King of comedy

Watching films starring Stephen Chow is a depressing experience. True to his fame, he is talented in that he always manages to uncover something funny, new or even unusual in the most mundane scenario. But most of the time, even when you find yourself laughing with his characterisation, there is something repels like hell. His 'nonsensical humours', verbal or visual, usually appeal to the 'lower' taste of our normal self and, when repeated as a trademark, albeit always in dazzling forms or formats, can drive you mad.

Election 2 and Hong Kong after handover to China

After watching a disappointing My Left Eye Seeing Ghosts and Fulltime Killers, Election 2 was a great relief to his fans to see Johnnie To return to form when he handles one of his favourite genres - that of the underworld and triad who suck bloods like drinking milk. Though it does not have the austerely stylish presentation of his classic, The Mission (1999), the filming and subsequent success of the film itself is probably one of the best answers to the general concern before 1997: what would happen to the freedom of speech in Hong Kong after the handover to China by Britain.

Shot in 2006, the film closes with a dialogue between the handsome yet cold-blooded young head of an ancient triad and the weathered deputy director of a provincial (read as Guangdong Provincial) Public Security Department (played by a well-known mainland Chinese actor): now that the protagonist was an elected head of the triad (with bloods in his hands), he'd better make sure that he stayed that way (and hence destroyed the age-old election system of the triad). Prior to request, the vice director gave out the address where the presumably seal of power had been retrieved - that in the capital city near the actual municipal government in Guangzhou. The cold-hearted head of the triad was so infuriated by the demand that he hit the stout vice director with an armed bodyguard by his side on the head several times. He was however allowed to get away with his outbreak of rage: after all, the demand was made for the long term benefit of a more predictable future (because, the vice director said that they could trust him, a killer who doesn't mind his weapons in order to get what he wants).

The message here cannot be more explicit.

Election 2 epitomises the one country two systems policy: the HK filmmakers are allowed to get away with their cynical criticism to the Communist region.

A Passage of Madness/The Observatory

Mind-blowing, incredible, magnificent, experience of a lifetime... none of these can describe how I felt at this low-key event: the screening of A Passage of Madness, an avant-garde silent film made in 1926, lost soon after its completion and only found some 50 years later by its director. Without any inter-titles, the story was not the easiest to follow, but its decors, styles and performances are certainly the most experimental and ahead of its time, which reminisces that of the German surrealist cinema of the 1920s at the height of its power.

The film, mythical and challenging on its own right, served most of the time as a visual backdrop for the soundtrack composed and performed live by The Observatory in a small auditorium that holds about 500 audience. The musical performance started approximately 5 minutes prior to the start of screening, creating and building up an atmosphere, and transporting the audience to a misty, dark and isolated place not too different from those of the classic Chinese ink painting of the rocky mountain partially obscured by the cloud sea. Then as the story evolved, it became blurred as to who was the actual star of the night: the man who was trying to rescue his wife in a madhouse and being ridiculed by her inmates/doctors; the director who had been most adventurous in his styles of filming and representation; or the music that seemed to be part and parcel an organic part of the narration - albeit composed some 84 years after the shooting! For those like myself who had not had the slightest knowledge of what the film was about prior to the screening, it was largely the music that had guided me through the viewing of a silent film without subtitles. My mind was only drifted once or twice away when I was struck by the fact how marvelous the composition was and that how lucky I was to be one of the privileged few in the audience. In an interview published on Today two days before the screening, the band commented that this film had allowed them to explore the boundary of insanity, but their fans should still be able to recognise them in the soundtrack. While this is absolutely true, I would add that it had taken the indie band far well beyond their 'normal' soundscape into that of experimental and avant-garde. The soundtrack was imaginative, atmospheric, powerful and compared well with the best in the world in similar genre.

The screening and musical event, commissioned and organised by the National Museum of Singapore, has got to be one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of the Singapore art scene of recent years. It says how much Singapore can achieve if it puts its mind to it. It would be a great loss if the event was live recorded, and even worse, if the soundtrack is not recorded for the benefit of the general public.

Life is good when witnessing the performance of a lifetime.

Eye in the sky

This is another HK film to look out for - a directorial debut by Johnnie To's long term collaborator, writer Yau Nai-Hoi, who was responsible for some of the classics like The Mission.

Kate Tsui certainly deserved the accolades for her performance as a newcomer in the police surveillance team. The story itself is fascinating and the documentary style also contributes to its realistic look.

The Way We Are

The Chinese name is rather 'exotic' to me - it refers to an actual community in HK that looks familiar on the DVD cover but nevertheless, unknown and unusual to me. The English title though puts me off a little bit as it sounds too much like The Way We Were, a disaster in both performance and script. This initial reaction to the name prefigured the experience of watching the film.

I had watched Ann Hui's film before with Woman at 40s being the most memorable one, and I have also watched her on screen, with the most recent one being a cameo role as a director in My Name Is Fame. When asked by my neighbour how I thought of her, my comment was she had something to say but not always to the effect that I fully followed or understood. The Way We Were, a gritty film on the lives of the Mr Jones in HK, though seemed to manage to change this impression a bit.

To begin, this film was a bit like a documentary film in many ways; the realistic setting, the use of props(with characters dwelling in shoebox apartment and rustic docor), and the seemingly zero make-up of the main characters. In other words, unlike most glossy HK films, the film has attempted a realistic look. But the real surprise has been the way the story, or the lack of it, been evolved.

Although there are, in effect, three main characters, there are no storyline, no build-up of conflict and therefore no climax. What we see - for those who have the patience to follow it through - are like life itself - the routine everyday lives, through which Ann Hui seems to have found beauty from the ordinariness, kindness in its small way, and friendship in the unexpected places.

It was like a cup of green tea, not much flavour or taste, but refreshing nevertheless.

As an outsider, I do find some sadness in the character of the son. From his single mum, he inherited kindness and generosity with his time, but he is in a way, lost in that he does not seem to have any passion for anything. He manages OK but just OK, and to me, that is the greatest sadness which I am not sure if the director wants us to see.

HK three greats: Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng and Anthony Wong

I had never been a great fan of HK cinema, although I do have the whole body of works from Wong Kar-wai, counting In the Mood of Love one of my favourite films, and regarding Tong Leung and Maggie Cheung two of the great actors. When a HK neighbour lent me nearly 100 HK films in one go prior to her one month holiday in her native HK, I was not overtly enthusiastic.

I do like Lau Ching-wan a lot after his My Name Is Fame and that was what spurred me to figure out which ones to watch first. Typical of HK cinema though, most of the projects he was involved in are commercial ones with half-baked scripts and directed by those who are more keen to exploit the mass market than to explore the social or psychological aspects of stories or protagonists. Even with Lau on, I found, at times, I was pressing fast-forward mode on the remote control.

Disappointment was however not the only harvest last week when I took one week off for my beloved media of entertainment. Along the way, I was happily surprised and found other great actors and interesting directors. If I was asked now, my new favourite would be Francis Ng, who bears striking resemblance to the late German actor Ulrich Muhe both in appearance and in his intensive way of looking - the way that really grips your heart and made you follow him at all times.

I had watched him on some HK dramas before, but somehow, I had been unimpressed. I was however converted whole-heartedly when watching Bullets over Summer, a seemingly just another one in the action/cop genre, the favourite genre in HK. Checking on the Internet, I realise now that he was by then, 1999, 38 years old and had worked as an film actor for eight years after some six years on the small screen. He looked totally fresh and entirely relaxed in his role of a small time cop who just wanted to committed to whatever his task and at the meanwhile wishing for a family of his own having been an orphan himself. In fact Ng was so good at this head strong character with a secret human and fragile inside that I found myself sorry for his character and wished him a happy ending wherein he could help raise another man's child with an abandoned young woman. Here Ng was the embodiment of understated performance that HK actors excel at. He did not act, he became the character, like Ulrich Muhe in The Lives of Others.

I was really glad and even relieved when I watched Infernal Affairs II to find him allocated a role as the then head of the underworld. If Infernal Affairs series can be taken as who-is-who in HK cinema, then this role, my wishful thinking was, testifies that Ng's screen presence has been widely accepted as one of the great ones not to be missed. Ng didn't let me down in it. Indeed, with a pair of spectacle on, he could easily be thought to be an intellectual - and hence brought out the amazing side of Ng - that he can also excel at roles rather than those run of the mill genre films such as cop-gangster ones.

As to directors, I found Johnnie To to be one to look out for and his The Mission reminded me of Chinatown and French Connection, the no nonsense action genre films that are austere, simple and stylish. Francis Ng looked his best when he was this intense gangster turned bodyguard who had his own principles and committed to his mission whatever it was.

Also in this film is Anthony Wong, another extremely prolific and versatile actor. Unlike Lau Ching-wan and Francis Ng who seem to be, despite their success, the victims of some level of stereotype casting (Lau usually playing the types who are resourceful and would go the extra miles to get things done, but at the meanwhile, easily bordering between good and evil, black and white while Ng more on the harder and darker side of characters), Wong seems to have better luck than both of them in that his roles are always more varied than the combination of both of them.

Overall, I find HK cinema to be in healthy state - there are directors who are constantly looking out for new ways of engaging the audience and actors who are really into their roles whatever they are. I have one wish though - that in not too far a future, there will be more actors like Maggie Cheung who can afford to take a break and look out for quality roles. It is a huge waste to see even the greatest actors in HK cinema seem to be committed to such suicidally heavy workload.