Online Review:Little Big Master (五個小孩的校長)

Little Big Master is directed by Adrian Kwan Shun-fai. Louis Koo and Miriam Yeung are the leading actor and actress. The story was about a kindergarten head master of five children. She was unsettled about her past kindergarten, and decided to travel around the world with her husband. But she turned and chose to be a Principle who only earned $4599 each month and saved the kindergarten from closing down. It was a real story of Principal Lui.

The film consists of collective memory of Hong Kong people. Many Hong Kong parents are labeled as monster parents and the children in the film were having great pressure in learning due to the current education system which reflected the fact of Hong Kong students and parent were tolerant under Hong Kong education system. Schools are forced to close down, it is not a new issue in today. The 5 students from 4 family also showed the problematic issue in Hong Kong: single-parent families, aging population, developer hegemony, grassroots poverty, racial discrimination and lack of help in Hong Kong. These revealed the real situation of Hong Kong.

This is not fully a political film, but more importantly the message that director wanted to convey through this true story. Director Adrian has extensive experience on filming gospel movie and good at infecting and emotional touching audience. “If You Care…” tell us the front is death road but the corner is hope, “A Dream Team” teaches us to break our own destiny. This movie is highly focus on portraying how Principal Lui overcome difficulties with her spirits: “never give up” and “strive for the ideals”. Filming setting are mainly in school and home, clearly emphasized the boundary between family and students and teachers. Seeing children's laughter, tearing but with smiles of parents and principals, giving a lightening images, reflected the success of how Lui giving her life to affect others, strong will and the joyfulness are strongly conveyed out in the movie.

There is a scene about children are told to ask parents’ dream, the presentation of this part is very interesting and imaginative. It is cannot help to evoke the dream that we had once when we were young. The film made us to believe even those dream were innocent and totally impossible and different with the present but they are our sweet memories. The funny way for presenting gave people smile.

This is a small production but casting with famous movie stars. However, I don’t think that the decision on cast choosing is only reason for the profit orientation. In reality, Miriam Yeung is a mother with 2 years old kid, gained a enough experience of raising kid and more “mother loves” which allow her has a more mature acting than the past. Moreover, Louis Koo is a low profiled person who quietly funded poverty mainland students and constructed 61 schools. When more familiarize with the casts, having a more understanding about the reasons director’s consideration on casting. Their private life experience and personality and excellent acting which more thickened the warming atmosphere in this movie.

(514 words)

Yip Sui Chi (10592139/21426539)

Online Review: Never Dance Alone ( M Club女人俱樂部)

Never Dance Alone ( M Club女人俱樂部) is a Hong Kong television drama produced and broadcasted by TVB in April 2014. It is about the lives of 6 women: Siu Sze, Julie, Akina, Yuen Chau, Jenny and Cyndi, who belong to a dancing group called “M Club”, with flashbacks of their secondary school lives in 1980s Hong Kong.

Teenage Julie was a new immigrant. Classmates teased about her accent and called her ‘Chian Mui’(燦妹). Julie sought to improve her image of ‘Chian Mui’ with classmates so she practiced Cantonese with Siu-Sze and learned spruce up herself.

Television constructs “collections” of people. The term ‘Chian Mui’ is developed from ‘Ah Chian’, which first appeared in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a TVB drama broadcasted in 1979. ‘Ah Chian’ has become the personification of all new immigrants. In the texts, Julie was discriminated by her classmates because of her old school outlook, accent and her identity. The classmates thought that they are better than Julie so they looked down on her. Television offers membership categories from which cultural identities can be constructed. The identity boundaries structured ideologically in hierarchies and inequalities.

One of the selling points of the drama is the memories of 5 women’s younger days. The props, the choices of songs and the cultural context show that the production team has to be very familiar with people and things in old days. For example, the tongue twister of McDonald’s, Sister Magazine, classic advertisement of lemon tea, and stake of 30 hamburgers…The wording used in the drama also is from the old days. Collective memory of 1980s Hong Kong is conveyed in the drama. With reference to Maurice Halbwachs’ work (1980), memory is at the very core of identity. And it connects who we are to who we once were. Collective memory is embodied in ‘memory industries’. In this drama, it is embodied in the contemporary popular culture: aerobic dance, Alan Tam’s songs, etc.

The drama carries the audiences who live in 1980s Hong Kong along with its context.

The audiences who live in 1980s Hong Kong have sympathetic understanding. Each individual memory of a group is understood only if each memory is located within the thought of the corresponding group. The memory would not be too meaningful for 90s group since they do not resemble each other and they do not experience 1980s.

According to Andrew Sarris’ auteur theory, an auteur’s style includes the characteristics that are repeated in a director’s works and characteristics that serve as a director’s signature. Eric Tsang, a director of Never Dance Alone, is good at depicting memories of old time. Among his works, for example, I Love Hong Kong is about the people’s life in public housing estate. And in I Love Hong Kong 2013, he portrayed the history of Hong Kong people from the Chinese restaurant’s angle.

Besides, interior meaning makes connections between director’s personal interests and the films he has made. However, there is less Tsang’s personal experience related to the drama.

Leung Sin Yu  10592135

Online Review: Gangster Pay Day - the coolest tea restaurant in Hong Kong

Gangster Pay Day – the coolest tea restaurant in Hong Kong

Gangster Pay Day (2014) was not a typical Hong Kong gangster film. It includes the significant triad elements, but the story also has focused on the aspects of Hong Kong identity and nostalgia of local cultures.
       

This time, undercovers are not involved. It talked about a gang leader Kwai and his henchman Leung met Mei, the owner of an old Hong Kong styled tea restaurant, and both fell in Love with her. As the business of Kwai’s karaoke nightclubs was declining over the years, they tried to invest her diner. Meanwhile, the real-estate companies hired their rivalry thugs, Bill and his men to force them to give up their clubs and restaurant through dirty methods. At last, they defeated them and successfully restored the business of tea-diner.

In the beginning of the story, a member of the rivalry was teasing Mei who was delivering take-away at a nightclub. Leung saved her and that man attacked him with a wine bottle. Kwai arrived and hit the thug back with three bottles. Later in the film, the rivalry gang killed Leung ruthlessly as a warning to Kwai's gang. Kwai grieved over his dead loyal but smart brother. He took revenge for him as he helped the police to set up a trap to reveal all Bill’s crimes, with him being stabbed by Bill too.

The main theme of gansger genre usually centered on the spirit of brotherhood and the gang members always tried to survive in the harsh underworld. They had their own set of “rules” and ways of dealing conflicts and matters. The brotherhood of Kwai and Leung in the film was distinguished. Leung respected Kwai a lot and Kwai saw Leung as his brothers in arms. Knives and glass bottles shown in the movie are all some iconic fighting tools. Violence is a traditional means to solve problems and show power and masculinity in Hong Kong gangster films. The main settings were located at the old style tea-diner, sport ground and a few luxurious nightclubs. These are also some major noticeable elements that usually appeared in the gangster movie.

Nevertheless, as I have mentioned, Gangster Pay Day is not a traditional film in gangster genre. The mood of this film is nostalgia. We could find that the film director and script writer, Po-Cheung Lee, tried to remind the audience that we should not forget our own origins and the Hong Kong spirits. In an interview, he reviewed that the rapid restructuring of economy and developer hegemony had impacted the local community and traditional industries a lot, motivating him to make a film about this situation (1).

Tea-diners have important meanings to Hong Kong people. It is a place which contains many shared memories of middle and lower classes. It represents the Hong Kong identity and witnesses the transition of Hong Kong. Traditional Hong Kong cuisine such as “Silk-stocking” milk tea and pineapple buns had been re-enforced their significance in a tea-diner during the course. Mei inherited the tea-diner from her deceased father is also a metaphor of director encouraging Hong Kong people. That is even though some changes are inevitable and those good old days might have passed, we should not give up and try the very best to fight for it as there is always light at the end of the tunnel. 

(1)《大茶飯》Gangster Pay Day 非一般黑幫電影:為香港發聲 [online blog] Retrieved from http://doublepp2013.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=5519224

Student name: Poon Chun Wing

Student ID: 21236479 / 10491830

Course: BAs of Arts (Communication Studies)

Online Review: From Vegas to Macau 賭城風雲

Online Review: From Vegas to Macau

This film released in 2014 which is directed by Wong Jing黃晶. It is the fourth installment of the God of Gamblers 賭神 series.

The Plot

There are 2 main characters in the film including Ken石一堅 Chow Yun-fat and Cool晒冷 Nicholas Tse. The police forces including China, Hong Kong and Macau region planed to collect the crime evidence of Mr. Ko who is the director of a multinational company called DOA by settling undercover cops into the company. DOA is a company which do money laundering for the international gangs. The police forces put 2 undercover polices into DOA and one of them was being penetrated and finally died. The dead police is the son of Benz and Cool’s brother. A hidden camera was being implanted into his eye and the crime evidence of Mr. Ko was being recorded. Before he died, he hided his eye into a teddy bear. Therefore, Mr. Ko sent killers to take back the eye and they broke into Ken’s house. The police forces asked Ken to help them to catch Mr. Ko by set a trap on him. Finally the daughter of Ken gave the eye to the police and Mr. Ko was being arrested.

Culture identity

The most obvious aspect of culture identity of this film are the foul languages and words with imply meanings that only Hong Kong people know. For example, ding, on dog and tart. In one of the scenes, 牛牛(Chapman To) spoke to Ken’s daughter. “I am here to give you the teddy bear, Why don’t buy give me a tart? (山長水遠過黎比隻啤啤熊你, 請我食件撻都得掛) This sentence has a imply meaning which is sexually offensive and most of the Hong Kong peoples know what it means.

Collective memory

One of the collective memory of this film is the song of Lee, Loon Ki, 稻草人. At Ken’s birthday party, Benz sang this song with him. The lyrics is like “Don’t need gold, Don’t need silver, just need a stick.” (唔要金唔要銀, 只要一支棍) It is a famous and remarkable song of the last generation. For example, the era of Chow Yun-Fat, this song are memorable among them. Also, the image of God of Gambler has become the collective memory of many Hong Kong peoples. The all back hair style and the showing of 4 Aces are remarkable memories for us. Moreover, gangsters chops劈友 and negotiation 講數 in Dai Pai Dong 大排檔 and tea restaurant 荼記 inside this film are also collective memories of us as they were common in Hong Kong at 90's.

Student name: Lau Tak Sun

Student number: 10489060/21423182

Online Review: The Midnight After (那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN)

The Midnight After was a film which premiered in February 2014. Directed by Fruit Chan (陳果), the film was an adaptation of the web-novel, Lost on a Red Mini Bus to Taipo, written by Mr. Pizza. The story was about the characters, after they boarded a Taipo bound red mini bus, found that everyone disappeared after they passed through the Lion Rock Tunnel. The story developed as the characters themselves died one after another leaving the survivors a sense of terror and a task of resolving a terrifying as well as confusing situation.

Director Fruit Chan is known for producing works that exhibit local Hong Kong characteristics. He himself grew up in a grass-root family, many of his early works such as Made in Hong Kong (香港製造) and Little Cheung (細路祥) signified various social groups and social problems in Hong Kong. In the production of the Midnight After, Chan persisted in his personal style and included many local characteristics in the film. The characters themselves represented various social groups in Hong Kong. For example, the appearance of the male protagonist Yau Tsi-chi (游梓池) was similar to that of the real life MK boys. Lavina, nicknamed LV girl, owned a designer bag and was greedy to steal money. She represented Kong girls who are often seen as materialistic. The bus driver who habitually uttered foul words is very similar to those minibus drivers in real life.

The display of local characteristics leads to discussions of the various problems that Hong Kong people are currently facing. The film addressed social and political problems alike. In recent years the conflict between Mainland China and Hong Kong has been a hot topic. One of the issues derived from that is the scarcity of educational resources. This is embodied by the university students who spoke Mandarin-accented Cantonese. Thus, this gives an impression that Mainland students are increasingly taking up places in universities. Director Chan also added some scenes in addition to the original novel to display sarcasm. Some dialogues were explicit in being ironic about the political future. When talking about 2018, Shun, one of the characters, said that there probably will be a new Chief Executive in 2018, but Yuki immediately responded “does that make a difference?” The dialogue implied that the lack of democracy will continue even after the 2017 universal suffrage.

The film was categorized as a satirical horror comedy. Horror elements were added into the film by displaying a number of corpses and the terrifying process of how people died. For example, showing Auyeung Wai suddenly caught on fire and was burned to death. Those are common iconographies used in horror films. In the film the characters discovered the problems (everyone disappeared and they themselves dying one by one), but were clueless about how the problems could be resolved. This brings out the emotional tone of the film and conveyed a sense of horror. From the moment the characters boarded the mini bus, they were destined to go through a terrifying situation and had no choice but to seek a solution while terrified. The act of boarding the mini bus, a common vehicle used by commuters, implies that Hong Kong people were destined to meet the current problems and had to resolve them.

The reason that the film won appraisal at home and abroad is that it resonates to the thoughts of many Hong Kong people. It indicates that the Hong Kong people are facing various problems and that they are anxious about the future while resolving the problems.

Chow Sik Sik 10518749

Word count: 604 

Online Review: Midnight After (那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN)

Midnight After(那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN) was a sci-fi horror film released in Apr 2014 that was directed by Fruit Chan (陳果), which was based on the web-novel with same name in Chinese by the Hong Kong online writer nicknamed “Mr. Pizza” from the Internet forum HKGolden. The web-novel was started to serialize since July 2012, and the story had been published into books.

The film was using the Red minibus (public minibus) as the main focus. Ah Chi (Wong You-nam) gets aboard on a full capacity minibus including the driver from Mong Kok to Tai Po at midnight, and everything has changed after crossing the Lion Rock Tunnel, in which all people and car have been disappeared and only those 17 people on the minibus and the minibus itself are left in that uncertain time and space. As followed, there are a lot of suspicious incidents happened, including the mysterious masked Japanese and a passenger called Yuki(Janice Man), and some passengers are dead with unknown reasons. Therefore, Ah Chi and other passengers need to solve the mysterious incidents in order to get back to the time and space they is familiar with.

From this film, I have two things that want to share regarding the film. The first one is the film has shown how the director continues to show the concern of the Hong Kong society, and therefore constructs certain scene with interior meaning in the film. Fruit Chan is a famous film director in Hong Kong and he is well-known in directing the independent or non-mainstream film, in which his films were mainly focusing on the social situation, which he is influenced by the Japanese films in the 60s, like the 1997 Trilogy (Made in Hong, The Longest Summer, Little Cheung) was discussed about how people feel for the Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997). For this film, although it has based on the web-novel, but Chan has reflected that after the handover and in recent years, the core values and the things in Hong Kong become different, like the rule of law and moral standard, as using the minibus passed the Lion Rock Tunnel as a representation. Chan also wanted to tell the audiences that even everything has changed, but people still want to escape from the reality and do not admit those changes, just like what Ah Shun (Tsui Tien-You) had said in the film, in which he want the audience to concern about this.

Moreover, it has consisted of many Hong Kong's elements inside and the story is related to Hong Kong as well. In the film, it used the originate Red minibus/Public MInibus (紅色小巴), Lion Rock Tunnel, where Lion Rock Hill is a symbolic scenic view of Hong Kong, and cha chaan teng (茶餐廳) as representations of Hong Kong. Moreover, although the passengers are facing different problems in the film, including the suspicious incidents and feel no hopes before them, they are still face the problem even it is hard to handle, in which it shows another 'Under the Lion Rock Hill' spirit that to face the difficulties with solidarity, where it is coherent to the film title "Return our Hong Kong"(還我香港). This kind of elements are quite hard to see and express under the co-operation production(合拍片) in today's Hong Kong cinema.

To conclude, I think the film is good and a reflection of what Hong Kong happens nowadays. Fruit Chan has tried to raise the audience to face the reality of Hong Kong, and the web-novel brings the opportunities for Chan to show his concern for the Hong Kong society.

Chang Ka Ho 10519149/21423567

Online review: I Sell Love (販賣．愛)

  I Sell Love (販賣．愛) is a Hong Kong film that is directed by Kevin Chu and released on 4^th December,2014. It is adapted from a theater and fiction which is produced and written by Judy Chu. The story is about the concept of selling include one’s body, love, lands and political idea. The main actress, Tiffany (Rose Chan), was an illegitimate daughter and the economic pillar of the single-parent family. However, due to her irregular school timetable, she hardly found a part-time job that can accommodate with her timetable. In order to earn the university tuition fee, she chose to have sex with a stranger named ‘heaven prince’ and continued the life of sex trade. Later, she met a ‘long-term meal ticket’ (長期飯票), Zhang (Liu Kai Chi) through a manager (Judy Chu) and their contract was within six months. In this time, she met a boy called Rex (Pakho Chau) and was infected by his enthusiasm and fell in love with him which motivated her to quit and start renew.

  The genre of this film is romance but it is not a very typical romance film as the main theme of the movie is enjo. The film described in detail the process and struggle of Tiffany participating in the sex industry. At the beginning, she disgusted the sex trade and later on she became a materialism and sold her body for a substantial income. The film is a bit different from other similar theme films. The relationship between her and the long-term client tend to be a father-daughter-like relationship rather than sex relationship. Their relationship is changing and more than money. They support and infect each other. It shows the positive side of the relationship between prostitutes and customers.

  The iconography in this movie consist of the lavish mansion, mobile phone (received dating messages from customers), cash, cheque, brand products (clothes, bags) and a notebook (marked down the clients’ information). These are the representative props of an enjo theme film. However, it is still different from a typical enjo movie as there is no pornography, no gangs and no bloody and violent scenes. The enjo girls are used to be stereotyped as pitiful and ignorant who have poor academic result, smoke and take drugs. But Tiffany is not the stereotype enjo girl. She is a university student with good academic result who major in business which is considered as a mainstream and promising subject. Besides, she neither smoke nor take drugs. The gender stereotype can also be found in this movie. Men is the authority who pay money to women and buy their body. Women is the one who sell their body and serve men and can easily be abandoned by men. They are labeled as “goods” which have a price. Those who have higher educational level or have talent may worth the higher price.

  The main actor, Rex is a positive role who fight for social justice and guide Tiffany back to the right track. He represents the righteous while the wealthy represent the badness. The social problems such as the collusion between developers and government, property hegemony and core value has been depicted. From an interview, the auteur mentioned that the participation in the protest of anti-estate hegemony is to enrich character’s background and highlight the values and attitude towards life of Rex in order to stimulate Tiffany to have reflection on her life.

Tiffany’s mother has told Tiffany that “it doesn't matter if you start on the wrong foot, what’s important is you don’t keep on like that”. The choice of being a prostitute denote the wrong foot and to quit the job should be the solution and the right track. What Rex has told Tiffany is the key for her to start renew—“If you are afraid of darkness, you’ll never find what you have lost”, which can be explained as we have to face squarely the problem so as to really solve the problem. At the beginning, a man have asked a question to Zhang—“Have you listen to people’s voices?”. It may be illustrated as the voices of those prostitutes who has been marginalized by the society. Since the society usually choose to ignore the voices from the minorities so they easily get lost in this materialistic society. They need love and care and most importantly, listening. Since people would always criticize the ‘wrong’ thing they did rather than listening to them.

  There is always a cost for every behavior and the female protagonist has paid for it at last due to her choice at the beginning. Also, there is something that we can’t chase back so treasure what we have is the most important in present. Most of the people must have gone astray and experience struggled in the growth, therefore it is much easier for audience to understand the text. However, the social problem mentioned in the film may only allow someone who know about Hong Kong political situation or have experienced to have resonance.

Law Ho Yan (10488310/21427778) 

Reference:

從《我的援交日記》到《販賣‧愛》──專訪朱家宏、朱鳳嫻. Retrieved March 31,2015, from http://www.inmediahk.net/node/1029267