Ted (2012)

Aside from the man-child, the other 21st century innovation to the romantic comedy is the bromance. The gimmick in Ted is the bromantic triangle involves a foul-mouthed magical talking teddy bear, voiced by Seth MacFarlane.

The gimmick kind of runs out of steam halfway, and MacFarlane's schtick for pop cultural references takes over.

Watch for: Not MacFarlane's schtick, not the gimmick, but the evocation of 80s children's urban fantasy movies.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 5 September 2012.

A Simple Life (桃姐) (2011)

A middle aged bachelor takes care of his amah when she retires and enters a nursing home.

This is the closest Hong Kong auteur Ann Hui gets to making a weepy Hallmark movie and extolling the virtues of benevolence and loyalty that typify old school Chinese.

Watch for: Ann Hui's very understated scriptwriting. Mind you, this could easily have been a shrill story about ageing and the plight of domestic servants in Hong Kong. Not that the territory doesn't need a shrill poke about these issues.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 March 2012.

Morning Glory (2011)

Harrison Ford plays a former top hard-hitting TV journalist reduced to role of anchor on a morning talk show.

It's actually possible to watch this as a subversive follow-up to Sidney Lumet's media satire Network, updated for an age where the most reliable and factually accurate news comes from Jon Stewart, the anchor for a fake news show that runs on a Comedy Central.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 23 March 2011.

Hot tub time machine (2010)

The Hollywood machine reassembles Japan's science fiction/80s nostalgia comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust as American science fiction/80s nostalgia comedy Hot Tub Time Machine.

Expect the usual jokes about fashion, music, and dating trends as our protagonists catch up on their much-delayed coming of age.

Read my full review at Fridae.com, first published on 14 July 2010.

Baarìa (2009)

Mining his hometown for inspiration, the director of Cinema Paradiso delivers a most depressing film where three generations of a peasant family endure the bullying and depredation of landlords, industrialists, politicians, and soldiers.

It's a Grand Narrative as seen from the eyes of the little people.


Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 June 2010.

Echoes of the Rainbow (岁月神偷) (2010)

Perhaps Hong Kong's cinematic answer to The Wonder Years, this film revisits the colony in the 1960s, offering a joyous nostalgia for the good old days that still acknowledges how bad the good old days were.

True nostalgia, as envisioned by the film's creators, is a song of experience as much as it is a song of innocence.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 27 May 2010.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Zeus felt more at ease with sparkly laser lights than shimmering armour

How does Liam Neeson say "Release the Kraken!" this time round?

Does it still look like a man in a rubber suit in a tokusatsu feature?

Was Bubo the original Jar Jar Binks of the Greek mythology genre? Is it in the remake?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 7 April 2010.

Invisible Target 男儿本色 (2007)

Party like it's 1980 again!

If you comprehend the Mandarin title of Invisible Target, you'd realise it's just two characters away from similarity to John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. That, by the way - and I kid you not - is the gimmick of Invisible Target. It's almost as if John Woo was still making cops and robbers movies in Hong Kong, and Infernal Affairs hadn't happened to its film industry, but Invisible Target is indeed a movie where the theme of brotherhood, loyalty and justice plays out as much for the cops as for the robbers. Now, I'm not sure why Benny Chan has the fascination for a long-past genre, but this movie would have been a breath of fresh air from the deluge of Infernal Affairs wannabe cop thrillers of this decade, if it hadn't been almost a facsimile of the old 1980s and 1990s cop and robber movies.

But anyway, we have a trio of cops (yes, they're an "odd trio"/mismatched buddies pairing) all going after a newly resurgent violent professional gang of mercenaries. Nicholas Tse wants revenge because the mercenaries' last heist blew up his girlfriend, while a scrappy Shawn Yue has a personal grudge against the gang because they humiliated him in public recently, and freshed-faced rookie Jaycee Chan wants to know if his missing elder brother, another cop, is working undercover with them and hasn't actually turned rogue. They may come from disparate sources, but the squabbling cops will learn the value of brotherhood in a nice bonding session involving massage oils, in order to come a step closer to apprehending the bomb, parkour, and kungfu crazy crooks. The professional gang of mercenaries just want their money back after an insider behind the scenes stole it from them after their final heist. They too are motivated by a strong sense of brotherhood and loyalty, and have a touching backstory somewhere about growing up in the same orphanage and having no one else to trust and depend on. So, whose cause is superior; whose sense of brotherhood will reign supreme? Find out in Benny Chan's modern resurrection of 1980s John Woo style cops vs robbers thriller!

There are only a few things I would judge a film that defies modern fads and goes for an older genre: Does Invisible Target do the older cop genre justice? Does it offer new insights to the older genre? Revitalise it? Provide a compelling reason for audiences and filmmakers not to follow the trend of Infernal Affairs wannabes? In its defense, I'd say that Invisible Target is a very competently-written movie with excellent directing, and Benny Chan's attempt at resurrecting the old genre benefits from the production values of the modern HK film industry. The setpieces are as old school as they come and some even more old school, like a pivotal fight scene (in terms of boding for the cops) in a teahouse that looks and feels like a setpiece in a classic Shaw wuxia flick. All the conversations (and their eventual payoff) about brotherhood and loyalty also remind us of the range of emotions that Infernal Affairs wannabes tend to leave out. The impact of this film could be even far greater, though, if Benny Chan remembered the basic rules of the old cop vs gangster films and followed them more thoroughly, especially at the end. I'm also puzzled at the scripting - it feels that there's one cop too many - Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue play almost identical characters, and their interaction and setup in this movie tends to obfuscate the real cop buddy dynamic that's central to the old school cop genre Benny Chan is resurrecting.

In my mind, there still isn't that extra something that will convince me that Invisible Target is a sufficient effort to reverse the trend of HK cop films. It is, however, an excellent antidote to any audience feeling the jaded feeling from watching too many similar HK cops and gangsters films in the past few years.

First published at incinemas on 19 July 2007

Hooked on you 每当变幻时 (2007)

Nothing screams 70s than a wet market comedy!

For some reason, Hooked on you is marketed as a romantic comedy, when it really is an incredible homage and reworking of Michael Hui's brand of social comedy. Perhaps the Hui name carries connotations of a satire too sharp for modern, post-handover sensibilities, but every second of Hooked on you indicates that even though Hui has not directed or written for more than a decade, his comic sensibilities are making a comeback through a new generation of filmmakers who have grown up watching his movies. Regular readers of my reviews will be familiar with my despair at how Hollywood insists on resurrecting and remaking old genres that it has neither the means or talent to pull off (currently, the romantic comedy). Yet there's something really interesting happening here in Hooked on you: not only are Law Wing-cheong and Fun Chi Keung reviving the Michael Hui comedy, but they're updating it for the modern day, in a respectful and credible manner.

So, instead of seeing this as a quirky romantic comedy - as the official poster and website art would have you do - I'd rather tell it like it is. Hooked on you takes place in a wet market and revolves around the lives of its stall operators. In other words, it's a social comedy about the ordinary, small people in their element. And all you have to do is just place the denizens of the wet market (appropriately given the typical Michael Hui name of "Prosperity Market") in and let the comedy unfold naturally, like clockwork. And this is how we'd get various skits linked together, about the silly games and tricks rival fishmongers play on each other, about how the entire wet market plans a comeback after a Cold Storage supermarket opens next door, how the stallholders get involved in a silly pyramid scheme, and even the continual success story of a former wet market stallholder turned smuggler and conman. The concept of all these comic skits and the sheer ensemble work required to pull them of is typical for a Michael Hui at the top of his game - except of course, Michael Hui isn't on the credits.

And much to my amazement, the director and scriptwriter actually do succeed in reviving the old style of comedy. While it's true that the most pungently satirical and slapstick sequences of Hui are nowhere to be found here, what you can savour is how the spirit of the comedy gets transfered into the at times absurdist dialogue. Armed with the benefit of the modern HK film industry, Law and Fung manage to not just recreate Hui's comedy and sociological imagination, but also turn out a slicker production that will no doubt be more suited to the tastes of modern audiences.

Now, don't get the impression that Hooked on you is any lesser for its romantic comedy angle, which covers about a third of the runtime and plot. What I like about the director and writer is that having developed such a homage to Hui, they aren't going to sell out at all by inserting a fluffy and stupid romantic comedy involving impossibly cute leads falling in love in the most improbable manner through the most impossible coincidences. You'd be far better off watching something else if you had that in mind, but if you had any curiosity about how Michael Hui might have incorporated a romantic theme and premise ("A woman slowly turning 30, still in search of a mate") into his social comedies without compromising his satirical vision, Hooked on you would be a good movie to watch.

On the whole, Hooked on you is highly recommended for fans of 1970-1980s social comedies directed by Li Han-hsiang and Michael Hui.

First published at incinemas on 28 June 2007

Death Proof (2007)

Even Kurt Russell had to take a smoke break from Tarantino's yakking

Due to an interesting decision made by The Weinstein Company, the Quentin Tarrantino-Robert Rodriguez doublebill feature Grindhouse will split be split into two separate films for its international (non-US/Canada) release. You might complain about paying twice to see what people a continent away paid once to watch, or about waiting 2 months between Death Proof (coming June) and Planet Terror (coming August) while people a continent away merely had to wait for the intermission to watch Planet Terror. Also, don't try to remind me about how all the brilliant fake trailers (Machete, Hobo with a Gun, Werewolf Women of the SS, Don't, and Thanksgiving) that helped sustain and develop the directors' idea of making a parody of bad 1970s grindhouse cinema are missing from the release. But look on the bright side - the international release of Death Proof is 30 minutes longer than its Grindhouse version!

The Grindhouse project functions as a parody and homage to exploitation movies of the 1970s, with their lurid gore, kungfu, and sexploitation antics, and Death Proof is Quentin Tarantino's take at recreating and mashing up two of its genres: the slasher flick and the revenge film. Here, Kurt Russell is cast as a charismatic, sex-on-legs stuntman "Stuntman" Mike, who has an unfortunate obsession with killing girls with his "death proof" stunt car. In any collision, the stuntman drives away mostly unscathed while the victims are literally all smashed up in their wreckage. So, for the first half, Death Proof is the slasher film that introduces us to the modus operandi of the killer, and his first set of victims, who in good old sexploitation tradition, are a posse of drugged out, trash-talking girlfriends looking for a little fun, and its second half has a different set of victims metaphorically taking bloody, chopsocky revenge on Stuntman Mike, on behalf of dead girls.

The point about Death Proof, isn't really about the story, but about the recreation of a genre, its look, and hopefully an evocation of the sense of guilty pleasure a bygone generation had in the 70s, watching such "bad movies" in cinemas. On that note, Death Proof can be said to be somewhat of a success, as Tarantino finds ludicrous (i.e. authentically grindhouse) ways to insert all sorts of mainstays of the grindhouse movie experience, like the meaningless to the plot but still so provocative lapdance, the in your face blood and gore, the inexplicable loss of colour halfway in the film, and so on. And on the same note, Death Note has its minor failings as well, when Tarantino forgets that grindhouse films were never about endless self-referential, meta-movie trash-talking, and gives us far more than is necessary, to the point of boredom, of characters going on and on with their hip trash-talking.

I am given to understand that in the shorter Grindhouse doublebill version of Death Proof, much of the overlong dialogue and meaningless sequence were cut out - that seemed to be the right decision to take, actually, given how the pacing just felt off for a quarter of this movie. Thankfully though, Tarantino does deliver the money shots by the end of the movie, and if you're a true fan of grindhouse cinema, it would be more than enough to redeem him. For others, perhaps the thrill of sitting through a deliberately cheesy movie experience would be worth the price of admission. And yet others will probably be satisfied at how well Tarantino has mostly adhere to the form of the grindhouse pic. For me, Death Proof has my attention set on the Grindhouse concept, and looking forward with interest to Planet Terror.

First published at incinemas on 21 June 2007

C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)

Dad may be crazy about Patsy Kline, but Ziggy Stardust has my heart

There’s something creepy about Zachary Beaulieu. The child fidgets and looks anguished during the Christmas midnight service, and his hand keeps touching the back of his head, where there’s a certain birthmark on his scalp. There’s obviously something annoying him to the extent that he practically gives the camera the evil eye. Zac’s born on Christmas Day, 1960, and you begin to wonder if you’re watching the remake of The Omen. Hastily, you check if you’ve stepped into the wrong cinema hall.

Relax, you’re watching C.R.A.Z.Y., one of the best films from Canada this decade. It’s about the pain and confusion of growing up, the joy and madness of family life, the love-hate relationship between siblings, between parents and their children. It’s about being special – Quebecois, Roman Catholic, and having the best and coolest father in the world. The film is suffused with touches of Quebecois old wives’ tales and beliefs and an honest, reverent religiosity that makes it much more than Growing Up meets The Wonder Years meets The 70s Show. In other words, it’s a film on universal themes, yet unique to its corner of the world.

Like every child, young Zac hero worships his macho father Gervais, who fired a machine gun in WW2, wears aviator shades, and as befitting an audiophile, has the complete collection of vinyl records from Patsy Cline, Charles Aznavour and other great classic singers. Thanks to his unique birthmark and birth date, the family believes Zac is gifted with a talent for healing wounds. Gervais takes his favourite son on secret car trips to get French fries, buys him the biggest Christmas/birthday presents of the siblings, and for a while, the pair are the best buddies in the world.

But children do grow up, and they eventually do something to disappoint their parents’ hopes in them. In Zac’s case, it is his “softness” and inability to be masculine enough for his father. Will the love between father and son be strong enough to bring them together again? Does Zac love his father enough to do everything possible to regain his favour, and not end up as a “fairy”? Does Gervais love his son enough to accept that all his sons are different from one another, to accept Zac as much as he accepts the drugged out second son Raymond as his own? Can mum Doris, who shares a special bond with her son, convince her husband to accept Zac’s uniqueness?

Families, I was once told by a cynic, are the only institutions in civilised society where people are legally allowed to be mean or even violent to one another. This film proposes that families are both a source of joy and pain – and that you can never extricate one from the other. Gervais may be a strict disciplinarian, but he’s still charismatic, charming and has a sense of cool. Raymond may be Zac’s greatest tormentor and nemesis, but it’s impossible for anyone to maintain their ill feelings for their most hated sibling for long. This film, then, is a love letter to families everywhere, whether they rock or suck, and precisely because they rock and suck at the same time.

Script-wise, the film is equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, terrifying and witty. It’s extremely well-written and so tight-knit that I couldn’t find any unnecessary scenes. The movie is filled with gorgeous music from the 1950s to the 1980s, from Patsy Cline to David Bowie, from Elvis Presley to The Rolling Stones. Like guardian angels, the film soundtrack watch over the growth of the five Beaulieu brothers and their parents through a most difficult transition in Quebecois society, the misnamed Quiet Revolution.

Visually, the composition of the film is top notch. The sunlight falls on faces just so, the camera closes up and dances a slow mambo with the characters, seque. Director Jean-Marc Vallee, armed with a delirious sensibility, provides us with several wickedly funny and imaginative scenes that despite being way off-the-wall, actually work emotionally (One of them is the infamous melding of Sympathy for the Devil and the Christmas mass).

C.R.A.Z.Y. is a film that you might just want to watch more than once, if just to figure out how on earth its creators managed to produce a masterpiece from a rather mainstream subject.

First published at incinemas on 15 June 2006