I Corrupt All Cops

I Corrupt All Cops (HK 2009)

In HK the ICAC is the feared (by wrong-doers anyway) anti-corruption force and this film purports to document it's creation and how it broke the back of endemic police corruption in HK in the 1970s. Well it is a Wong Jing movie so historical accuracy may not be 100%... However this is Wong Jing in "good work mode" keeping the racism and sexual weirdness to a minimum and the film, whilst not flawless, is a very enjoyable piece of HK movie drama.

The film centres around Tak, a police man so bent its untrue, and his fellow corrupt cops as they take back handers, bribes and basically run the triads. Tak, played by Tony Leung Ka-Fai, largely does what he likes. Apart from when his British superior demands a crime crackdown so he orders Anthony Wong to catch some criminals and if he can't catch them, frame someone. That is exactly what happens when Alex Fong is framed and tortured and only avoids going to jail for various fitted up crimes by a bit more corruption. Eason Chan plays a younger cop who is Tak's yesman. Eason is a man without any real honour, doing as his dailo orders even to the extent of taking in all of his ex-mistresses.

Things have to change though when Tak starts to get too carried away and the British order the creation of the ICAC to be headed by Bowie Lam and one of the first recruits in Alex Fong. Anthony Wong, by now fallen out of favour with Tak, is also recruited to turn gamekeeper from poacher. Yet despite the fact he tortured Alex Fong earlier in the film the fact is never mentioned or even hinted at which is quite odd and a bit lazy.

The war between the corrupt cops and ICAC is vicious and bloody but can only end in one way and in the end characters like Eason have to decide if they have any self-respect or not.

So is this movie any good? Yes it is. Its a near-modern period piece but unlike some other TV and films set in the 1970s/80s it doesn't try and set the scene lazily with a gratuitous array of product placements. The story is good though also pretty violent (including a couple of torture scenes) and slightly weird (Wong Jing nuff said). Some rather key moments in ICAC history are rather brushed aside or ignored but this is entertainment not a documentary and it is indeed very entertaining with some good performances.

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Alan & Eric : Between Hello & Goodbye

Alan & Eric : Between Hello & Goodbye (HK 1991)


Alan Tam and Eric Tsang are lifelong friends that were separated as children as Eric went to the US but then reunited with Alan some years later back in HK. Eric tries to make a business selling eggs while Alan plays guitar in a bar. All is cosy and cool.

Then Maggie Cheung enters the scene and Eric falls in love with her. But when she hears Alan sing she falls in love with him instead. Eric steps aside and the love blossoms but then Alan hits the big time and his friends leave him be.

But then 10 years later they are reunited in SF, Eric is now dying. But as his dying wish he wants Alan and Maggie to stay together.

A lovely romantic and quirky movie, maybe a little indulgant and often surreal - especially when they add Alan's concert footage in the mix but it gives the movie a brilliant cantopop nostalgia trip. Then there is the whole thing about Treasure Island, whats that all about me hearties?

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Love Connected (HK 2009)

I'm a sucker for HK romantic comedies which feature a host of the current starlets in favour and especially those that star Stephy Tang. She is in this one along with Justin Lo, Kay Tse, Miki Yeung and ...er... I Love U Boyz. This film is really 5 little films in 1, like a complicated drama serial it includes different storylines and plots running simultaneously and the film switches between them. 5 may be pushing it slightly as the film is bitty but its not without high points (and low points for that matter).

The most important story is probably between Stephy and Justin. He tries to woo her with his music (he being a musician) though hits an unexpected snag when he discovers Stephy is deaf! The most annoying story involves the I Love U Boyz pair playing a couple of losers (no sniggering please) who end up with Miki Yeung staying with them (somehow) and we follow their "hilarious" attempts to try and have sex with her. If there ever is a low point in the history of cinema then this may be it.

Sammy Leung is another comedian who can often be annoying but here he is on top form as a guy trying to juggle multiple simultaneous dates. It is a ridiculous set-up of course but funnily done. All of the stories end in a twist which i won't spoil here. Some of the twists are a bit ridiculous stretching credibility a bit far but few are predictable. Overall the film is worth watching though not without flaws, some big ones at that. The star spotting can be fun though.

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Tequila (HK 1993)

Andy Hui (looking rather young here) plays a cop investigating a series of murders along with his annoying partner Cheung Kwok Keung. The victims seem to all be cheating husbands and linked to a club Table For Two which seems to cater for those who wish to fool around... so the two cops go undercover and both fall for two girls who work there. Andy falls in love with Chan Hui Ying... unfortunately she has a beefy ex-husbund who wants to beat up anyone who touches his ex.

As guys who have been with Ying have ended up dead and Andy gets threatened with a knife by the ex he becomes the suspect for the murders. But then the ex is gunned down too. So who is it? The jealous barman who is secretly in love with Ying? Though you know Sarah Lee seems very close to her too...

The film is entertaining low-budget HK fun, the plot is coherant (no weird tangents which is a rarity in HK movies of the period) and keeps you guessing for a time although an experienced HK movie watcher should be able to guess who the murderer is before the unveiling because the other suspects are just too obvious. There is even a showdown with explosions!

Overheard (HK 2009)

Overheard is an enjoyable yet not more much than that cop drama involving three HK police investigating stock market irregularities involving a company. As the police (played by Lau Ching-Wan, Daniel Wu, Louis Koo) listen in on what is happening in the company they overhear some stock market manipulation being planned and can't resist the temptation to make a few (or a lot) HK$ themselves.

Of course the police all have their individual stories which maybe explain why they are morally conflicted but basically good including Louis Koo who is dying and has a sick son so wants the money for them. Of course once they have entered the wrong side of the law they can't get out but no sooner have they managed to avert the anti-corruption investigation by the police then the bad guy behind the company (played by Michael Wong - and boy is he bad) is after them too.

Its a nice movie, it has a strong cast and some twists to savour and is generally produced well. Of course being a modern HK movie it has to steer within the boundaries set by the Chinese censors. Thus you know they will not get away with it but the ending and resolution of the film does manage some genuine surprises even if the plot stretches credibility somewhat in doing so. A win but not a knockout, but a win all the same.

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Stoner (HK 1974)

Dating back to the early 1970s when Bruce Lee was still fresh in people's minds and kung fu and martial arts was big business worldwide (or at least the current in-thing) comes Stoner, starring George Lazenby oddly enough. Bruce Lee was apparently originally set to star in this fairly standard but slightly odd film but after his untimely death it was decided to make the film anyway. Angela Mao was bought in as George's co-star. Let the hard kung-fu action begin!

There is a kind of plot, something involving an evil gangster mastermind (who has a rotating desk, excellent!) creating explosives and drug smuggling in his (evil) underground lair but the plot is just a bare frame on which to hang a sequence of excellent fighting set pieces.

The result is undeniably cheesy, fairly confusing but also highly entertaining. It is a 70s period piece and perhaps nothing that original from the time but worth seeing all the same. How many HK kung-fu movies had an ex-James Bond in them after all?

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The Shootout (HK 1992)

A movie in that very HK specific genre : slapstick comedy ultraviolence. This time starring Aaron Kwok as a pretty boy / pretty useless young cop who gets caught up in a case involving violent armed robbers and thus gets assigned to Lau Ching Wan's team. Then he falls in love with a KTV singer (Fennie Yuen) but of course she turns out to be the criminal boss' (unenthusiastic) girl... et cetera.

That makes it easy to find the criminals, which is just as well as the cops don't really seem to do any police work, their idea of investigating seems to be following a suspect into a brothel and then singing badly in a karoke lounge.

The final showdown takes place in a police training area, why and how the bad guys got there isn't explained but it makes for a good action setpiece to end the film. Jackie Chan produced and his hallmarks are here : fast, imaginative action.

Its not a film for plot but a film for big guns and bigger explosions.

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Killing End (HK 2001)

Killing End is nothing that new, its a HK gangster film involving gangsters and police wrapped up in a brutal story that can only end in tragedy. However this Herman Yau film starring Andy Hui and Loletta Lee is very well done and well worth watching. One reason for this is the characterisation. The main characters in this film are more than your usual "troubled cop", "vicious gangster" stereotypes.

Take Andy's character for example, a cop in an impossible situation. He knows his police precinct is corrupt thus making his fight against the local gangsters hopeless but he continues onwards despite everything collapsing around him. Loletta Lee also plays a great role as a young woman with mental health issues who gets wrapped up with the story, and with Andy.

Things come to a head when Andy kills the Triad boss' son. Then Andy is marked for death. Can he avoid it?

A film well worth your time.

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Why me? (HK 1985)

This is quite an unusual HK film, especially for it's time, being rare in that it deals with the issue of mental illness. Its typical of HK cinema however to make a film about the tragic story of a mentally ill man and his dying mother (and boy, this is epic in it's tragedy!) but wrap it up with silly goofy humour and some half-baked romance. Thats not to say this film is bad but there are times when your finger does hover over the STOP button on the remote. You should refrain though because this is a good film... overall.

Olivia Cheng and Chow Yun Fat play 2 social workers who are also a couple. Olivia happens upon the mentally ill man (played by Kent Cheng who won an award for his role) and his poor mother who refuses to accept charity. Olivia tries to get them better housing and a place at a special school but the queue is wrong. Olivia tries to get the queue jumped but as Chow says, the queue is full of people who are just as deserving.

Olivia also has family problems of her own including a dead beat dad and Eric Tsang as a step-father, however its not one of his best roles. His usual jokey clown act seems rather jarring and forced here. These sub-plots are all rather incidental to the main plot of the film which comes to a rather predictable but powerful all the same climax.

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Colour Of The Truth (HK 2003)

Colour Of The Truth was directed by Wong Jing and was undoubtably inspired by the then-current Infernal Affairs trilogy however don't let that put you off. Colour Of The Truth is an excellent crime drama with a solid plot, good acting, solid action and even includes Gillian Chung from Twins wielding a gun. Now for some guys that is a kind of fantasy, i'm sure i'm not alone with that.

Anthony Wong stars as a senior police officer who, in the early 1990s, was involved in a double shooting where a hoodlum and a fellow police officer were both shot. Now ten years later the sons of the two people Wong shot are fully grown up adults and have followed their father's trades : one a gangster boss (Jordan Chan) and the other a cop (Raymond Wong) and they both want revenge.

Mixed up in this is a crime sub-plot involving Patrick Tse which at the start seems unconnected to the main revenge plot but as the film progresses the plots become more and more intertwined. What marks this film above "competant" and into the "good" category is the subtleness. Raymond hates Anthony Wong but when he gets to know him he finds the man is not quite the monster he was bought up to believe he was.

The final showdown is exciting and has plenty of twists though is probably overshadowed by some of the action set-pieces that take place earlier on. The film isn't perfect but happily includes none of Wong Jing's usual silliness or racism. Gillian seems just in place to provide some eye candy (not that there is anything wrong with that) and Chapman To seems just in place to provide some annoyance.

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Crazy N' The City (HK 2005)

Crazy N' The City is an entertaining HK cop movie, though a movie that focusses more on the lives of the police than any big crime drama (though there is a notable serial killer-rapist case later on in the movie). It is really about Eason Chan's worn-out cop who has the passed the eager innocent early stage of his career (which he is reminded about by rookie Joey Yung) and is now settled into a rut and awaiting his long-off retirement. Joey of course wants to save the world and even climbs buildings to rescue cats.

At first glance you might think this is going to turn out to be a generic HK cop movie full of cliches. However if we were following cliches to the letter then Eason would be snapped out of his lethagy by Joey and rediscover his earlier zeal actually it doesn't quite work out that way. A couple of teenage girls become his fans when they see him take down a criminal but then one of the girls becomes the victim of a serial killer and Eason resolves to catch him. In catching the criminal Eason rediscovers why he became a cop in the first place of course.

Francis Ng also plays a good role of a man who has lost his mind and of course he also becomes wrapped up in the serial killer case. This subplot fits in well with the overall feel and direction of the movie and again is not resolved the obvious way. The moviemakers do tease us a bit though, we see him get hit on the head many times but its the love of a good woman not blows to the heads which tempers his insanity somewhat.

The movie is entertaining, sometimes a bit obvious and overblown, but it doesn't detract from the overall level of quality and the good performances by some of the major actors. Don't let the presence of "idols" in some of the major roles put you off.

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Missed Date (HK 1986)

Olivia Cheng plays a bored housewife who is neglected by her husbund (who is thus either blind, dumb or both), who puts his business and flirting female clients first and his wife second even though she works hard to be the perfect wife (which happily for male viewers includes lots of yoga and aerobics). However when she meets a tennis instructor played by Chow Yun Fat she toys with the idea of an affair but decides she cannot as she is loyal to her man.

But then she finds her hubby hopelessly drunk with a female client and follows them to a love hotel. While her man and the client indulge in the beast with two backs in one room Olivia and Mr Chow chat and laugh in another room in quite an amusing parallel. Yet, of course, both couples leave the hotel at the same time and meet up in an awkward moment.

The marriage is over but the hubby hopes to woo her again yet spends his time smoking at his desk wondering what to do. He is too late anyway, his wife has sailed off with Chow... literally.

A really good 80s HK film that is accompanied by a couple of killer cantopop tunes by Andy Lau and Priscilla Chan. Cantopop was designed for such dramatic romantic times.

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Movie : Heart Into Hearts

Heart Into Hearts (HK 1990)

Heart Into Hearts was the second in popular "Hearts" series following on from 1988's "Heart to Heart" and like the first film starred George Lam as some sort of creative type (which seems one of the most common jobs in HK according to movies). George is due to marry Dodo Cheng (with her daughter Vivian Chow) but he meets an advert director played by Maggie Cheung whom he first hates as an emotionless professional but then they have to go to Paris together and begin to flirt...

Its a light hearted HK comedy with unfortunately 2 cute kids in (which as far as i am concerned is 2 too many). The film is enjoyable enough with quite a few funny bits but it lacks some bite. You can probably guess most of the jokes before they actually arrive and the film is a little formulaic. It is maybe worth watching for the massive brick mobile phones alone though...

One problem with the film is that Dodo comes across as very annoying in the film without the chemistry with George of the first film. Thus when George is flirting with Maggie you can't really see why he should stay with Dodo. George is his usual jolly and jovial (and often hilarious) self though. Anyway the series ended with 1992's "Heart Against Hearts".

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Review : True Women For Sale

True Women For Sale (HK 2008)

True Women For Sale is one of those very HK films that reveals in the people and culture of the SAR that you either love or find totally alien. I fall into the former category and loved this collection of misfit/normal HK characters struggling in their different ways to make it in the world.

You have Prudence Lau, in a rare film outing, as an aging drug addict prostitute with terrible teeth. Anthony Wong as an insurance salesman who is always looking for a new client even if his working class clients are not exactly that regular with payment of their premiums. Race Wong plays a mainland immigrant made pregnant by a now dead HK man who is continually demanding her rights and in a very annoying squeeky manner too (no doubt intentionally to amuse the HK audience).

The film, directed wonderfully by Herman Yau, does not have a plot as such. It is more like a set of storylines based around the various characters which sometimes intermingle and portray a HK unsure of it's reunion with the mainland and under pressure from its larger, more virile and in some ways quite alien neighbour. Thus Anthony Wong considers selling insurance on the mainland but is warned the market is very different and the HK prostitutes face competition from younger and cheaper women from the mainland.

Fairly low budget but the film does not suffer for that because of the style and content. The film is full of rough HK humour but it does not detract from the drama and social comment, the humour is used in a very natural way. One criticism may be it's more like a truncated soap than a movie but the story reaches a (kind of) conclusion in the end and is highly recommend for those who love HK and want a bit more than bland action thrillers which are set in HK but could basically be anywhere.

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Review : Shinjuku Incident

Shinjuku Incident (HK 2009)

Lets review a new movie for a change. This is Jackie Chan's latest and is in a much darker tone than you usually get from the man. He plays an illegal immigrant from Mainland China who sneaks into Japan to look for his beau, Xu Jinglei, who has gone missing. Jackie settles down to a life as an illegal with his friend Daniel Wu doing the dirty jobs Japanese don't want to do though of course always being wary of the police and in one incident he ends up saving the life of a cop (Naoto Takenaka). Finally he sees his old love... who is now married to a Yakuza mob boss!

To survive Jackie forms his own gang from a collection of misfit Chinese illegal immigrants in order to get legal status and some respectability but of course as you know in these films a dark past never can be evaded forever and the cop he saved earlier wants him to get his former buddies back the right side of the law. The end of the film is very violent as Japanese and Chinese mob gangs do battle though the fight scenes are realistic (apart from Jackie who can't be stopped by gun or sword wounds it seems). The plot is quite generic for these kinds of movies (New guys enters scene / Fights way to top / Rivals want to bring him down) but also has a number of interesting sub-plots such as the experience of illegal immigrants in Japan to shake things up a bit though these sub-plots never really go anywhere.

Its the darkest Jackie Chan film i've seen and he tries his best to portray a complicated character with good and bad facets to his character but Jackie Chan has a lot of acting baggage (and not all of it that good) so sometimes it is difficult to relate to his character. It might just be down to the countless films you have seen him in before where he plays a much lighter character. Of course he has played "serious" roles before but often as the "good guy", here it is much more ambiguous.

The film is good though and portrays Japan's back streets as dark and violent. You won't find much if any of Jackie Chan's trademark action but you'll get a good solid mobster movie with plenty of gritty violence.

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Review : Raped By An Angel 3 : Sexual Fantasy Of The Chief Executive

Raped By An Angel 3 : Sexual Fantasy Of The Chief Executive (HK 1998)

With a title like this you know its not going to be an arthouse movie or a philosophical work, especially as Wong Jing is behind it. This film can be best described as a soft porn crime thriller in that it involves a candidate for the position of HK Chief Executive (Alex Fong) who is also a successful businessman but in his office building women working alone at night get raped yet this somehow does not affect his election standing.

The fact he keeps seeing naked women while out on the campaign trail doesn't affect him either or the fact he likes a bit of rumpy pumpy on his desk though he does go and see old-flame turned psychologist Angie Cheung who suggests he cut himself off from the world for 24 hours.

When the 24 hours are up, and he scarcely remembers what has happened in that time, he finds out one of his office staff, Pinky Cheung, has been raped and he is the suspect. Oddly enough though Pinky's brother is the cop assigned to the case. So no clash of interests there. The story is not bad though not very original and you can see the twist coming a mile off. Gratuitous use of female nudity and writhing bodies of course but an entertaining little film for all it's faults. The film may have been inspired by President Clinton and his libido.

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Review : Till Death Do We Scare

Till Death Do We Scare (HK 1982)

The first few minutes of Till Death Do We Scare are among the funniest in movie history, thats if someone getting crushed by a steamroller (and then we cut to the funeral with a totally flat coffin) would make you laugh, it worked for me.

After that the film meanders a bit too much though the ending is fairly exciting with some nice ghost monster touches. There wasn't enough script for a whole movie but the good start and decent ending make the film worth persevering with.

A horror-comedy Till Death Do We Scare stars Olivia Cheng as a three-times widow who is wooed by Alan Tam. Olivia's 3 husbands (present as ghosts) want her to be happy and stay alive to maintain their legacy so try their best to get Olivia and Alan together and then, as they fear Alan will also die soon after marriage, do their best to try and split them up. Alan's sidekick Eric Tsang gets scared by a chair and menaced by the Ghost King's daughter playing the fall guy for a lot of the jokes as he does so well.

Its hilarious and stupid, like many other HK comedies of the period. The comedy is goofy and slapstick and at times highly inventive. At times the horror is quite frightening though others utter cheese. A bit genre-bending then. Great stuff.

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Movie : Interactive Murders

Interactive Murders (HK 2002)

Someone is kidnapping celebrities in HK and boasting about it on the internet, enter Andy Hui who plays an ex-cop bought in to help out. Even with his expertise the cops are getting nowhere fast and the kidnapper (played by Ronald Cheng) displays his captured celebrities in glass boxes. Then enters a HK female geek cum mystic (Nicola Cheung) who had predicted the kidnaps. She becomes a celebrity and then herself becomes the latest victim.

This is an interesting though slightly far fetched crime drama and of course suffers like so many films and TV programmes back then which featured the "internet" in that the internet portrayed is very fanciful with full screen animations and plenty of exciting looking flashing screens. The "interactive" part of the film is actually true as the audience are invited to take part in some of the puzzles such as when the kidnapper tests the police out with a spot the difference test.

At the end of the film we get bolted on a twist and this maybe stretches credibility a bit too far when we find out the events of the film and the motivations of the major players were not quite as they seemed. Personally i think the film would have been better off a straight kidnap drama without the twist which is a little too cute. However those criticisms aside this is a very interesting and enjoyable little movie.

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Movies : Gambling then and now

The Top Bet (HK 1991)

No one can make films about gambling like HK cinema which so often gives a mystical bent to it. Here are two examples of HK gambling movies old and (slightly) new starting with The Top Bet which can be best described as bizarre HK gambling fun.

The Saint Of Gamblers has gone off on holiday but the Triad boss needs a top gambler to win the gambling championship. Uncle Ng Man-Tat is tasked to find someone to win or he gets a chopping. He happens upon the Queen of Gambling (Carol Cheng), basically a hard HK fisherwomen who does some card tricks. But she pretends to have magical powers in order to get the dough to help her paralysed brother. Still with me? No? Tough.

Meanwhile real magical powers arrive in the shape of the Saint's sister Mai (Anita Mui) from the mainland but she refuses to use her magical powers to help gambling and capitalist pigdog ..er.. things (this was before the Communist Party discovered the love of cash of course). But then, with the Triad's rival is also getting help from psychic power, Mai decides to help the Queen in her battle against the bad guy with the help of magical card tricks and plenty of kung fu.

If you've seen a HK gambling movie before you know what to expect. Grand entrances in slow motion, sharp suits and stirring music. Plus a lot of slapstick humour and fun. Its ridiculous, its bizarre, its probably banal. But you'll love it.

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Kung Fu Mahjong (HK 2005)

So lets move forward to a more recent example of a HK gambling movie, this time centred around mahjong. Now if you don't know how to play the game you probably won't learn how from watching this film, unless you want to know how to fire mahjong tiles from between your man breasts (yes you read that right).

Its a Wong Jing movie so you probably know what to expect. Wacky and bizarre HK comedy thats definately politically incorrect, and borrowing shamelessly from whatever is hip. This time he borrows from the popular TVB serial Life Made Simple and includes a character called Ah Wong so similiar to the serial's Ah Wong he might as well have used the same actor... so he did. Roger Kwok basically plays the same role as the mentally challenged waiter.

But he also has an incredible memory and loser hustler Yuen Weh decides to use this to win at mahjong big. Unfortunately he has to get by the imposing figure of Yuen Qiu (who looks fairly hot in a Bruce Lee jumpsuit, lets admit it). Basically they play similar roles from Kung Fu Hustle.

There is a love interest with ex-Cookie Theresa Fu but that seems to get forgotton as the film progresses. The main focus is on the mahjong. And its tile clicking good. You will either hate or love this film. I love it.

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Movies : Leslie Cheung & Rowena Cortes

HK actress and singer Rowena Cortes was quite popular in the early 80s, here are a couple of her films where she made a great pairing with Leslie Cheung.

Energetic 21 (HK 1982)

In many ways an annoying film but Rowena Cortes is in it so i will forgive anything.

Leslie Cheung is a street racer who drives a Porsche 911. In the first part of the film you see how he and his buddies hang out and basically do very little (i like these guys). There are a couple of strange tangents (well it is a HK film) including a faked demonic possession that ends up in a fat girl getting pregnant. No really. I'm not making that up.

Rowena, who plays the sister of one of Leslie's friends, also gets into some scrapes including fighting girls over a dress and accidentally getting her boyfriend beaten up on his driving test. Leslie's mum brings a gwailo home but Leslie doesn't like it as its filthy apparently.

Then in the second half of the film things really get going. Another gwailo is accidentally killed in a fight and the guys suddenly start acting incredibly stupid. They begin running around like headless chickens and even turn on each other as the Police close in. In the end they are holed up in a supermarket, the Police have them surrounded. So how did it all go wrong? It is a HK film about young people, it always goes wrong.

So what is this film about? Its an entertaining romp with some good car stunts thrown in, especially a cool stunt-a-rama with some gokarts. My only beef with the film (apart from Rowena not getting enough screen time) is that the guy's characters seem to change utterly after they kill the guy. They turn from being some layabout losers into psychotic madman. Oh well.

The film is about how youthful optimism and exuberance can turn into disaster so easily i think, so it portrays that message well. For a decent slab of early 80s HK idol cinema you couldn't do much better than this. It has it all all : young beautiful people, hot 80s sports cars, cheesey nightclubs and HK 80s cool. Fantastic.

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Teenage Dreamers (HK 1982)

Elaine Chow and Rowena Cortes are high school students doing what HK schoolgirls always seem to do in movies - throw coke (as in cola) around and shoplift in japanese department stores. Then their school links up with a boys school to do a joint production of Romeo & Juliet. Elaine gets the part of Juliet to play opposite schoolboy hunk Leslie Cheung's Romeo. But she can't get the final dramatic scene right... until she falls in love with her Romeo for real.

They meet secretly in Macau, they frolic on the beach, he pulls down her top and then we cut to the waves crashing on the shore... Now real lovers their final scene in R&J is a hit. But then he splits up with her before the opening night...

Cute and very vivid early 80s HK teen flick. The colours are fantastic, you even get to see/hear Rowena singing on the beach, fantastic! There are plenty of teen/fun frolics but nothing too cheesey.

Lemon Cola is the chinese title.

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