SFFS HK Cinema ’12: Romancing in Thin Air

Is it the altitude sickness making Michael Lau nauseous or is it love?  Whichever, the binge drinking is not helping much.  Nevertheless, the heartbroken superstar might pull himself together and find real love with the help of a former fan.  Action auteur Johnnie To takes another Mainland pleasing foray into relationship drama territory with Romancing in Thin Air (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s crowd-pleasing second annual Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Michael Lau is coincidentally a lot like Louis Koo, the actor who plays him.  Both are popular HK romantic leads with a background in music.  Lau is going through a rough patch though.  He was to marry his co-star in an ultra-glitzy ceremony, only to be very publicly dumped at the altar.  Lau takes refuge in the bottle—hard.  Stowing away in Sue’s vintage army truck, Lau finds himself at her rustic mountain lodge, way above sea level and sick as a dog.

Sue is a widow who will not allow herself to mourn.  One night her sensitive mountain man husband went out into the forest in search of a lost child, but never returned.  Yet, Sue keeps the lodge exactly as he left it in the unrealistic hope will eventually walk through the front door.  Of course, these two broken hearts are perfect for each other, but they will have to learn that the hard way.

Johhnie To can kick it in any genre, but his previous rom-com (heavier on the rom), Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (which screened at the SFFS’s HK fest last year), travels better.  Frankly, it is hard to believe some of the things Lau does to win over/back Sue do not have the opposite effect.  However, the first two acts put a nice twist on the Notting Hill concept, establishing Sue as former Michael Lau fan club member and revealing the role the idol’s career played in her courtship with the missing Tian.

Having already proved to be a successful box-office pairing, Koo and Sammi Cheng indeed have some nice chemistry together.  Conversely, the supporting characters do not have a lot of meat to them, seemingly existing just to bring the two together.  That includes Li Guangjie’s impossibly taciturn Tian.

Clearly, both To and cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung love the mountain backdrop, luxuriating in its harsh snowcapped beauty.  Guy Zerafa’s lyrical piano score was probably supposed to be syrupier, but is actually quite elegant and evocative.  Despite some over-the-top elements here or there, Thin takes its central relationship seriously, which is endearing.  It is also an example of a genuine leading man turn from Koo, yet he is also obviously and deliberately having some fun with his own image.  Recommended for sentimental romantics, Romancing in This Air screens this Sunday (9/23) as the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema Festival continues at the New People Cinema.

Ann Hui’s understated but emotionally powerful A Simple Life also screens earlier that same day (9/23).  Based on a true story, it follows a decent but hardly heroic movie producer as he tries his best to look after his family’s elderly servant after she suffers a stroke.  An actors’ showcase for Andy Lau and Deanie Ip, it is a tearjerker with too much self-respect to jerk tears.  Highly recommended, a full review can be found here.

SFFS HK Cinema ’12: Nightfall

George Lam is like the Kurt Wallander of the Hong Kong police force.  At least, this inspector has good reason for being moody.  Still grieving his wife’s unexplained suicide, Lam will tackle a deeply disturbing case in Roy Chow Hin Yeung’s Nightfall (trailer here), which screens on the opening night of the San Francisco Film Society’s eagerly anticipated second annual Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Eugene Wang has just been released from prison.  Convicted for the murder of a famous opera singer’s teenage daughter, he had to drastically harden himself to survive his sentence.  When said opera singer, Han Tsui, is discovered brutally beaten to death, suspicion naturally falls on Wang.  It is pretty clear though Tsui’s death is no great tragedy for his younger daughter, Zoe, who has grown to become the spitting image of Eva, the older sister she never knew she had.

Of course, Lam is the best and worst detective for a case like this.  A habitual scab-picker, he cannot help delving into the darker corners of the human psyche.  If you consider passing out dead drunk in the middle of the afternoon hard-boiled, than he is amongst the hardest boiled.  He is not much of a father though, nor is he a good candidate for romance.  Yet, his younger cuter partner Ying Au-yeung still has eyes for him, probably because he is played by Simon Yam.

Basically, Nighfall is a contest between Yam and Nick Cheung to see who can be more intensely wound up.  Cheung’s Wang probably wins that one, but Yam also brings an appealingly rumpled charisma to the party.  As a mystery, Christine To Chi-long’s script telegraphs every revelation well in advance, but it is a dynamic showcase for the antagonists, eventually going Mano-a-mano on a sky-gondola to Lantau.

Yam versus Cheung is definitely the main event here, but there are some fine contributions from the big name supporting cast.  Cantopop superstar Kay Tse is an energetic and realistically grounded presence as Ying, whereas the Shaw Brothers veteran Gordon Liu adds even more grizzle as an old corrupt copper.  Janice Man looks exquisitely ethereal as Zoe and Eva, but she never has much to express besides vulnerability. However, Michael Wong’s turn as the late Tsui is in a category by itself, beyond over-the-top.

Cinematographer Ardy Lam has a knack for shooting scenes at great heights while maintaining the noir vibe.  Frankly, the film might actually peak with the first scene—an adrenaline charged throwdown in a prison shower room, but Yam is always compulsively watchable and especially so here.  In fact, one can easily see his George Lam becoming a franchise character.  Very satisfying for fans of HK movies, Nightfall screens this Friday (9/21) at the New Peoples Cinema in San Francisco as part of the opening night of their 2012 Hong Kong Cinema Festival. 

Also screening Friday night is Pang Ho-cheung’s Love in the Buff, a well written look at the pitfalls of romance with a highly attractive cast and an appealingly swinging soundtrack.  Recommended for movie-goers looking for something smart but not too heavy, it also screens Sunday (9/23).  See the full review here.