Second and final part of Ann Hui's Tin Shu Wai series, after the rather different “The Way We Are”, “Night and Fog” focuses on a murder suicide in the area in 2004, involving a mainland immigrant, her Hong Kong husband, and their two children. Hui researched the actual event thoroughly, having multiple interviews with survivors of the real-life tragedy, and some of the film's locations are the actual ones.
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Wong Hiu-Ling is a mainland immigrant from Sichuan, who lives with her older husband Lee Sum, and their two daughters, in an apartment in Hong Kong. However, they face financial issues, since Sum lives off government benefits, which is why the woman decides to take a job as a waitress at a local diner, something that enrages her husband however. His toxic personality is revealed quite early in that regard,...
Follow our Ann Hui Project by clicking on the image below
Wong Hiu-Ling is a mainland immigrant from Sichuan, who lives with her older husband Lee Sum, and their two daughters, in an apartment in Hong Kong. However, they face financial issues, since Sum lives off government benefits, which is why the woman decides to take a job as a waitress at a local diner, something that enrages her husband however. His toxic personality is revealed quite early in that regard,...
- 2/18/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Based on a true story, “All About Love” signaled an effort by Ann Hui to focus on the issues bisexuals face in Hong Kong (at the time) through an approach, though, that is quite commercial as the movie unfolds as an ensemble romantic comedy/drama.
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Macy is a bisexual solicitor, who is even being shamed by her lesbian friends for her changes in the sex of her partners, while also being pregnant as the storu begins. Soon, she stumbles upon old flame Anita at a pregnancy seminar, with her being in the exact same situation (pregnant and bisexual). The two start bonding again as they narrate to each other how they came to be with child, and soon they rekindle their relationship. What they are doing with their upcoming babies, however, as much as the presence of the “donors...
Follow the Ann Hui Project by clicking on the image below
Macy is a bisexual solicitor, who is even being shamed by her lesbian friends for her changes in the sex of her partners, while also being pregnant as the storu begins. Soon, she stumbles upon old flame Anita at a pregnancy seminar, with her being in the exact same situation (pregnant and bisexual). The two start bonding again as they narrate to each other how they came to be with child, and soon they rekindle their relationship. What they are doing with their upcoming babies, however, as much as the presence of the “donors...
- 2/18/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
In “Amphetamine”, Scud's most visually polished drama about a toxic and intoxicated love between a young Australian financial executive Daniel (Thomas Price) and a straight Hong Kong jack of all trades Kafka (Byron Pang), hope is the only thing permanently absent.
Amphetamine is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
The melancholic Kafka is caught between working three jobs to help provide for his sick mother and a not so functional relationship with his girlfriend, who is struggling to understand his broken psyche. When she decides to break off in broad daylight in a posh bar, the boy with the sword has already caught Daniel's eye. Just to make sure we'll understand this instant crush, Scud shows us Kafka's beauty from all sides. Right at the beginning of the film, we observe him giving swimming lessons and being pestered by an elderly man who tells him “he has a body like Michelangelo's”. Soon after,...
Amphetamine is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
The melancholic Kafka is caught between working three jobs to help provide for his sick mother and a not so functional relationship with his girlfriend, who is struggling to understand his broken psyche. When she decides to break off in broad daylight in a posh bar, the boy with the sword has already caught Daniel's eye. Just to make sure we'll understand this instant crush, Scud shows us Kafka's beauty from all sides. Right at the beginning of the film, we observe him giving swimming lessons and being pestered by an elderly man who tells him “he has a body like Michelangelo's”. Soon after,...
- 2/2/2024
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
In a style very close to the one of documentaries, Ann Hui takes a look at life in Tin Shui Wai, an area in the New Territories which was built in the 80s for the poorest Hong Kong inhabitants, and soon became a ghetto, filled with stories of crime, violence and tragedy in general. The tabloids picked up quickly and the area was frequently present in the news, which referred to it as “city of sadness”, focusing on all the “sad” events that took place there. Hui, on the other hand, chooses to show a more “normal” side of the area.
“The Way We Are” screened at Five Flavours
Cheung is a middle-aged widow, who works in a supermarket in order to support herself and her son Ka-on, who is spending his time doing nothing, just expecting the results of his exams. Cheung soon befriends Ms Kwai, an older woman...
“The Way We Are” screened at Five Flavours
Cheung is a middle-aged widow, who works in a supermarket in order to support herself and her son Ka-on, who is spending his time doing nothing, just expecting the results of his exams. Cheung soon befriends Ms Kwai, an older woman...
- 9/15/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Love is an eternal quest. The mind does not care of the body when it searches love. The feeling of love is more dominant than the passion of love and that’s where the film transcends into a classic love story.” “Eternal Summer” is one of the most classically made love stories I have watched in recent times, where the scent of love prevails over the sexuality.
“Eternal Summer” screened at the New York Asian Film Festival
The narrative revolves around three friends: Jonathan (Bryant Chang), Shane (Joseph Chang) and Carrie (Kate Yeung) and their relationships and sexual orientations. Jonathan and Shane are childhood friends and slowly, with time, Jonathan evolves a feeling of love for Shane, which turns out to be an emotional attraction, difficult for Jonathan to ignore. Here enters Carrie, a girl from Hong Kong, who is attracted to Jonathan. Both of them enjoy a date in...
“Eternal Summer” screened at the New York Asian Film Festival
The narrative revolves around three friends: Jonathan (Bryant Chang), Shane (Joseph Chang) and Carrie (Kate Yeung) and their relationships and sexual orientations. Jonathan and Shane are childhood friends and slowly, with time, Jonathan evolves a feeling of love for Shane, which turns out to be an emotional attraction, difficult for Jonathan to ignore. Here enters Carrie, a girl from Hong Kong, who is attracted to Jonathan. Both of them enjoy a date in...
- 8/24/2019
- by Sankha Ray
- AsianMoviePulse
The concept of memory and its connection to reality is a theme that has produced cinematic masterpieces, with Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” being one of the most prominent sample. Taiwanese director Leste Chen tackles this theme by adding scifi and crime thriller elements.
“Aroused by Gymnopedies” will screen at the New York Asian Film Festival, that will be on June 30 to July 16
The story takes place in 2025, when the erasing of undesired memories and feelings has become a trend. Jiang Feng is an author on the verge of divorcing his wife, Zhang Daichen.. In order to leave the painful memories of their marriage behind, he decides to erase them. After the procedure, he is given a device that can reinstate his memories, if he ever regrets his decision. However, the technology of the memory-erase dictates that in the case of reinstating, one has 72 hours to decide whether he will keep or erase his memories permanently.
“Aroused by Gymnopedies” will screen at the New York Asian Film Festival, that will be on June 30 to July 16
The story takes place in 2025, when the erasing of undesired memories and feelings has become a trend. Jiang Feng is an author on the verge of divorcing his wife, Zhang Daichen.. In order to leave the painful memories of their marriage behind, he decides to erase them. After the procedure, he is given a device that can reinstate his memories, if he ever regrets his decision. However, the technology of the memory-erase dictates that in the case of reinstating, one has 72 hours to decide whether he will keep or erase his memories permanently.
- 6/29/2017
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Screened at the Berlin International Film Festival
BERLIN -- "Isabelle" has a gentle, melancholy spirit as two characters look to the future while haunted by the past. During the chaotic, crime-ridden months before Portugal handed Macau back to China in 1999, a rogue cop named Shing (Chapman To), already under suspicion of corruption, brings home an underage hooker picked up in a sleazy bar. Then the girl, Yan (Isabella Leong), hits him with a huge whammy: She claims to be his daughter by a long-ago lover, who recently died. Thus begins two people's odyssey, tracked through the shadowy, decaying back alleys of Macau, toward a relationship neither is certain is desirable.
This Berlin competition film makes a fine festival entry and could do well in Asia where it has several marketing hooks. For one thing, director Pang Ho-cheung, who has made five films in rapid succession since 1999, has emerged as one of the leading Hong Kong new-wave filmmakers. Here he collaborates with To in his partner's first outing as a leading man and producer. Meanwhile, the beguiling Isabella Leong has enjoyed success as a pop singer in Asia as well as an actress.
The film gets off to a misleading start as the time frame is fractured and events are fuzzy, leading one to anticipate an arty deconstruction exercise where things remain unclear for most of the film. However, once characters get sorted out and Yan drops her bombshell, the film heads down a fairly straight-forwarded narrative path.
Pang (working from a script he wrote with Kearen Pang, Derek Tsang and Jimmy Wang) concentrates on character and mood without overplaying the emotional content. Macau itself becomes a third character in the movie, a stubborn, decadent city in transition, as are the two people.
Yan has turned for help to her womanizing father -- whom she has studied from afar but never approached-- only due to a financial emergency. Since she is four months behind on rent, her landlord has padlocked the flat with her dog, Isabelle, inside. When Shing confronts the landlord, the man snorts that he threw the dog out on the street.
This launches an extensive dragnet of the neighborhood by the older man and young woman, searching for the missing canine. Meantime, the homeless girl moves temporarily into her father's one-bedroom flat.
The film's incidents are casual, even muted. Yan puts off a classmate (Derek Tsang) with a huge crush on her by insisting that Shing is her new lover. Fellow cops and crooks wander into Shing's path, offering oblique warnings about the corruption charges. (He's guilty but who wants to be a fall guy?) Flashbacks show Shing as a young man bringing Wan's mother (J.J. Jia) to an abortion clinic, and then abandoning her before she goes through with the procedure. The memory is still fresh for Shing.
One amusing sequence has Yan, assuming the role of Shing's live-in lover, turning away a succession of girlfriends who come to the door. One girlfriend proves her equal in deception: She insists that any girlfriend of Shing's must drink so challenges Yan to see who can drink whom under the table.
Cinematographer Charlie Lam has one of the world's greatest sets to work with -- the amazingly colorful/drab/vital/decaying back streets and alleys of Macau. Throw in Peter Kam's melancholy, Portuguese-influenced music involving piano and guitar and you get a wonderfully lyrical atmosphere for this modest but emotionally satisfying character piece.
ISABELLA
Media Asia Films/China Film group present a Not Brothers production
Credits:
Director: Pang Ho-cheung
Writers: Pang Ho-cheung, Kearen Pang, Derek Tsang, Jimmy Wang
Story by: Pang Ho-cheung
Producers: Pang Ho-cheung, Chapman To, Jin Zhongqiang
Executive producers: John Chong, Yang Bu Ting
Director of photography: Charlie Lam
Production designer: Man Lim Chung
Music: Peter Kam
Costumes: Stephanie Wong
Editor: Wenders Li
Cast:
Yan: Isabella Leong
Hua: J.J. Jia
Yan's suitor: Derek Tsang
Kate: Meme Tian
Shing: Chapman To
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 109 minutes...
BERLIN -- "Isabelle" has a gentle, melancholy spirit as two characters look to the future while haunted by the past. During the chaotic, crime-ridden months before Portugal handed Macau back to China in 1999, a rogue cop named Shing (Chapman To), already under suspicion of corruption, brings home an underage hooker picked up in a sleazy bar. Then the girl, Yan (Isabella Leong), hits him with a huge whammy: She claims to be his daughter by a long-ago lover, who recently died. Thus begins two people's odyssey, tracked through the shadowy, decaying back alleys of Macau, toward a relationship neither is certain is desirable.
This Berlin competition film makes a fine festival entry and could do well in Asia where it has several marketing hooks. For one thing, director Pang Ho-cheung, who has made five films in rapid succession since 1999, has emerged as one of the leading Hong Kong new-wave filmmakers. Here he collaborates with To in his partner's first outing as a leading man and producer. Meanwhile, the beguiling Isabella Leong has enjoyed success as a pop singer in Asia as well as an actress.
The film gets off to a misleading start as the time frame is fractured and events are fuzzy, leading one to anticipate an arty deconstruction exercise where things remain unclear for most of the film. However, once characters get sorted out and Yan drops her bombshell, the film heads down a fairly straight-forwarded narrative path.
Pang (working from a script he wrote with Kearen Pang, Derek Tsang and Jimmy Wang) concentrates on character and mood without overplaying the emotional content. Macau itself becomes a third character in the movie, a stubborn, decadent city in transition, as are the two people.
Yan has turned for help to her womanizing father -- whom she has studied from afar but never approached-- only due to a financial emergency. Since she is four months behind on rent, her landlord has padlocked the flat with her dog, Isabelle, inside. When Shing confronts the landlord, the man snorts that he threw the dog out on the street.
This launches an extensive dragnet of the neighborhood by the older man and young woman, searching for the missing canine. Meantime, the homeless girl moves temporarily into her father's one-bedroom flat.
The film's incidents are casual, even muted. Yan puts off a classmate (Derek Tsang) with a huge crush on her by insisting that Shing is her new lover. Fellow cops and crooks wander into Shing's path, offering oblique warnings about the corruption charges. (He's guilty but who wants to be a fall guy?) Flashbacks show Shing as a young man bringing Wan's mother (J.J. Jia) to an abortion clinic, and then abandoning her before she goes through with the procedure. The memory is still fresh for Shing.
One amusing sequence has Yan, assuming the role of Shing's live-in lover, turning away a succession of girlfriends who come to the door. One girlfriend proves her equal in deception: She insists that any girlfriend of Shing's must drink so challenges Yan to see who can drink whom under the table.
Cinematographer Charlie Lam has one of the world's greatest sets to work with -- the amazingly colorful/drab/vital/decaying back streets and alleys of Macau. Throw in Peter Kam's melancholy, Portuguese-influenced music involving piano and guitar and you get a wonderfully lyrical atmosphere for this modest but emotionally satisfying character piece.
ISABELLA
Media Asia Films/China Film group present a Not Brothers production
Credits:
Director: Pang Ho-cheung
Writers: Pang Ho-cheung, Kearen Pang, Derek Tsang, Jimmy Wang
Story by: Pang Ho-cheung
Producers: Pang Ho-cheung, Chapman To, Jin Zhongqiang
Executive producers: John Chong, Yang Bu Ting
Director of photography: Charlie Lam
Production designer: Man Lim Chung
Music: Peter Kam
Costumes: Stephanie Wong
Editor: Wenders Li
Cast:
Yan: Isabella Leong
Hua: J.J. Jia
Yan's suitor: Derek Tsang
Kate: Meme Tian
Shing: Chapman To
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 109 minutes...
- 2/22/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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