The Best of Times
PHOTO: GOLDEN HORSE
directed by Chang Tso-chi
Chang Tso-chi once again focuses his romantic lens on a slightly melancholic theme -- the youthful escapades of to young men. A touch of magical realism brings beauty to the portrayal of a cruel reality. Even in the fetid water of a city canal there are ducks and the occasional rainbow.
PHOTO: GOLDEN HORSE
Wei and Jie are two carefree cousins growing up in an extended family. Their devil-may-care approach to life is a way of escaping their troubled family's maelstrom -- a sister suffering from Leukemia and a father addicted to gambling.
PHOTO: GOLDEN HORSE
Wei dreams of becoming a martial arts hero like Bruce Lee. Jie joins a Taoist chanting group and believes he can perform magic. Things begin to go wrong when they are given a handgun by a gang boss. Jie, the more reckless of the two, kills the head of another gang, and the two find themselves on the run.
Hollywood Hong Kong
PHOTO: GOLDEN HORSE
directed by Fruit Chan
PHOTO: GOLDEN HORSE
Fruit Chan likes to portray the grim lives of Hong Kong's disadvantaged. Here he looks at Ta-hom village, an impoverished neighborhood located next to a luxury apartment block. Chan's social criticism and irony are still present, but this is probably Chan's most dramatic and sensual film to date.
The story focuses on the different responses of various characters to a beautiful young lady from China who moves into the apartment block. Three men, an obese man and his two equally fat sons, who run a nearby barbeque pork shop, are seduced by her in different ways. Even their pet pig starts acting weird. A gangster also falls for her, thinking she's a prostitute, and as the pace picks up, the various facets of this femme fatale begin to be unveiled. Cheated of love and money, the men face an uncertain future as their shantytown approaches imminent demolition.
July Rhapsody
directed by Ann Hui
Ann Hui's understated story about a midlife crisis is unconventional for its absence of guns and sex.
Lam Yiu-kwok is a high school teacher, an introverted, bookish man approaching 40. His life is turned upside-down when a student, Choi-nam, falls in love with him. The beautiful teen reminds Lam of his wife when she was young, but he knows better than to engage in a relationship with a student.
At home, his wife Man-ching has another surprise. Seng, a much loved teacher from the couple's student days, comes back into their life, now terminally ill. Seng is also the biological father of the couple's eldest son. When she tells Lam that she must leave him for a month, he snaps. Everything seems to lead him towards Choi-nam, the forbidden fruit. Will history repeat itself?
The film will be released in Taiwan on Nov. 23.
Three -- Going Home
directed by Peter Ho-sun Chan
One section of a three-part film, Home has an eerie atmosphere, an intriguing yet well-structured story and good acting that make it an enjoyable film despite its one-hour length.
Chan Wai, a plain-clothes police detective, and his eight year-old son Cheong move into an abandoned police dorm. Cheong finds the empty space unsettling, but more worrying still are their only neighbors, a four-year-old girl and her father Yu Fai. Yu never goes out, and his house is always tightly shut, although smoke and a strong smell of Chinese herbs emerge from it. Yu has been bathing his dead wife in herbal mixtures for three years to resurrect her. Three days before the day when resurrection will take place, Cheong goes missing. His anxious father suspects Yu and breaks into his house.
The Runaway Pistol
directed by Lam Wah-chuen
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But guns do make people trigger-happy, like power readily fills people with the urge to abuse it. First-time director Lam Wah-chuen looks through the eyes of a gun, telling different stories as different people get hold of the weapon. His is an ambitious work mirroring the fickleness of Hong Kong society where everyone seems to have a heart filled with anger, regret and unfulfilled dreams.
As the gun travels from the underbelly of Mongkok (Hong Kong) to seedy Shenzhen (China), it transforms or ends people's lives -- a sex worker, a small-time hood, a middle-class family, troubled teenagers, a suicidal fisherman, an illegal immigrant and innocent bystanders. Impulsive but honest, the film is a one-of-a-kind road movie and a fairytale about a city on the verge of a moral meltdown.
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