HK Cinema at SFFS: Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

It must be a sign of the zeitgeist when HK action auteur Johnnie To and his frequent collaborator Wai Ka-fai set their latest film in the world of high finance in a deliberate attempt to appeal to Mainland audiences. What would Madame Mao say? Yet, their love triangle rom-dramedy is the sort of material that has appealed to average movie patrons for generations. Still, they do instill Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (trailer here) with enough in-the-now to make it quite a fitting and appropriate way to close the San Francisco Film Society’s first class Hong Kong Cinema series this coming Sunday.

Chang Zixin is smart enough to predict the recent global “hard correction,” but she is not so shrewd in love. Yet in a promising development, she has been flirting with the Cheung Shen-ran, whose fat corner office can be seen from her bullpen station. As will happen in rom-coms, he inadvertently asks both her and the hottie in the office below her out for coffee at the same time. In a moment of weakness, he chooses the one with the larger endowments and lives to regret it.

Cheung is not the only one interested in Chang. Fate also brought her together with Fang Qi-hong, a spiritually down-and-out architect, more interested in boozing than building. He gave her a little confidence after last break-up and she gave him her ex’s pet frog. She also inspired him to clean up his act and fall in love with her. Not so suddenly, the bottom falls out of the market, taking Cheung down with it. Three years later, he returns to the game as Chang’s new boss. Across the way, Fang’s new architectural firm has taken over Cheung old office space. Let the rivalry begin.

Despite the disruption of the financial bubble, Heart is not really about the sort-of-great crash. It is however, very definitely preoccupied with the near-misses and hyper-connected loneliness of contemporary urban professionals. For its three principals, the mere act of making a connection must be significant, because it is so unlikely.

Yet, if it all sounds dour and serious, rest assured To and Wai keep the tone largely towards the lighter side. They also have the benefit of three ridiculously attractive primary cast members, as well as To regular Suet Lam as an office manager very much in the Ricky Gervais tradition. However, Gao Yaunyuan’s Chang is so radiantly cute, it is hard to understand how the heck Cheung keeps blowing it with her. Not just a HK Bridget Jones, she is actually a smart, self-aware fully-dimensional woman.

Frankly, the degree to which To and Wai stack the deck in favor of Fang eventually becomes a tad ridiculous. The comfortable old-shoe charisma Daniel Wu projects as Fang further exaggerates the disparity between her suitors. While he might be rich, it is hard to fathom how Louis Ko’s preening smugness as Cheung could be appealing to anyone. Still, Chang’s investment of time and emotional commitment is understandably difficult to walk away from.

Considering how unbalanced it is, Heart ought to be termed an isosceles love triangle. Yet, somehow To, Wai, Gao, and basic human nature maintain a sense of uncertainty as to whom she will ultimately choose. That is saying something for this genre. Stylish executed (even with the 1980’s-ish pop and smooth jazz soundtrack), Heart even features an enormous CGI-skyscraper, rising as triumphant testimony to the power of love. Lehman Brothers references notwithstanding, it is essentially a old school movie romance and a rather satisfying one at that. Though doubtlessly a disappointment for most To fans, Heart will be a pleasant conclusion to the Hong Kong Cinema series this coming Sunday (9/25) at the New People Cinema in San Francisco.

HK at SFFS: Echoes of the Rainbow

Fifty years ago, there were still quiet family neighborhoods in Hong Kong, where everyone knew everyone’s business. Writer-director Alex Law pays tribute to this innocent world of his youth gone by in the unabashedly sentimental Echoes of the Rainbow (trailer here), Hong Kong’s recent official submission for best foreign language Oscar consideration, which screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s Hong Kong Cinema showcase.

Shot on-location around historic Wing Lee Street, Rainbow saved that last remnant of “old” (meaning 1960’s era) Hong Kong from redevelopment after his partly autobiographical feature won the 2010 Berlin Film Festival’s Crystal Bear in the children’s division. Run down but respectable, it is a neighborhood where a cobbler’s family might live. Times are difficult, but the Law Family sacrifices for the sake of older brother Desmond’s education. A star in the classroom and on the track field, all their hopes rest in him.

As for the slightly klepto younger brother, not so much, but “Big Ears” has his own dreams of becoming an astronaut. This explains the fishbowl he often wears around town like a space-helmet. In fact, fish factor prominently in Rainbow. Desmond fights and bonds with his younger brother over the fish they keep. Fish also play a role in the older Law’s tentative courtship of the ridiculously cute Flora. Unfortunately, just about every imaginable tear-jerking complication will thwart their budding romance.

There is absolutely no irony in Rainbow—zero, none. Instead, it wears its heart on its sleeve, which is completely endearing. Buzz Chung is a legitimately charismatic young actor, who handles Big Ears’ heavy dramatic moments quite convincingly. Whereas the photogenic Aarif Rahman and Evelyn Choi should also well satisfy tweener fans of sappy CW/WB youth soaps.

However, Simon Lam provides the real heart of the film as Mr. Law. His initial appearance is deceptively simple, a grunting man hunched over his workbench. Slowly but surely, Lam expresses with exquisite nuance all the dignity, humility, and desperation of a father who only wants a better life for his sons. It is also rewarding for American audiences to watch Lam in such a departure from his frequent gangster roles in Johnnie To movies (even though those are profoundly cool). Known more for comedic turns, Sandra Oh does a bit of fast-talking as Mrs. Law, but develops some genuinely touching chemistry with Lam. Together, they are simply devastating in late scenes, as they struggle to save their son.

Shot with gauzy sensitivity by cinematographer Charlie Lam, every aspect of Rainbow aches with wistful nostalgia. While it might sound melodramatic at times, the film’s honesty and sweetness cannot be denied. Though probably too tragic for small children, many parents and pre-teens should find it an engaging respite from the jaded cynicism of Hollywood. Yet another official foreign language Oscar submission that is considerably better than this year’s winner, Rainbow screens Saturday (9/25) at the New Peoples Cinema as part of SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema series.

HK Cinema at SFFS: Punished

Wong Ho-chiu is the sort of tycoon who has an ex-con on staff, just in case things need taking care. Indeed, they will. The iron-willed developer is not the sort of man you want to make an enemy of. Yet a small band of kidnappers does exactly that in Law Wing-cheong’s Punished (trailer here), which screens Saturday night as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s Hong Kong Cinema series.

The hard partying Daisy Wong expects her father to fund her dissolute lifestyle, despite her frequent tantrums. Wong is not inclined to indulge her, but his younger second wife and bodyguard-slash-whatever Chor do their best to cool his temper. When she is abducted, he half-suspects she is complicit in the crime. Alas, not so. After things go profoundly badly, the distraught Wong turns to Chor to provide him a measure of justice, revenge, or closure. For Wong, they are all more or less the same thing.

Produced by HK action auteur Johnnie To, Punished is quite restrained compared to his thematically related Vengeance. Indeed, Punished is more in the tradition of the moody, psychologically tormented first Death Wish film, rather than the body count-generating sequels that followed. Still, Chor has a job to do and he is the man to do it.

To regular (including in the aforementioned Vengeance) Anthony Wong is about the flintiest, steeliest older cat appearing in film today. He makes Tommy Lee Jones look like a weak-kneed old softy. While as hardnosed as ever, Wong (as Wong) forcefully conveys the father’s grief, guilt, and existential self-doubt, shockingly so, in fact. Likewise, Richie Ren (another To regular) is quite compelling and grounded as the avenging everyman anti-hero, Chor. Law and screenwriter Chi Keung-fung wisely hint at his checkered past and strained personal relationships instead of spelling out his back-story in painful detail. When the game is on though, he is all business. In the solid supporting ensemble, Maggie Cheung Ho-yee (the other one) also makes a strong impression as Wong’s smart, sophisticated pseudo-trophy wife.

While Ren administers some serious beatdowns, Punished is really a dark morality play about the ultimate costs of retribution. It might end on a nakedly manipulative note, but Wong and Ren totally sell it, nonetheless. A raw, muscular film, Punished is definitely one of the highlights of the SFFS’s HK series. Highly recommended, it screens Saturday night (9/24) at the New Peoples Cinema.

HK Cinema at SFFS: City Under Siege

Prepare to watch the themes and motifs of the Marvel superhero universe get put through a HK action blender. As the Marvel editors used to say in the 1980’s: ‘nuff said. Produced before his recent epic Shaolin as well as the 3-D blockbuster Captain America (that it parallels in unlikely ways), Benny Chan’s clobbering City Under Siege (down-to-business trailer here), screens this Saturday as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s Hong Kong Cinema series.

In a secret bunker in Malaysia, the Imperial Japanese military was perfecting their super-soldier formula. The results were not pretty to look at, but undeniably effective. Fortunately, an allied bombing raid halted the program in its tracks. In more or less present day, Twin-Dagger Sunny is a terrible circus performer, stuck playing the sad clown because nobody trusts him throwing knives. A bit Gumpish, Sunny is forced to help some of his less savory circus colleagues looking to plunder gold from the secret Japanese bunker. Of course, the knuckleheads accidentally let loose a major dose of the mutant soldier formula.

Yet, for reasons never coherently explained, the chemical compounds do not affect Sunny in the same manner as the others. Washing up on the Hong Kong shore (through a set of circumstances borrowing heavily from Dracula), Twin-Dagger finds himself in the Klump fat suit, but once he dries out he resumes his normal skin-and-bones body weight. Somewhat relieved, he happily stumbles across Angel Chan, the gorgeous newscaster who captures his improvised super-heroics on film.

Suffering from the criminal mayhem of Sunny’s freaky-looking fellow mutants, Hong Kong needs a hero. Seizing the opportunity, Chan becomes his agent, putting the affable Sunny on a full media tour (Steve Rogers, can you relate?). They also have the dubious protection of permanently engaged Men-in-Black, Sun “Old Man” Hao and Cheng “Tai” Xiuhua, who are using him as bait to draw in the marauding mutants. Right, good plan.

It is important to understand Aaron Kwok is a huge pop star in Hong Kong, because his underwhelming screen presence does not help Siege anymore than it did Christina Yao’s otherwise striking Empire of Silver. Still, Siege’s all-star ensemble and Benny Chan’s razzle dazzle largely compensate for the weak protagonist.

Frankly, martial arts up-and-comer Wu Jing almost usurps Kwok’s Twin-Dagger, capably carrying the film as Agent “Old Man,” while the charismatic Jingchu Zhang holds her own kicking butt as his intended. Their weaponized acupuncture is also a cool twist, neatly choreographed by action directors Ma Yuk-sing and Li Chung-chi. With Shu Qi looking radiant enough to convincingly inspire the monstrous chief mutant’s beauty-and-the-beast affections and enough pyrotechnics to level a mid-sized city, Siege pretty much hits all the bases.

Sure, Siege can be a touch melodramatic and over-the-top. It is a HK genre film. Viewers have to check their film snobbery and the door and get down with the chaos. There is definitely a lot of the latter, rendered with appropriate adrenaline. It also suggests the action pairing of Wu Jing and Jingchu Zhang is worth repeating in future films. Highly entertaining for fanboys, Siege screens Saturday afternoon (9/24) and Sunday evening (9/25) at the New Peoples Cinema as part of SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema showcase.

HK Cinema at SFFS: Mr. and Mrs. Incredible

They are Imperial China’s answer to Brangelina and Pixar’s Incredibles. They were legit crime-fighting superheroes, but Gazer Warrior and Aroma Warrior fell in love, retiring incognito to a remote provincial village. Yet, like ex-football quarterbacks, they get pulled back into the game in Vincent Kok’s Mr. and Mrs. Incredible (wacky trailer here), which screens this coming Friday when the San Francisco Film Society’s upcoming Hong Kong Cinema series inaugurates their new residency at the New Peoples Cinema.

Now known as Flint, the head of the guard for their sleepy village, Gazer can still fire off his laser eye-beams. Aroma, the former avenger of domestic abuse, is now a happy wife and greasy spoon proprietor called Rouge. She wields the aroma force-palm and the power to cloud men’s minds with scent. They both are also strong, fast, and well neigh invulnerable. They did not even fight much, until an official delegation came to town.

Something is not right about the competition, ostensibly called to re-rank the various martial arts disciplines away from the gossipy imperial court. However, the HK Incredibles are distracted by their first marital squabble. Rouge slightly resents the attention Flint is paying to Phoenix Bleu, one of the martial arts apprentices, who once had a close encounter with the masked Gazer as a little girl. She is drawn to Flint because he reminds her of her hero, for good reason.

The humor of Incredible is decidedly goof-ball, but by-and-large, it is an amiable tribute to marital love, honor, and commitment. While the slightly suggestive references are not infrequent, they are veiled enough to be lost on the target audience for the slapstick mayhem. In fact, it is somewhat similar in tone to Stephen Chow’s films, like CJ7, which Kok co-wrote and featured his Incredible co-writer, Min Hun-fung in a supporting role. It even has the occasional animatronic critter to strengthen the comparison.

Louis Koo and Sandra Ng Kwun-yu are pleasantly comfortable as the super spouses, developing some nice easy chemistry together. Li Qin is quite charming as Phoenix Bleu, but unfortunately, Kok completely forgets about her throughout the third act. Wang Bo-chieh has the right creepy vibe, but he is a bit too reserved as the villainous Grandmaster Blanc. He should be gorging on the scenery in a film like this. However, there are plenty of odd looking characters in the supporting cast to help maintain the comic book atmosphere.

Wisely, Kok never indulges in any frenetic shaky cam excesses, keeping the action clear and easy to follow. Incredible also has some surprisingly striking imagery, including a cool motion comic-style opening credit sequence and an artful rendering of some shadow puppetry. There are nose-picking gags too. Safe and silly, but likable enough for those in a like mood, Incredible screens Friday night (9/23) and Sunday afternoon (9/25) at the New People Cinema as part of the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema series.