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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Troublesome Night 4 (HK 1998)

The Troublesome Night series of horror films amazingly went up to 19 or so but lets stick with one of the earlier efforts.

A group of Hongies go to the Philippines for a tour, and here are 3 stories set around their tour. One guy is transporting an urn containing the ashes of a Filipina who died in HK. As he heads to deliver his pack he keeps seeing a girl in the mirror and even in the shower. She looks exactly like the girl whos ashes hes now carrying too!

The frights are more the Carry On Screaming type than Ultra Violent Driller Killer Maniac 6 : I Drank His Brains And Then Projectile Vomited Them Back Up (a personal favourite) kind of horror. Plenty of ghosts appearing suddenly and people screaming. And its all very very funny, sometimes intentionally too.

Basically the film is fairly familiar late 90s silly HK slapstick packed with contemporary pop culture and HK life references. If you like that kind of thing you'll like this film, if not... well you might enjoy it anyway. The honeymoon couple story (starring Louis Koo and Pauline Suen) and the urn story are pretty good ghost stories, the third one about 3 horny guys is a bit of a zombiefest yawn but you can't win them all.

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Half Twin (HK 2006)

This was one of the biggest flops in HK cinema in 2006 (apparently only making a few thousand at the box office though admittedly not a huge budget film) though it is maybe a bit unfair as its not that bad a film, indeed it is actually pretty good... in parts anyway.

It stars Candy Lo who plays an estranged twin who apparently buries her successful twin sister alive to take over her successful life. Crumbs!

The rich sister's boyfriend Eric Kot gets a bit suspicious though when his "girlfriend" wants nothing to do with him and acts totally strange. Bad Candy is assisted by Carl Ng who is the real evil mastermind behind the plot. Of course there is a twist, its not totally unexpected but pretty well done.

So all in all a decent film and worth seeing. Candy Lo pulls off two good roles for the price of one as the twin sisters have different characters. Indeed it is worth watching alone for the rather impressive athletic form of Michelle Zhang incidentally. She steals the scene fairly often, standing there silently. Hopefully she will get other film roles where she actually speaks.

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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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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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CD : Vincy Chan - more Vincy

Vincy Chan's latest album is very fine indeed. 10 great songs starting with "Love delusions" which is a rollicking pop-rock song and ending with a duet "My memory isn't mine" the singer Ocean. Unlike a lot of albums there are not many fillers and Vincy is on good singing form throughout. Like most cantopop albums there is a bit of a mixture of styles but the mixture isn't too jarring and it is a great excursion in contemporary pop-rock. I'd stretch to saying this is the best cantopop album of the year so far. I haven't bought that many though admittedly... but even if i had i doubt this wouldn't be far off the top of the list.

Review : Nightmares In Precinct 7

Nightmares In Precinct 7 (HK 2001)

Andy Hui plays a top cop in this entertaining film who is left in a coma after a bust goes wrong. When he awakes from his coma two years later he finds he can see ghosts, which is a cool if slightly mysterious side-effect. He can also see the cute nurse Loletta Lee who of course has fallen for him.

Andy is finally discharged and returns to his crime team with his buddy Simon Lui who is struggling with a serial killer case of a guy who kidnaps, rapes and then kills nurses. Oh and what was Loletta's occupation again? You know it would be an amazing co-incidence if she was the next target...

With the help of a funny ghost (Cheung Tat Ming) at the hospital Andy manages to track down the killer, but he is too late as he has already struck and carried off Loretta to do unspeakable things we won't speak of. Can Andy save her before those unspeakable things are carried out?

A really pretty good film, the supernatural angle isn't overplayed and its mostly a solid cop drama with plenty of cool and fun moments.

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CD : Janice Vidal - morning

Janice has usually included some songs in English on her cantopop CDs (including some translated Leon Lai songs on her debut) but this is her first fully English album. She sounds great of course with her pronunciations spot on though on some songs her breathing is a little too audible. My favourite song on the album is "speechless" which is a nice ballad with good tone and a big chorus. Its basically a good cantopop album in English though the lyrics are maybe a bit basic.

Review : A-1

A-1 (HK 2004)

A-1 is a refreshingly cerebral film, a murder investigation thriller without buckets of blood and ultra-violence (not that these are bad, just that its nice to have a change). The gorgeous Angelica Lee stars as a reporter with a debt problem. Not only are debt collectors in the shape of Anthony Wong and Eric Kot hanging around wanting her money her boyfriend has died in a car crash. And when Anthony Wong turns out to be an ex-cop and suggests the car crash wasn't an accident then Angelica begins an investigation into what really happened with her rather gormless photographer friend in tow played by Edison Chen.

Had Angelica's boyfriend uncovered a plot to cover up the death of a model because of the involvement of a son of a tycoon? Well yes and is the editor of the newspaper covering it up? Well maybe. And what is the role of the police in all this? The film is an enjoyable exploration of HK from it's gadget obsessed (and debt stricken) youngsters to the super-rich and the influence they can exert on society, even the forces of law and order. There is some action but most of the film is slow burning investigation. There is also a slightly romantic subplot involving Anthony and Angelica, even if she says he reminds her of her Dad!

One criticism of the film is that it ends very neatly with various parties coming clean about their parts in corruption and maybe a bit of a damp squid with little suspense but maybe we are just too used to big action set-pieces and plenty of spent cartridges. The sudden about-face by Anthony about one of the key parts in the plot also confuses slightly. But this is a very enjoyable film with good characters and a good script, some may call it boring however i call it intelligent and dare i say it realistic?

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Review : The Sniper

The Sniper (HK 2009)

The Sniper is a decent and enjoyable HK action film. Its very commercial, with plenty of buff male bods and guns on show to cater for as many parts of the film audience as possible. It is also a bit confusing to be quite honest but gets it's job done in the end.

Edison Chen (he of the nude celeb photo collection) plays a rookie in the elite HK sniper team. Despite being new he is full of confidence and thinks he can be the best sniper ever. The two current contenders for that title are the head of the sniper team played by Richie Jen and a disgraced ex-member of the team played by Huang Xiaoming. When we first see Huang he is coming out of prison. We arn't told for some time why he has been in the Nick, it was because of a mission that went wrong but he is most sore about the fact that he wasn't backed up by Richie in the enquiry.

Huang now is using his skills on the side of the bad guys including gangster Jack Kao but is it all just a means to an end so he can try and gain revenge on his ex-team mates? Well you will just have to see it and find out.

The film is rather confusing though does make sense, more or less, in the end. There are a number of plot dead-ends though such as an appearance by Edison's Father. Their relationship is rocky but the film doesn't go anywhere with this. You get the impression the film could do with another 30 minutes of footage to tidy it up though that may spoil the taut and macho action. Its not really a film for exquisite storytelling, its a story of guys with guns running around bare chested. Great action scenes and some nice stylish cinematic touches. Maybe it needs a sequel to tidy everything up. Though with what Edison has been up to over the last couple of years that is unlikely to ever come about.

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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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CD : Rowena Cortes - raining sha la la

Rowena Cortes did not release many albums in her short(ish) cantopop career in the 1980s but with this re-issue as part of UMG's Black in Black series this more or less completes her cantopop discography. There is one more album i have seen the cover of dating back a bit further (late 70s i think).

Raining sha la la was a hit for Rowena and starts off this typical mid-80s cantopop album, the song has a lovely early electronic melody to it. Electronics were just getting going in cantopop by then so this album is a mixture of the more organic funky sounds of the early 80s and the electro-pop which dominated the genre well into the 90s and the best songs are in this vein such as 暗藍 and 笑匠. Of course there are a couple of western cover versions though these arn't terrible. Overall its a good selection of music with Rowena's sweet vocals and seems a shame Rowena did not release that much after this album.

One nice touch, as with all the Black in Black series, is the black CD and faux-LP design.

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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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