"Lau Ching-wan finally won it as this is our preferred story."
My Name is Fame (我要成名)
Director: Lawrence Ah Mon (劉國昌)
Main Cast: Lau Ching-wan (劉青雲), Huo Si-yan (霍思燕)
Year: 2006
Though it lacks the originality and genius, My Name is Fame is not shameful to compare with Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night. It is interesting to see Lawrence Ah Mon, a South African-born Hong Kong director who is famous for realist cinemas such as Gangs (童黨) and Spacked Out (無人駕駛), his My Name is Fame being a rather relaxed, over optimistic story of an underrated actor played by Lau Ching-wan. He abandons his trademark style to focus more on the system of Hong Kong entertainment industry market. It is hardly regarded as a system, it is so bad, it is so rotten. Lawrence Ah Mon prefers to show something more interesting in this bad system. Finally, it is still pretty pleasurable.
It is a bit ironic that Lau Ching-wan, a veteran actor in Hong Kong, won his first Best Actor Award by this film. He has had much better roles and has performed much more impressive. But he finally won the award by playing a film actor who finally regains the award. He really deserves to be an actor that he even plays himself more convincingly in a cinema than in reality. Everyone likes a story that a good and hardworking guy having a good ending. So Lau Ching-wan finally won it as this is our preferred story.
"Deconstructing Harry is still all about Woody Allen himself, though you might wonder to what extent Woody Allen is deconstructed."
Deconstructing Harry
Director: Woody Allen
Main Cast: Woody Allen, Elizabeth Shue, Demi Moore, Billy Crystal, Bob Balaban
Year: 1997
Harry Block, played by Woody Allen, is a writer suffering from writer’s block. At this suffering period, he recollects his old love stories and failed marriages, meets his beloved psychologists and starts talking with his characters he created for his novels. He still hates sun and nature, he is still self-hated. As like other Woody Allen’s Film, Deconstructing Harry is still all about Woody Allen himself, though you might wonder to what extent Woody Allen is deconstructed.
It is not easy to see humbleness in Woody Allen’s films, but Woody Allen regards himself as B-grade film director is still convincing. He sincerely leaves the highest grade to those he really admires and tributes them in his movies. Roger Ebert says the story of Harry Block is simply the storyline of Dr. Isak Borg in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Ebert’s writing is flawless yet I don’t really feel it; I rather think that the infernal scene at the end is a wonderful dedication to Federico Fellini. Woody Allen adds his own input saying the 8th floor of infernal, which specializes for those working for media, is already full.
"It reminds me a sorrow still unsolved for 20 years."
A Better Tomorrow III (英雄本色3夕陽之歌)
Director: Tsui Hark (徐克)
Main Cast: Anita Mui (梅艷芳), Chow Yun-fat (周潤發), Tony Leung (梁家輝)
Year: 1989
Even it is done by Tsui Hark instead of John Woo, A Better Tomorrow III is a film out of my expectation. Tsui Hark, who is born in Vietnam himself, successfully portraits a chaotic world that John Woo cannot achieve in Bullet in the Head (喋血街頭), though Bullet in the Head is far better in terms of story and character.
There are number of moments with strong sentimental attachment. The suit in French style, the sunglass and big jacket on Chow Yun-fat, the replacement of national flags, and especially scenes with student riots , an amulance crashing into tank and Tony Leung standing in front of a tank with a scary face, which revokes our fear hidden so long, a fear tracing back to the year when the film is made. In that year, we were fearing and trembling, and still listening to Anita Mui’s 夕陽之歌 (Song of Sunset).
The film ends with 夕陽之歌 while a helicopter goes into the sunset. The journey of exile starts with no return. It reminds me a sorrow still unsolved for 20 years.
Main Cast: Gao Yuanyuan (高圓圓), Liu Ye (劉燁), Hideo Nakaizumi (中泉英雄)
Year: 2009
There are number of reasons attracting me to watch City of Life and Death, which Chinese title literally is Nanjing! Nanjing!. I wonder how Lu Chuan, the director of Kekexili (可可西里), who is still less than 40 years old to handle the controversial Nanking Massacre; it is also interesting to see how this film is made under the censorship of Chinese government. To a certain extent, this film reveals how freedom of speech in Mainland is improved concerning something sensitive; and the film has nearly a half is from the angle of a soldier acted by Hideo Nakaizumi. How Japanese narrative towards Nanking Massacre under Lu Chuan and Chinese Censorship is definitely attractive enough.
During massacre, Chinese is shown as untouchable hero in a less propaganda way. Numbers of mass execution scenes are impressive. One of them there is a machine gun on a high point, thousands and thousands of Chinese stood downhill and we can see how domino effect occurs on death tolls. Liu Ye acts as a voluntary resistant fighter, who belongs to the last group of mass execution. In facing their death, director adopts a famous scene of Keisuke Kinoshita’s (木下惠介) Twenty-four Eyes (二十四隻眼睛). The director gives static close-up shot to different faces one by one. It is a moment we identify to our nation and the justice for mankind. They exclaim China would never fall before their death. They are right finally.
A friend tells me that there is a moment reminds him about Akira Kurosawa’s (黑澤明) Stray Dog (野良犬). I suppose he means the ending. I think they are a bit similar yet pretty enough to let me know Lu Chuan still has a distance from Akira Kurosawa. However, Lu Chuan has already made a wonderful ending in the time while life is too hard and death is too easy.
Thanks to Hong Kong Film Festival, I’ve watched numbers of short films by Michelangelo Antonioni today. They lack the alienated ambience as usual in Antonioni’s films, and also not particularly experimental. But following titles are still pretty impressive:
People of the Po Valley
Year: 1947
It is my second time finishing a foreign, non-English film without any subtitles. Believe it or not, my first time is Fritz Lang’s M. But both experience are very impressive that I seem have tasted what cinematic language really means. As a debut, Antonioni already shows his capability in camera movement. This short film is like a flow along the Po River, and reminds me the lower class poetics of Jean Vigo’s L’Atlantis, with the photojournalistic power as in many masterpieces of Neo-realism.
N.U. is a short film about a street cleaner. Antonioni starts developing concept of alienation in this short film. The street is deliberately portrayed with little people with frequent use of wide and top angle. The street cleaner belongs to optimistic type character facing the boring and unwelcome working conditions. He walks bravely in the lonely street, as Giulietta Masina walks smilingly in Fellini’s La Strada.
Lisca Bianca is the barren island setting in L’avventura, where the disappearance takes place. This return Antonioni would make a wonderful documentary about geographical features on the island, if without the voiceover of a girl exclaiming “shark” then leaving no traces. Antonioni revisits his old place with too many memories which are too personal for sharing.
