NYAFF ’18: The Empty Hands

Typically, practicing karate will get your butt kicked in a Hong Kong movie. That is because it is Japanese. Japanese-Hong Konger Mari Hirakawa is keenly aware of that fact. Hong Kong has been her only home, yet she remains highly insecure about her otherness. It is one reason why she rebelled against the karate her sensei father forced her to study, but miscommunication and family dysfunction were even greater factors. After his passing, Hirakawa finally confronts his legacy in Chapman To’s The Empty Hands (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Since two-thirds of their Hong Kong flat were devoted to her father’s dojo, Hirakawa has always been forced to live with karate. HK real estate being what it is, she continued to live there as an adult, despite her resentment of her father. Things got particularly frosty when he made it clear he did not approve of her relationship with a married DJ. Then he died. It was not Hirakawa who found her father, but his loyal student and junior instructor, Mute Dog (so-called, because he is mute).

Hirakawa does indeed inherit the flat, but she does not have free and clear possession of the title. Much to her surprise, the sensei left a 51% share to his former protégé Chan Kent, an ex-con recently released from jail. When he takes over the dojo, the neighborhood kids start flocking back. However, he offers her a deal. If she can make it through three rounds of a local tournament without quitting or getting knocked out, he will sign his stake in the flat over to her.

Unlike Unbeatable, Empty Hands is sort of an anti-Rocky movie the subverts all the big match clichés. Even in The Karate Kid, there were bright lights and large crowds of spectators for the climatic fight scenes, but Hirakawa’s tournament takes place in what looks like a converted office building, with only her bestie Peggy and a bored old lady for an audience.

Previously known for rom-coms, Stephy Tang pulled a Matthew McConaughey with Empty Hands, winning awards and redefining herself as a thesp (she is also receiving the NYAFF’s Screen International Rising Star Asia Award this year). It is an honest and brittle performance that completely disregards any concern for cuteness or likability. Frankly, it is often frustrating to watch her self-destructive, self-pitying behavior, but she Tang gives it an element of existential defiance that is quite striking.

Even though Chapman To’s big breakout came in the Infernal Affairs films, he has mostly been doing light comedy in recent years, so it is refreshing to see him play it straight and understated as Chan Kent. Once again, Dada Chan brings a touching sweetness to Peggy, who would be a real throwaway character if she were played by anyone else. However, the real unsung hero is journeyman character actor Stephen Au, who is quite memorable as Mute Dog, in ways both gritty and poignant.

Someone ought to program The Empty Hands with Vimal Vaz’s HK-set Jade Dragon, because they both explore martial arts as a means of empowerment. The tow films also incorporate themes of responsibility and inheritance. To’s feature is even less genre-driven and possibly too ambiguous for many of his fans, but the star of Vulgaria definitely announces himself as a director of surprising sensitivity. Recommended for mature martial arts enthusiasts, The Empty Hands screens Friday evening (7/6) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

Pang Ho-cheung’s Vulgaria

How are producers different from the world’s oldest profession?  There is nothing the former won’t do for money.  Don’t believe it?  Well, watch as the producer-protagonist explains it all to his film school audience in Pang Ho-cheung’s Vulgaria (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

To Wai-cheung is a second rate producer of C-grade sexploitation films.  He owes Lawyer Tsang, his sharkish ex-wife, scads of alimony and takes the blame for all his little girl’s troubles in school.  Nothing is going right with his life.  Nonetheless, he keeps cobbling together dubious film projects.  After his latest pitch crashes and burns, he takes a dinner meeting with Brother T-Rex, a Guangzhou gangster with outrageous kinks (that mule is on the poster for a reason).  Against his better judgment, To agrees to produce a comeback vehicle for Tyrannosaur’s old crush, 1960’s Hong Kong sex symbol Susan Shaw (appearing as herself).

Of course, the last thing the down to earth Shaw wants to do in her sunset years is make a nudie movie.  No problem, To will just CGI her head onto ambitious sexpot Tsui Ka-yan’s curvy body.  Known as Popping Candy for reasons we can’t explain on a family website (well, sort of), Tsui turns out to have more substance than To gave her credit for.  However, he might have completely sold out his soul and his dignity to stay in the producing game.  Yet, if he can dredge up the repressed memories, he will confess them all to the film studies class he is addressing in the film’s flashback narrative device.

A real change of pace from Pang’s relationship dramedies like the misleadingly titled Love in the Buff, Vulgaria (rather aptly titled) follows more in the tradition of The Player and other satiric treatments of the movie-making process.  While never showing anything really graphic per se, Pang goes for broke embracing the film’s outrageous jokes (again, you saw that mule, right?).  Yet, the comedy works more often than not, traveling quite well from Hong Kong to America.

Pang regular Chapman To easily fits into the role of his namesake and the embarrassing situations that go with it.  Never too cringy, he portrays producer To in that Larry David-George Costanza zone, where the sad sack and the roguishness intersect.  As Tsui, Dada Chan is quite the discovery, exhibiting a sweetly endearing presence, but with plenty of va-va-voom.  Young Jacqueline Chan also gives the film some genuine heart as To’s forgiving daughter, also named Jacqueline. While many in the supporting cast play it way over the top, the material sort of lends itself to that approach.

Vulgaria is a lot like original The Producers-era Mel Brooks transplanted to the internet age, infectiously delighting in its political incorrectness.  It is a lot of laughs, but not for anyone who gets hung up on a naughty joke or the occasional mistreatment of animals.  Consistently funnier than the intermittent Klown, Vulgaria is recommended for those who appreciate the boldness (especially by HK standards) of its gags when it opens this Friday (9/28) in New York at the AMC Empire and in San Francisco at the AMC Metreon, courtesy of China Lion Entertainment.