Hot Summer Days 全城熱戀 (Chuen sing yit luen - yit lat lat) [2010] • Hong Kong, China

I laughed, I cried. This is a very fun, good looking, popcorn/date flick. Beneath its light-hearted surface there are some teary eyed love happenings. If you like star-studded Hong Kong romantic comedies and sugar-coated sentimentality, look no further.

Hot Summer Days tries to be cross-cultural by setting two of its four main story lines on the mainland but it's more in the tradition of Hong Kong rom-coms than mainland fare. Most of the actors are native Cantonese speakers. I watched this twice, once with the Mandarin audio and once with the Cantonese audio. There is some dubbing in both versions but the Cantonese version has less of it.

The eye candy comes in both flavors: boy and girl. They perspire a lot which leads to some clingy clothing, glistening skin, and probably the PG (or its Chinese equivalent) rating. Vivian Hsu has never been more freakishly cute and Barbie Hsu has never been more tattooed. The most heartwarming and intricate tale is that between Jacky Cheung, as an out of work truck driver cum ice cream salesman, and Rene Liu, as a concert pianist doing foot massage (because it's a job requiring skilled hands), which gets its start from a text message sent to the wrong number. The one that anchors the film and produces the most tears is the one, not given top billing on the poster, between newcomer Xinbo Fu, as an innocent country boy and Angela Baby (that's right, her name is Angela Baby), as a factory worker assembling teddy bears. Daniel Wu, as Master Soy Sauce, and Vivian Hsu, as Wasabi, have the cutest nicknames. Nicholas Tse and Barbie Hsu's story is the most hip and tragic.

There are cameos galore, the highlight being a weepy-eyed monologue from Maggie Cheung spilling her guts to Master Soy Sauce. Blah blah blah. If this is your cup of tea, drink it. It's good (except for some well intentioned CGI maybe). I hope I got all the links right.

★★★★

Director: Tony Chan, Wing Shya
Starring: Nicholas Tse, Jacky Cheung, Rene Liu, Vivian Hsu, Barbie Hsu, Angela Baby, Daniel Wu

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Dream Home 维多利亚一号 (Wai dor lei ah yut ho) [2010] • Hong Kong

Gore-hounds and violence enthusiasts should enjoy this one a lot, except that all the horror plot points are interrupted by a lot of story and social commentary about rising home prices in Hong Kong. Dream Home is a serious and thoughtful drama with a lot of blood.

The flashback narrative technique doesn't serve the film very well except for the fact that it lets the blood start flowing from the opening scene. It feels like a cop out to me when a director doesn't have the confidence to let a film build to its climax, and feels the need to begin with the climax and then retrace the steps that lead up to it.

A few of the kills in this film are fantastic, in a "Really?!?! Holy Shit!" sort of way, especially the coitus interruptus one. The fact that mild-mannered Josie Ho is performing them adds to the effect. The only problem I had is that many of them start off as failures, to build phony tension the wrong way, become successes, and then someone who should have been dead dead dead pops up for another go at it. This produces more bang for the buck by getting, say, a dozen kills out of only seven characters.

There's plenty of nudity and some graphic fucking to round things out but the cognitive dissonance created by mixing deep dramatic story lines with over-the-top bloodletting is likely to leave most viewers sitting on the fence verdict-wise. I recommend the film more to gore hounds than to connoisseurs of fine Hong Kong cinema. The film looks great and the production values are top notch, so ....

★★★

Director: Ho-Cheung Pang
Starring: Josie Ho, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Eason Chan, Michelle Ye, Hee Ching Paw, Kwok Cheung Tsang

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Ex 前度 (Chin do) [2010] • Hong Kong

This film is just way too over-directed for my taste. Young director Heiward Mak seems to possess an intelligent and observant mind, can write insightful snippets of dialog and show us that she gets a certain segment of contemporary Hong Kong youth culture, but those skills and ingredients don't mean a good film is going to emerge. She co-scripted last year's wonderfully biting Love in a Puff but that film was assembled by an experienced director, Pang Ho-Cheung.

I don't want to rain on this young director's parade too much. She's obviously smart, and a major talent (more so in some areas than others), and she's going to be a major player in Hong Kong's film industry. I like what I took to be the main theme of this film, we are our histories, but the story is interrupted by an over zealous directorial hand. I wanted to settle into the hearts and minds of the characters but the MTV generation style camerawork and editing (and I don't mean that as insult or insinuation, necessarily) wouldn't let me.

Gillian Chung does a fine job as the film's protagonist, Zhou Yi, a young woman who has just broken up with her boyfriend, or is about to break up with him as the film begins. An ex, Ping, is at the next table with his current girlfriend, Cee, and witnesses said breakup. A whole bunch of coincidental circumstances are packed together in the film's opening scenes so that we can get to the scenario where Zhou Yi moves in with Ping and Cee. Flashbacks and memories abound, infuse, and confuse, as a portrait of a young woman in the throes of a recent break-up collides with a portrait of a young man who happens to be an ex and whose life may or may not be anything more than his next break-up waiting to happen. It's got the makings of some juicy plot opportunities, some of which are realized, but it never relaxes enough into the story for an inviting overall picture to come to the surface and take over. Also, antagonism is too often demonstrated through volume in the film. I understand that this is a twenty-something reality but listening to a lot of fighting and whining in high decibel Cantonese isn't the most pleasant experience. I knew from the opening scene's musical soundtrack that my audible wavelength was not in tune with the director's. And things didn't change. The whole soundtrack sucks.

Honestly, if I had seen this film in a theater full of like-generational people to the film's players—in Hong Kong, no less—my watching energy might have ramped up to the director's style and I might have found myself swimming along joyously, but such was not the case. I'm going to keep an eye on Heiward Mak but Ex was not a fulfilling film experience. The director has brains and chops but maturity hasn't kicked in yet.

★★★

Director: Heiward Mak
Starring: Gillian Chung, William Chan Wai-Ting, Michelle Wai, Lawrence Chou, Jacky Heung

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Love in a Puff 志明與春嬌 (Chi ming yu chun giu) [2010] • Hong Kong

A foul-mouthed little romance here. Lots of f-bombs and dick or boob jokes tossed around to try and elevate this fairly standard rom-dramedy from the pack. It's not too offensive or juvenile and it's shame to have to get it through subtitles. I'm sure the original Cantonese is more subtle and euphemism based, and crude is always more palatable when it's subtle or funny. Love in a Puff has a CAT III rating and it's not for nudity or all the cigarette smoking.

The premise of Love in a Puff is one all cigarette smokers will be familiar with. The "smoke break" is a time to bond with co-workers or friends, to make plans and share stories, and, in this case, tell dirty jokes and gossip. It's also an opportunity to massage in baby steps a possibly romantic relationship. There's a lot less "Is this a date?" pressure than even just meeting for coffee. There's a pre-determined end time and it comes quickly. If things aren't going well the suffering is short-lived and if there is a spark you'll leave wanting more. Always a good thing.

Zoom out from the premise and Love in a Puff makes many observations on modern SMS-based relationships, budding and otherwise. Something I learned, and put to use, from this film is if you type "i n 55!W !" (without the quotes) into a text message your recipient might see it as some nonsense code, but if they turn their phone upside down it will read "i miss u !". How cute. And appropriately enough, that little tidbit is the catalyst for a couple of the larger emotional transitions in the film.

I like small films like this, the cinematic equivalent, if you will, of a smoke break. Without aiming too high it's easy to hit its mark. It's well acted, and well scripted for the most part, and doesn't veer from its target too often, which is following the seven day courtship of Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and Jimmy (Shawn Yue). Yeung is especially crisp in her performance. There's a wonderful little "no shit!" moment near the end of the film when the two of them are in a small battle about who they are and what kind of relationship they're in and Cherie declares "I'm simple and straightforward". She is.

My only quibble with the film is an unavoidable one. To go from "My name's Cherie", through moving out of the premises and bond of one relationship, to "I'm simple and straightforward" in seven days requires a brisk pace. Maybe that's the way it is these days. There is a time or two where it seems like a little exposition might have ended up on the cutting room floor but maybe things are clearer in the original language and subtitles short of an essay couldn't translate it. Most of the screen time is devoted to the main protagonists, garnished with a handful of side characters and set pieces that don't detract from the lit up screen chemistry required of all good Rom-Coms and provided by Yeung and Yue. All in all a fun time was had with Love in a Puff.

★★★★

Director:
Starring:
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Beast Stalker 证人 (Ching yan) [2008] • Hong Kong

There isn't one single monster in this (what's up with that?), although Nick Cheung looks pretty spooky with his fake eyeball and possesses some über-human qualities like always being out of the blue and into the right place always at the right time, moving at speeds faster than light, and getting bashed in the face with a rock and not bleeding. The (contrived and typical) story construction which explores the tug of war among duty, friendship, love, and responsibility is done well, and Nicholas Tse and Cheung both turn in top notch performances, as does the little girl. All the acting is pretty good when you can actually see what's going on. I had to stop frame and inch through a scene on a bridge/overpass where they hung the little girl over the edge. I wonder what the film could have been without being a stylized action pic.

Jingchu Zhang also stars but she seems to come up unremarkable in manly action movies like Overheard, Protégé and this one.

★★★

Director: Dante Lam
Starring: Nicholas Tse, Jingchu Zhang, Nick Cheung, Philip Keung, Esther Kwan
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Crossing Hennessy (Yue man xuan ni shi) [2010] • Hong Kong

A gigantic disappointment for Lust, Caution star Tang Wei's return to the big screen. She's woefully under-used, pouting a little bit here and there or acting obviously phony as her character tries to pretend that Jacky Cheung's character is interesting or funny. I've seen 5th graders act better than Cheung does in this film. It's almost as if he mistakenly wandered onto the set of the wrong movie. He's out of sync and irritating the whole way through. And not funny at all. The suspension of disbelief factor has to be in full force to accept that Tang Wei's character might fall for this guy. Of the many supporting characters in the film, his extended family verges on being likable but they whined so much it became annoying. Cantonese is not a pleasant sounding language for that kind of communication. The film does show a seldom seen side of everyday Hong Kong which is refreshing but beyond that the film's pretty much a train wreck without chemistry, comedy, or cuteness.

★★

Director: Ivy Ho
Starring: Jacky Cheung, Wei Tang, Maggie Cheung, Danny Lee, Lowell Lo
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Night and Fog (Tin shui wai dik ye yu mo) [2009] • Hong Kong

Stories of domestic abuse are often so unreal or surreal, if/when they are made into movies they often come off as unbelievable or too melodramatic, leaving the facts of the case alone to provide the emotional impact. The aesthetics of the film itself seem less of a priority. The acting and direction of Night and Fog are so pitch perfect, that even though the story starts at the end so we know the result and it's unraveled through flashbacks and police interrogations, it plays out like a mystery. It's not the what of what happened but the how of what happened that compels. And don't write off Jingchu Zhang as just another pretty face. She nails the part of an ambitious peasant girl from the heartland, in this case Sichuan, who appears to have made it to the top by marrying a Hong Kong man. Her sisters made it only halfway, marrying men from the industrial Shenzhen. This is the ladder of success many young women from the disadvantaged rural areas attempt to climb. No matter that many of the men they pursue, especially the ones from Hong Kong, might already have a wife.

Director Ann Hui places the micro of domestic abuse into a wider macro social context with such honesty it's scary. The film reveals a plight of a segment of the Chinese population it hurts to know about. Hui pushes hard on the social buttons of an issue that many would like to ignore, but that's what gives the film its power. This is one of the more painfully sad films I've seen in a long time. I put it on when it was already way past my bed time, thinking I'd just get a feel for it and fall asleep. Well, a feel for it I got, and ended up staring at it, bug-eyed, the entire two hour runtime.

★★★★★

Director: Ann Hui
Starring: Jingchu Zhang, Simon Yam
IMDb 7.2 (24 votes)

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City of Life and Death (Nanjing! Nanjing!) [2009] • China, Hong Kong

Maybe the color palette confines itself to a too small range of gray but it is effective. Maybe a few scenes are overly dramatized for effect but I can hardly imagine anything comparing to the real events that transpired. This isn't a documentary and it's not a perfect film but it is an incredibly moving one. There was a bit of an uproar in China over this film, claiming it did not demonize the Japanese enough. A member of the Politburo intervened on behalf of the film to keep it in theaters. There's that to chew on. I honestly can't separate recommending the film from recommending being aware of this ugly bit of history. You could just read a wikipedia entry on the Rape of Nanjing but you could also just watch Dr. Phil or Oprah instead of ever going to the movies. It's like that.

★★★★★

Butterfly (Hu die) (2004) • Hong Kong

The direction and cinematography are more ambitious than they need to be for this simple love story but not often to the point of distraction. It's very well acted by attractive actors. Josie Ho is gorgeous and understated. The tentativeness of her sexual reawakening has as much to do with her personality as it does with her gender. It's not padded by making the guy a jerk who would make any woman switch teams like is done in many western films about lesbian love. It's got politics too, as the younger pair exist amidst the Tiananmen square riots and massacre. Well done.

★★★★

All About Love (Tsoi suet yuk chi ngo oi nei) (2005) • Hong Kong

Three gorgeous actors in a beautifully shot but weak-on-plot Hong Kong melodrama with a deal-breaking, dubbed, Mandarin audio track. I hate when they do that. These are Cantonese speaking actors from Hong Kong speaking a beautiful and lyrical language, Cantonese, but there is a bigger market on the mainland so they dub it, that's right, anonymous voice actors dub it with swishy and staccato Mandarin giving the film a spaghetti western toyishness. Tough as nails Anthony Wong Chau Sang comes off squeaking like a little mouse, but I digress ...

Andy Lau's wife dies and her heart is donated to a woman whose cheating husband just happens to look exactly like Andy Lau (puhleaze) and whose body eventually rejects the heart. We're supposed to get all weepy and philosophical wondering if it's the heart that one loves or the body, when in point of fact the fimmaker just wants to give Andy an excuse for having two bodies to play with because he's such a big star. He's awesome, man, differentiating his two characters by varying the amount of peach-fuzz around his mouth. The time-hopping plot and doppleganger aspect make it a little hard to follow. No tears.

★★

Boarding Gate (2007) • France • Olivier Assayas

If it weren't for the smoldering performance of Asia Argento, and I'm not talking about the parts where you get to see her tattoos, I would admit defeat and zero this one out. I don't know why the film is called Boarding Gate; the plot is thin and confusing; Michael Madsen can whisper and grunt all he wants and nobody is going to mistake it for good dramatic acting; the film seems to meander along in prologue mode for about forty-five minutes and then, BANG! somebody dies with great surprise; despite the fact that the location moves to a new country, the film doesn't seem to go anywhere; and not understanding the story won't prevent me from saying with confidence that the ending is lame.

Ms. Argento doesn't need to act. She lives the role of Sandra, relying on her naturally scary-cool charisma and complex heart to suck us in to her character—the script isn't going to do it. She's transcendentally tough and vulnerable at the same time. From one moment to the next she is spitting razor sharp barbs and then crying but never weeping, never weak. The incomplete script works to her advantage here. It's not clear why she is attracted so deeply to either of her love interests with the net result that she appears twisted, courting danger and abuse to feel alive.

Contrary to what the movie posters might lead one to believe, Argento doesn't parade around the entire film in her underwear. There's one quick shot of her being thrown to a bed by her lover where upon she delivers the most authentic and erotic response I've seen in a movie, and there's an extended scene in Madsen's apartment where she's in and out of her dress a couple times. The latter is the best scene in the film, not for its limited display of flesh but for the warped cruelty in their battle of wits—mirrored in stop/start kinky sex they never manage to get very far along with for one reason or another.

Boarding Gate is billed as a thriller and, given its writer/director's resumé, is supposedly about how selfishly cruel and inhuman the world of contemporary multi-national capitalists can be. Blah blah blah. Who's arguing that point? What emerges from the film is a portrait of a modern day neo-femme-fatale who doesn't dress nice or comb her hair trying to juggle a couple of corporate wackbirds (I stole that word from somebody) to her meager advantage and gets a lesson in betrayal along the way. The action parts of the film, the parts where people run around and shoot guns and stuff, aren't interesting at all. The thriller parts, the parts where mystery and suspense are supposed to propel the film, aren't articulated very well. It's the parts where the players settle down to talking smack on one another to gain psychological advantage that are good. If you are a fan of Asia Argento and like your eroticism dark and implied, or are interested in finding out what Argento is capable of as an actress, then check out Boarding Gate. If you are looking for a good thriller, or a film with a little action and good production values, look somewhere else.

★★★

In Love with the Dead (Chung oi) (2007) • Hong Kong • Danny Pang

Good Pang/Bad Pang. I thoroughly enjoyed this Danny Pang film, surprisingly, after suffering through his Forest of Death catastrophe. It's a well shot and well acted dark and creepy melodrama, just like I've come to expect from the Pang Brothers. My faith is restored.

★★★★

Forest of Death (Sum yuen) (2007) • Hong Kong • Danny Pang

It's no secret that the Pang Bothers aren't big on script talent, but good lord, this was embarrassing.

A rape/murder takes place in a forest that is infamous as a mecca for suicide. A botanist is researching the ability of plants to communicate with people. His girlfriend is a tabloid TV reporter sensationalizing the ghostly aspects of the forest. A detective, investigating the rape/murder case, believes that plants can act as witnesses so she gets the botanist to bring his equipment to the forest and sets up a re-enactment of the crime where the plants will act as lie detectors.

I'm not kidding.

I'm not necessarily against inadequate stories but the hilarity of this one infiltrates everything else to the point that it becomes impossible to take it seriously. The actors don't seem dedicated to their characters, nothing appears genuine here. I love the Pangs and think they often make engrossing films, sometimes despite the stories, but this one is just too in-your-face dumb.

★

The Eye 2 (Gin gwai 2) (2004) • Hong Kong • Pang Bros.

Typical Pang Brothers: inventive camera-work, thoughtful sound design, well constructed scenes, a few jolts, and a story line that mixes fantasy, flashbacks, hallucinations and dreams with some present tense reality and impossible events (like jumping pregnant off a building roof and ending up with only a few scratches and a healthy baby). Call it a script.

No secret that the Pang Brothers have their own personal logic and/or they can't be bothered with cohesiveness to their stories as long as there's a general thrust of somebody doing something questionable so that the scaries can come after them until they fess up in some ambiguous way. I don't care. They do everything else well enough for me to enjoy their films.

A big pleasant surprise is anorexic super-model Shu Qi nails her part. She is beautiful and convincing.

There is no reason for this film to be called EYE 2 except for capitalizing on the success of the original EYE which dealt specifically with a blind person getting an eye transplant from ... drum roll please ... someone who didn't die right--the basis of most Asian horror--so they haunt until a remedy is found.

I'm pretty sure Shu Qi has 20/20 vision in this movie, but she is messing around with a married guy which causes his wife to commit suicide (she doesn't die properly) and comb her hair over her face, like a good Asian horror girl should, so she can effectively haunt the nasty mistress who is pregnant with her cheating husband's child.

The MIA husband of some other pregnant girl also haunts our heroine for some reason. I dunno.

They don't show it but at one point Shu Qi practically bites the face off some other guy. That was fun to think about.

★★★★

Re-cycle (Gwai wik) (2006) • Thailand • Pang Bros.

One of the reasons the Pang Brothers' films are so engaging is they have an excellent grasp of sound design and good taste in music. Both this film and Diary (an Oxide solo effort) reach operatic proportions at times. They are not content to hire up a few jingles and play them over and over throughout the film in some sort of branding effort. Each scene has its own soundtrack. Oftentimes the soundtrack seems to lead the scene. I hesitate to call it music video-like because that smacks of demotion, but it is like a music video in the sense that the music is as important as the video.

Re-cycle reminded me of Terry Gilliam's work, but it's not as desolate or oppressive. It's a beautiful film made edgy by the Pang Brothers tendency to genre hop, mixing in horror and melodrama. I think most would agree the Pangs are quite skilled and creative in the visual department but seem to lack a command of the story telling part. I say, so what. I'm happy to be fully engaged while the film is playing, with my only after thoughts fond memories of the ride. I don't always need a deep philosophical discussion of what a film is trying to say.

There may be better ruminations on the basic idea of this film, and it's a good one--exploring a place where all that's forgotten or abandoned congregates--(Spider Forest comes to mind), but few will be as engaging as this multimedia masterpiece. I had no idea this film was going to take off into fantasy land and stay there for the duration of the film. It came as quite the surprise, and kept surprising me.

I loved Angelica Lee's man-shoes, and ... is there anything more adorable on this planet than an eight year old Chinese girl? Big round of applause for Yaqi Zeng!

★★★★

Diary (Mon seung) (2006) • Hong Kong • Oxide Pang

Criticisms of the writing and screenplay aside, this is an engaging film on the surface. I loved it even though I didn't get it. The creative camera angles, the mostly gray/green color palette accentuating a sense of disease or decay, the original music and sound design, and the physical beauty of the actors add up to a sensuous ninety minute delight. At times the film seems adrift on a sea of music carried along by the score instead of leading it, while at other times the conspicuous absence of any sound almost embarrasses the viewer in moments of voyeuristic character study. There isn't much depth or background to the characters in Diary but the focus on their moments of here and now is sharp and clear.

Charlene Choi is magnificent as the schizophrenic, sad and lonely Winnie. Her face has a beauty suited to suppressed evil or desperate sadness inside, and she presents this facade so convincingly that in her very few, very brief moments of happiness, the shy and hopeful smile that accompanies the change evokes the poetic innocence of a rescued child. It's captivating and magnetic, drawing the viewer into a collaborative dream of promise that when quickly and sadly broken the feeling of empathy is profound. That's good acting and directing.

The ending very clearly presents a major twist. The cast credits only three people, so one must conclude that the real instigator was Winnie's neighbor, but it sure didn't look like the same person to me. Her character is presented as a likely ne'er do well but I'm not sure if it was her or if it was some alter ego, some schizophrenic other personality of Winnie. I think the ending twist is unnecessary and even though I didn't grasp the director's intent, it didn't bother me remotely enough to spoil the film.

Another aspect of the sensuousness of this film comes from the language and subtitles. This is a Hong Kong film, the language is Cantonese. I understand about three words of Cantonese but find the language wonderfully lyrical. Even in the few instances where the characters scream at one another there is a musicality to it. Most of the film drifts along like the melody of a bedtime lullaby, perhaps a byproduct of Charlene Choi's other profession as a (rather famous in Hong Kong) canto-pop singer.

Regarding the English subtitles—at least the set that accompanied the film I watched. Subtitles are a spongey issue. I imagine that one of two things are usually expected: that they are translationally accurate, or that they convey accurately the mood and intent of the speaker. One phrase uttered several times in this film by Winnie is, "I like to make puppets as I always think they are able to share with me". I don't know what that means because it could mean so many things. I hope the native language meaning is also as wonderfully ambiguous.

Anyone familiar with someone learning English as a second language has experienced moments of questionable grammar that are crystal clear in meaning and intent. I'm glad the subtitles appear to have been done by someone whose English is a second language. There are many examples, but a few gems for me were: "I like to make puppets and write my diary", "Do you have an affair?" (for, Are you having an affair?), "She instigated me!", and my favorite, "Seth often complained of my cookery." (You'll have to see the movie to enjoy the full impact of that last one.)

Diary is for the most part a dark, moody, mellow drama. But Oxide Pang throws in a little horror scene, a common practice in much of Asian cinema. I like to call it genre-hopping. I love the way he fuses a very sensual moment with fangs.

★★★★★