are quiet. Nobody chases anybody down in the street
to announce their undying love. Everything here is
done tentatively, and Candy Lo and Eric Kot seem genuine
in their sometimes awkward emotion. The romance between
Anson Leung and Tiffany Lee is played a bit more overtly,
pushing for as many sweaty clinches as the tame IIA
rating can muster. It's also completely dropped three-quarters
into the film, which is unexpected, though not really
unwelcome. Closure and teary confrontations seldom
happen in real life; by eschewing the obvious, Feel
It Say It... ends up feeling more genuine.
However, the romances
are only a portion of the film. The rest is a mismatched
PSA for the importance of getting your equipment checked
once in a while. A parade of Hong Kong B-listers - including Sam Lee, Chin Kar-Lok, Jerry Lamb, and Emily
Kwan --show up flaunting their sexual dysfunction
or newly-acquired venereal diseases. The moments can
be uneven, as they're sometimes accompanied by commentary
that breaks the fourth wall, overt lecturing on possible
infections, and even an awkward musical number. We
also get visual illustrations of fetishes, sex appeal,
and Japanese people who like to cheat on one another.
The anti-VD sequences vary in effectiveness and entertainment
value. It's great to watch Sam Lee and Jerry Lamb
admit to having VD, but does it really jibe with the
rest of the film? It's hard to say. Given the extended
romantic plotline AND the abundance of sex-ed lessons,
Feel It Say It... almost feels like two movies
zipped into one.
But this isn't some
vaunted Peter Chan or Wong Kar-Wai film that we're
looking at. Feel It Say It... is small stuff,
and doesn't aspire to much more than a quiet combo
of pleasing romance and public service announcement.
With that in mind, the film is a minor success. Director
Bennie Chan creates identifiable emotions,
the rural location is charming, and Eric Kot and Candy
Lo are exceptionally likable. Neither actor carries
anything resembling star baggage, and seem like average,
amiable people that one would probably be glad to
know. The two form a believable couple, and their
pursuit of a mature relationship is refreshing in
its low-key charm. That right there is enough to make
Feel It Say It... better than the popstar-fueled
crap the industry churns out. The fact that it doesn't
star a Cookie is an extra bonus.

Fatal Contact

2008-09-02T08:03:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Dennis Law Sau-Yiu
Cast:Wu Jing, Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, Miki Yeung Oi-Gan, Theresa Fu Wing, Eddie Cheung Siu-Fai, Lam Suet, Kris Gu Yu, Ken Lo Wai-Kwong, Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Andy On Chi-Kit, Johnny Chen , Xing Yu, Marco Lok Lik-Wai, Tats Lau Yi-Tat, Hui Siu-Hung
Description:
After
last year's SPL, Wu Jing became the odds-on
pick for Hong Kong martial arts movie superstardom.
Jackie Chan is aging, Jet Li is retiring ,
Zhao Wen-Zhou never quite made it, and Donnie Yen
is, well, Donnie Yen. Fans of nuts-and-bolts martial
arts action need a new hero, and Wu Jing's combination
of likability and actual martial arts skills makes
him seem like the obvious choice. Apparently, director
Dennis Law and Gold Label megaproducer Paco Wong thought
so too, lining up Wu Jing to star in Fatal Contact
- arguably Wu's first starring role in a Hong Kong
movie since Tai Chi 2 back in 1996 .
Law and Wong have also given Wu a partner: Ronald
Cheng, best known for his over-the-top antics in such
films as Dragon Loaded 2003 and Himalaya
Singh. Could Cheng potentially ruin Wu Jing's
bid for martial arts cinema greatness?
Shocker alert: Ronald
Cheng doesn't ruin Fatal Contact. In fact,
the sometimes maligned funnyman pretty much steals
the show, and may even be the best thing about the
film. Cheng plays the "Captain", a dopey
low-level triad assigned to take care of Kong , the new star fighter on the underground boxing
circuit. Kong is a martial arts champion on China's
national team, who's touring Hong Kong when he's spotted
by triad bastard Ma . Ma wants Kong
to fight for him in underground boxing matches, but
Kong says no because, well, it's illegal and it could
get him kicked off the Chinese team. However, Kong
does a 180 when he's urged to try illegal boxing by
Siu Tin , a sweet girl who
admires Kong's way with his fists. Kong admires Miki's
toothy smile and leggy way of wearing her shorts,
so he joins up and automatically becomes the toast
of the underground circuit. He begins earning serious
bank, which gets routinely inflated by Siu Tin's negotiation
tactics.
But problems arise in
Kong's journey through the dark side of boxing. Kong
may be a skilled fighter, but he's also more of a
showman than a down-and-dirty brawler. Noticing his
lack of killer instinct, Captain begins tutoring him
in the finer points of being a meaner fighter. Meanwhile,
hanging out with triads means contact with lots of
bad stuff. Siu Tin and Kong's pal Tsuichi shows up at some of Kong's matches,
but her life has descended into prostitution, a fact
that irks Siu Tin to no end. Also, Kong's challengers
begin to improve in both skill and willingness to
use chicanery. After a while, exposure to such seedy
people and circumstances starts to take its toll on
Kong. Luckily, he has Siu Tin's love, and Captain's
friendship to help him along. With his support group
behind him, Kong should be able to make a killing
then return to his life as a national champion, right?
Wrong. Getting involved
in illegal activities means that Kong can pretty much
kiss his government sponsorship goodbye, and that's
not the end to the bad stuff going on in this film.
The presence of Ronald Cheng and a couple of Cookies
would seem to signal a lightweight time at the movies,
but Fatal Contact instead turns out to be dark
and even punishing. Kong and Siu Tin begin to sink
further into an illegal, amoral world, and the effects
take their toll. Siu Tin, whose love for Kong initially
seems tempered by material desire, soon graduates
from practical money-minder to full-on golddigger.
Her cynical values can best be seen in her relationship
with Tsuichi, which is revealed in long dialogue exchanges
between the two Cookies where one admonishes the other
for letting her life go to crap. The lesson dispensed
is basically to be harder and smarter, and make all
the money you need while you can. That opportunism,
however, is not necessarily a positive thing. Pragmatism
is all well and good, but getting involved with bad
people and illegal things can send you straight to
hell - and eventually, that's the lesson that
Fatal Contact seems to be forcing upon us. Wasn't
this supposed to be a fun movie?
Well, it is, though
only in doses. The fighting certainly is fun, and
serves up enough creative choreography and painful
impact to warrant the film a partial recommendation.
Li Chung-Chi's action is grounded and mostly free
of wires, and is certainly a step up from the overly-choreographed
ballet-type stuff typifying most Asian Cinema of late.
Wu Jing brings power and poise to the action sequences,
and easily convinces the audience of his ability to
kick ass. The big surprise is Ronald Cheng, who handles
his few fight scenes with a surprising agility. Cheng
is also the comedy relief, but his character isn't
just a wacky sidekick. Captain is a hidden martial
arts master, meaning that he dispenses both the wisecracks
and the sage wisdom, frequently in the same scenes.
It's an odd mix, as Fatal Contact is more of
an action drama than an action comedy, and when Cheng
is onscreen, it's practically like he's in a different
film. But his character is fun and charismatic, and
easily the audience favorite. Who doesn't like a cheerfully
sardonic martial arts master who remains upbeat even
in the face of murder and other evil acts? Basically,
the film builds to a point where you just want Cheng
to cut loose and take down people in a blaze of righteous
comic fury.
However, that expected
outcome never comes to pass. Cheng is only a high-billed
supporting player; the entire film really belongs
to Wu Jing and Miki Yeung, and when Cheng isn't on
screen, the film sags beneath predictable melodrama.
The general theme behind the film is that greed and
chicanery are red flag signs on the road to ruin,
and the director Dennis Law does a decent job of nudging
us in that direction, even with the comedy presence
of Ronald Cheng fooling us into thinking we might
have a fun time at this movie. However, Law neglects
subtlety in his script, and fails to get his actors
to do anything besides recite their lines with supposedly
serious expressions. Wu Jing gets to display an innocent
likability as well as an explosive anger, and the
actor is impressive in that he makes an impact with
both personalities. However, much of the real drama
is handled by the Cookies, and they falter. Part of
the problem is that one of them, Theresa Fu, is little
more than a plot device who plays sounding board to
the increasingly burdened conscience of the other.
Miki Yeung gets to handle most of the drama, and gets
the thankless task of selling the film's tough existentialism
through copious dialogue. Not surprisingly, it proves
too much for the actress. In the past, Yeung has shown
a bright screen presence as well as some hidden depth,
but she can't convince here.
Dennis Law's screenplay
and direction don't help much. Law's script features
pages of thematic pontificating masquerading as dialogue;
the script practically calls attention to itself with
its own self-importance. Law's direction is also too
obvious, choosing to verbalize when he could just
present things visually. Characters spend a lot of
time talking about hopes, dreams, values, and other
stuff, but seldom do we actually see any of this demonstrated.
When characters finally do spring into action, it's
only to bring the film to its foregone, unsatisfying
conclusion. Fatal Contact has the tools to
be a good film, but it takes its disparate elements
and uses them incorrectly. The bad stuff is elaborated
and focused on, while the good stuff is only intermittently
glimpsed. That said, the good stuff can at least please
the fans of either Wu Jing or Ronald Cheng, who should
get their fix of action, comedy, or maybe even both.
But those looking for an out-and-out good movie may
be heavily disappointed. What's even more disappointing
is that Wu Jing has yet to take the lead role in an
actual good film, and Fatal Contact doesn't
change that. At the very least, Wu will be returning
soon in 2007's Let's Steal Together, though
he'll be supporting the Twins in that film. It seems
solo superstardom for Wu Jing is something we still
have to wait for.

Lethal Angels

2008-09-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Steve Cheng Wai-Man
Cast:Tin Sum, Andy On Chi-Kit, Jordan Chan Siu-Chun, Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Jewel Li Fei, Meme Tian, Viva Wei Hua, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Samuel Pang King-Chi, Gao Yuan-Ping, Yuan Yuan, Fung Hak-On, Nic Yan, Chan Yee-Ting
Description:
Red-blooded
males take note. Director Steve Cheng's Lethal
Angels cribs liberally
from Wong Jing's ultra-successful Naked Killer
formula, meaning this movie has babes, bullets, and
even some skin. However, unlike Naked Killer,
Lethal Angels is only a low-budget knockoff
of Hong Kong's erotic action thriller genre, and suffers
greatly for it. The production design is less lurid,
the action less exciting, and the eroticism strictly
low rent. The stars aren't much to write home about
either. Lethal Angels has Jordan Chan, but
he's only in a supporting role that requires the fallen
star to do little besides deliver occasionally horny
dialogue. Former Black Mask Andy On is the male lead
here, but all he does is look handsome and act inert.
That leaves it to the babes: buxom Taiwanese model
Tin Sum and the always welcome Cherrie Ying. Plus,
this film has a Category III rating. Red-blooded males
must really be paying attention now.
Sadly, if that attention
is coming from the understandable desire to see either
Tin Sum or Cherrie Ying get their groove on, then
the viewer will be disappointed, because neither turns
in a revealing or sexy performance. Audiences may
also be disappointed because Lethal Angels
is not good movie, and is only tolerable because it's
a recent attempt at a once-popular Hong Kong Cinema
genre. Tin Sum stars as Yoyo, who joined a quartet
of killer babes led by Winnie after her
family was offed by evil triads led by a gloriously
overacting Tony Ho Wah-Chiu. Winnie now works with
Emma , Dora , and Macy to take out horny evil bastards, but their man-killing
exploits draw the attentions of cops Jet
and Darren . Jet is especially intrigued
because Yoyo happens to be his college sweetheart,
who disappeared after her family got killed. At the
time, Jet was at the movie theater, waiting in the
rain for Yoyo to show up for their date. She never
did because she went off to be an assassin, leaving
Jet bitter and thoroughly wet.
Jet is eager to reconnect
with Yoyo, but she's now undercover in a new mission,
to kill mob boss Bowen . Yoyo is posing
as a nurse to Bowen's daughter Sandy, with an eye
on offing him, his wife, his second-in-command Bowell,
and everyone else who may be around when it's time
to do the deed. However, this is a personal vendetta
for Winnie, who was once viciously rejected by Bowen,
so she wants Bowen's daughter dead too. Yoyo shows
expected hesitation over murdering completely innocent
youngsters, and Emma shares that feeling. Dora and
Macy do not, however, leading to the possibility of
a two-on-two grudge match between hot babes that could
justify the cost of a Lethal Angels DVD purchase.
However, that battle would probably occur in a film
with a larger budget, and Lethal Angels simply
doesn't have it. The action occurs only sporadically,
and is only average stuff, with some obvious wirework
and quick-cut doubling. Also, the gunplay is fake
to the point of distraction; the filmmakers opt for
CGI instead of dummy rounds, using obvious post-production
work to create muzzle flashes. Not surprisingly, it
looks terrible. With the shrinking of the film industry,
it's understandable that they cut some costs. However,
this sort of cheapness is inexcusable.
Lethal Angels isn't
so bad that it's offensive, ala Wong Jing's
exceptionally tasteless Naked Weapon. Lethal
Angels is simply average and unspectacular, like
one of those late nineties thrillers starring either
Angie Cheung Wai-Yee or Pinky Cheung Man-Chi. Those
jonesing for this sort of cheap exploitation thriller
may be amused, and the filmmakers at least keep the
lame filler to a minimum. However, the meat of the
film hardy compensates. The revenge plot is pure boredom,
the story development lazy and full of holes, the
content rather tame for its rating, and the star pairings
generate as much heat as a raw hunk
of lead. Also, the sex and titillation are practically
nonexistent; there's a naked striptease by Viva Wei
in the first ten minutes, but after that nada. This
is a film where nothing surprising or remotely buzzworthy
occurs; the whole could probably be considered laughable,
but laughing may require more effort than the film
is really worth. Basically, Lethal Angels rates
a solid "ehhh" on the entertainment meter,
and will probably never have the words, "It was
great," or even "I thought it was good,"
attached to it. Phrases that could be heard include,
"It was okay," or "I didn't hate it,"
or "I got what I expected." Truthfully,
I got what I expected too, so I shouldn't be complaining.
Regardless, I feel the urge to continue griping.

Exiled

2008-09-02T08:00:00.001-07:00

Year:2006
Director:Johnnie To Kei-Fung
Cast:Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Nick Cheung Ka-Fai, Josie Ho Chiu-Yi, Lam Suet, Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Richie Ren, Eddie Cheung Siu-Fai, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Hui Siu-Hung, Ellen Chan Ar-Lun, Tam Ping-Man, Wong Wah-Ho
Description:
Exiled
is a hard film to review. Full of director Johnnie
To's pet themes, actors, and iconography, Exiled
could justifiably be called the wet dream of Milkyway
Film fanboys worldwide. Fans jonesing for the glory
days of The Mission and A Hero Never Dies
are sure to get off on the hard-boiled characters,
copious gunplay, and barely-contained homoeroticism
that To squeezes into this long-awaited gangland thriller.
Frankly, those fans are right to be so damn excited;
Exiled is topnotch Hong Kong Cinema, taking
much of what international fans define as "Hong
Kong Cinema" and packing it into a polished,
award-worthy package presented on a golden platter
with the initials J.T. carved into it. Because Exiled
packs so much audience love into its widescreen frame,
actually criticizing it can make a person feel downright
guilty. Unfortunately, that's what this review does
from time to time. We apologize in advance.
The big news on Exiled
is it reassembles the cast from To's 1999 classic,
The Mission. Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Roy
Cheung, and Lam Suet return playing characters who
resemble their respective parts from The Mission,
though early on we learn that they're clearly different
guys. In The Mission, the four guys shared
some acquaintances, but they largely met on their assignment;
in Exiled, they're revealed to be longtime
buddies. The four guys originally joined the triad
together along with Wo , who had to go
into hiding after a botched assassination attempt
on Boss Fay . Wo has since returned, setting
up residence in Macau along with his wife Jin , and their newborn son. But Fay still holds a
raging grudge, and dispatches Wo's old buddies Blaze
and Fat to do the deed.
Opposing the two are old friends Tai
and Cat . Wo once took the rap for Tai,
so Tai won't let Blaze off Wo. When the two pairs
of triad enforcers meet up, things are bound to get
tense. Right?
Maybe. The two pairs
of former triad pals great each other with warm familiarity,
plus the recognition that they'll be going against
each other to fulfill their jiang hu duty.
When Wo does show up, an impressive two-on-one gunfight
ensues, consisting of slow-motion gunplay, deafening
sound design, and more Mexican standoffs than a John
Woo movie. Then...it's time to eat! Nobody dies , and soon
the five former-and-now-current friends are reminiscing
about their old days over a fine home-cooked meal.

Joining them is a rattled
Jin, who can't grasp the "my enemy is my friend
is my enemy" paradox of these veteran triad types - but that's okay because she's a girl. Exiled
presents a man's world, and in this macho meeting
of brawny male types, men can be friends and enemies
simultaneously. Everyone's got a job to do and everyone
knows it; better to have a good time before getting
down to business and shooting each other. Food first,
fight later. But the group decides to grant Wo's final
wish , and opt
to delay their fighting even further. In between,
they smoke, drink, and display manly affection for
one another. Clearly, being a macho gangster type
rules.
Well, it does in a Johnnie
To movie, anyway. Exiled recalls the homoerotic
gangster brotherhood of A Hero Never Dies,
which featured Leon Lai and Lau Ching-Wan as dueling
hitmen who drink together with the knowledge that
the following day they'll be aiming for each other's
heads with semi-automatic weapons. Both guys had girlfriends,
but it was really the unspoken honor between men that
got their juices flowing. The Exiled guys are
the same, meaning they'll live and die for one another,
and can grasp their own, and each other's thinking
with almost telepathic understanding. These are honorable
guys who hon't hold a grudge if they're assigned to
kill one another because hey, gangland respect is
everything.
However, if that respect
isn't returned, then watch out. Eventually Boss Fay
rubs the foursome the wrong way, which is bad news
for anyone looking to escape a bullet in the head.
When circumstances place Blaze, Tai, Cat, and Fat
on the same side, they react like some sort of well-oiled
gunplay machine. Johnnie To uses stillness and calm
to offset his slow motion bullet opera set pieces.
He stages each forthcoming action sequence meticulously,
setting each player into position before sudden guns-blazing
chaos erupts. The sequences aren't as much choreographed
as they are unleashed, with rooms suddenly filling
with point blank, in-your-face bullet action. Frankly,
in most of the film's gunplay sequences its a wonder
that everyone isn't instantly killed.
But hey, that's movie magic.
In some scenes, nobody is hit, and in others, everybody
and their brother can take a trillion bullets without
dying instantly. Gunplay purists looking to poke holes
in Exiled would have an easy time here, as
many characters seem to go unscathed simply because
the script says it's not their time yet. Still, Exiled
works spectacularly for the masses, though that's
probably because it was built for a prefabricated
group of Johnnie To followers who know exactly what
they want - and what they want looks, smells, and
sounds just like Exiled. To delivers plenty
of familiar stuff here. Macho, no-nonsense leads?
Check. Quirky supporting characters? Check. Deadpan
absurdities? Check. Ultra-cool posturing by men in
awesome coats? Check. Emasculated comic relief? Check.
An over-the-top Simon Yam? Check. If Exiled
seems familiar that's because it is familiar.
It's the Greatest Hits of Johnnie To, delivered in
a single swell-looking and sounding movie that plays
up the iconic presence of its actors and its director
and uses them as cinema shorthand. Exiled isn't
really a sequel, but like a sequel, it leans heavily
on audience familiarity.
The negative is that the
macho coolness can become predictable. Like many a
Milkyway production, Exiled features a spare
narrative that efficiently dispenses all its information
in necessary doses. Given the iconic nature of the
characters and the few narrative options presented
to them, there are ultimately few surprises in the
choices they make. The film does have some fun with
the characters' aimlessness, having them resort to
flipping a coin when their plans break down, but even
then the film heads in an expected, and frequently
unrealistic direction. Reality is hard to come by
in Exiled because it's usually swept under
the rug; the motivations of some characters are simplistic
and obviously symbolic , and some things seem to happen
only for the coolness factor.
The Mission was so
successful because it actually developed while we
were watching it; the film drew the audience into
its own particular jiang hu, and brotherhood
was formed as the audience witnessed. In Exiled,
brotherhood is a given, and the audience understands
the film's particular world because, having seen To's
previous works, we're already supposed to. Johnnie
To really makes himself known here, imbuing characters
and situations with enough too-cool iconography and
obvious sentimentality that it becomes clear who the
real star of the film is: Johnnie To, himself. If
the director had inserted himself into one of the
many male-bonding sequences of the men hugging and
slapping each other on the back, it would oddly feel
appropriate.
In some ways, Exiled
feels like Johnnie To's 2046. Wong Kar-Wai
created 2046 after his international breakthrough
In the Mood for Love, and 2046 seemed
to play to his international audience by giving them
a mishmash of familiar Wong Kar-Wai actors and ideas.
In the end, 2046 was a gorgeous, immersive,
and predictable exercise in Wong Kar-Wai theme and
technique. Similarly, Johnnie To's international reputation
has reached its peak, with his films now playing Cannes,
Venice, and Toronto. This is opposed to his previous
venue: your DVD player and television set, with an
assist from either Universe Laser or Mei Ah Entertainment.
Exiled seems to pick and choose from the director's
previous work, mixing the lyrical sentimentality of
Throwdown, the over-the-top heroism of A
Hero Never Dies, the casual brotherhood of The
Mission, and even the barely-disguised politics
of Election 2 into one slick, audience-friendly
gangster film that entertains and enthralls, but rarely
challenges or surprises. Yeah, To is providing what
the audience wants, but at a certain point, Exiled's
willingness to please starts to feel like pandering.
However, the above is extreme
nitpicking, and if the biggest fault of Exiled
is simply that it isn't as good as The Mission,
then we're probably expecting too much. If one approaches
Exiled as a fan of Hong Kong Cinema and Johnnie
To in particular, then there's only one way to say
it: Exiled rocks. The gunplay is exciting,
the themes familiar and resonant, and the actors insanely
charismatic, with most of them adjusting their
performances to the film's particular cadence. Anthony
Wong and Nick Cheung underplay their roles well, and
Francis Ng displays a fine balance of explosive anger
and controlled emotion. Roy Cheung and Lam Suet turn
in charismatic support, as does Richie Ren, who's
so cool in his supporting role that he should get
his own movie. However, despite the strong presence
of the male actors, it may be Josie Ho who essays
the film's most pivotal character, and she does so
with a humanity that flies in the face of all the
macho posturing going on around her. The male characters
are mainly genre types, and don't seem to change as
the film progresses. Ultimately, it's Ho's character
and her infant son who drive the film to its blood-stained
close - which is somewhat of a departure from the
usually male-focused To.
Johnnie To also has fun mixing
his genres. In a fun stylistic and narrative choice,
Exiled is set in 1999 Macau, right before the
handover to China. The time is famed historically
for its lawlessness, and To plays that up by including
comically ineffectual cops, and gangsters who basically
flaunt their ownership of the region. Given the too-cool
gunfighters, their self-created and maintained code
of brotherhood, and the portrayal of Macau as a lawless
region ripe for the plucking, Exiled becomes
less a Hong Kong triad movie and more of an Asia-set
western, made complete by Guy Zerafa's strings and
guitar score, and motifs and set pieces that would
actually play better in an Old West setting. One character
even plays a harmonica while sitting next to a campfire.
If everyone carried six-shooters and wore cowboy hats
while tooling around Exiled's Macau, it might
feel only slightly out of place.
The above innovations aside,
Exiled does possess a "been there, done
that" feel, with the biggest quibble being that
Johnnie To is perhaps better than this. The excitement
in watching To's films throughout the late 90's and
early 2000's came from seeing him tweak genre conventions
and developing his own unique cinematic language,
and with Exiled the director doesn't move forward
as much as move sideways. This is especially noticeable
after the one-two punch of Election 1 and 2;
taken together, the two films arguably represent the
height of Johnnie To's filmmaking artistry. Exiled
really doesn't build on that, and sometimes seems
to be treading on too much familiar territory. If
someone walks into the film expecting a true leap
forward from Johnnie To, they may be disappointed.
A Greatest Hits package sure seems cool, but it still
amounts to something you've seen or heard before.
Still, Johnnie To deserves
to make movies that he likes, and it's clear from
the loving attention given to Exiled that the
director likes these kinds of movies just as much
as his fans do. Exiled is a technical knockout,
and should be remembered come awards time for cinematography,
score, art direction, and probably uber-coolness - if someone actually gave out an award for that. So
yeah, we probably shouldn't be complaining that much.
Johnnie To seems
to recycle for Exiled, but so what? Knocking
Exiled for pandering to a specific audience
is like throwing away a candy bar because it tastes
good; you know it's good and you know you'll like
it, so why not just eat it? With that in mind, we're
sorry that we spent time criticizing Exiled
at all, because really, we liked the movie just as
much as you did, or probably will. With Exiled,
Johnnie To has given his faithful fans a gift, complete
with bullet-ridded wrapping paper and bloodstained,
personally-addressed card. We'd be ungrateful bastards
if we didn't enjoy it.