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TIME OUT FILM EDITOR EDMUND LEE
CELEBRATES 100 years of hong kong cinema
with A list to end all MOVIE lists...
March 14 – 27 2012 timeout.com.hk 21
100
is a furiously paced horror farce which throws every creepy
facet of Chinese superstition at the audience.
Gallants 打擂台 (2010)
89
An Amorous
Woman of Tang
Dynasty
唐朝豪放女 (1984)
Dir Eddie Fong (Pat Ha, Alex Man)
Ha cements her sex symbol status in this landmark
period erotica of progressive feminist and existentialist
undertones. As a Taoist priestess-cum-literati, and
hostess of nightly orgies, her pleasure-seeking heroine
refuses to be tied down in matrimony or, indeed, to any
one lover – male or female.
100
Gallants 打擂台 (2010)
Dir Derek Kwok, Clement Cheng (Leung Siulung, Chen Kuan-tai, Teddy Robin)
Kung fu stars of yesteryear carry this spirited homage to
an old genre. That the low-budget retro action comedy was
named best picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards reveals
as much about our cinema’s current nostalgic wave as it
does a gradual changing of the guard.
99
Hard Boiled 辣手神探 (1992)
Dir John Woo (Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Chiuwai, Teresa Mo)
Life is cheap (and bullets apparently cheaper) in this ultracool, ultra-stylish shoot ’em up. From its birdcage-kicking
teahouse shootout opener to its hospital-exploding, babysaving climax, Hard Boiled remains a fanboy’s wet dream.
98
The Kid
細路祥 (1950)
Dir Fung Fung (Bruce
Lee, Yee Chau-shui, Lee Hoichuen, Fung Fung)
Bruce Lee shined in his first leading role as A-Chang in
this vivacious social comedy, playing a 10-year-old orphan
who’s raised by a righteous uncle (Yee), groomed by a
skilled thief (Fung) and involved in all sorts of trouble
around the factory of a hilariously forgetful miser (Lee Hoichuen, Lee’s father).
97
Naked Killer 赤裸羔羊 (1992)
Dir Clarence Fok (Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam,
Carrie Ng)
Man-hating lesbian assassins populate this Wong Jingscripted and produced erotic thriller, whose absurdly OTT
campness renders it a cult favourite internationally.
a war-time drama which passionately fuses espionage
noir with social-realist drama. Set during the Orphan
Island period of Shanghai, the film follows a group of
revolutionary patriots-cum-assassins who earn the support
of the suffering public.
94
Viva Erotica
色情男女 (1996)
Dir Derek Yee, Lo Chileung (Leslie Cheung, Shu Qi,
Karen Mok)
It’s not quite the highbrow smut it aspires to be but Viva
Erotica remains one of the few satires on Category III
filmmaking that manages to be frank, funny and humane.
93
KJ 音樂人生 (2009)
Dir Cheung King-wai
(Wong Ka-jeng)
Cheung’s magnificent
documentary sees egotistic
music prodigy Wong Ka-jeng questioning his existence
at the age of 11 – when he’s arguably peaked; at 17,
his free spirit was already corroded by meaningless
competitions and his parents’ divorce. His struggle is
largely unspoken – and it’s all unspeakably sad.
92
Father Takes a Bride 小兒女 (1963)
Dir Wang Tianlin (Lucilla You Min, Wang Yin, Kelly
Lai Chen, Wang Lai)
The transience of youth and the difficulty in affirming love
in all circumstances are delicately alluded to in this Eileen
Chang-scripted family melodrama.
91
Dir Ann Hui (Sylvia Chang, Angie Chiu, Tsui
Siu-keung)
Part pseudo-ghost story, part Hitchcockian mystery thriller,
Hui’s debut feature wraps a brutal double murder at its
core with disorienting editing, fragmented chronology and
some utterly haunting sequences.
95
90
96
Orphan Island
Paradise
孤島天堂 (1939)
Dir Cai Chusheng (Li Lili, Li Qing)
The oldest movie on our list is
FAVE 5 of Tsui Hark, director,
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983),
Once Upon a Time in China (1991):
22 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
Dir Li Han-hsiang (Li
Lihua, Zhao Lei, Grace Ting Ning)
This operatic tale about China’s
first female ruler was initially panned by the critics – before
it came to be seen, belatedly, as a consummate historical
costume drama with a female-empowering touch.
87
Kung Fu Hustle
功夫 (2004)
Dir Stephen Chow
(Stephen Chow, Danny Chan
Kwok-kwan, Yuen Qiu)
The underdog hero of Hong Kong cinema went megabudget for this CGI extravaganza, a martial arts comedy
so outrageously cartoonish it put its writer-directorproducer-star temporarily on the world map. Film buffs will
be in heaven spotting the references.
86
Laugh, Clown, Laugh 笑笑笑 (1960)
Dir Li Pingqian (Bao Fong, Shek Hwei)
A sadder than sad story about a fun-loving
optimist whose interest in comedy performance is
despised by both his family and his wealthy future in-laws,
Li’s tragic-comedy follows the 50-year-old father (Bao) as
he maintains a dignified façade after losing his long-held
accounting job in an occupied Tianjin in the 1940s.
99
Hard Boiled 辣手神探 (1992)
Durian Durian
榴槤飄飄 (2000)
Dir Fruit Chan (Qin Hailu,
Mak Wai-fan)
The quests for better living of two
Mainland migrants – a Chinese opera performer working
temporarily as a prostitute (Qin) and a young daughter
overstaying her visa (Mak) – become intertwined through
the stinky, exotic fruit in this gently observed effort, the
first title in Chan’s unfinished ‘Prostitute Trilogy’.
The Secret 瘋劫 (1979)
88
Empress Wu
武則天 (1963)
The Spooky Bunch 撞到正 (1980)
Dir Ann Hui (Josephine Siao, Kenny Bee)
A Cantonese opera troupe encounters the
vengeful ghosts of a war-time forged medicine disaster.
From phantoms, curses and spells, this New Wave treat
Wong Fei-Hung’s Story: Iron Cock against Centipede 黃飛鴻鐵雞鬥蜈蚣 (1956) / Dragon Gate Inn 龍門客棧 /
The Private Eyes 半斤八兩 8 / The Story of a Discharged Prisoner 英雄本色 21 / Rising Sun 慘痛的戰爭
85
Nomad
79
烈火青春 (1982)
Dir Patrick Tam (Leslie
Cheung, Pat Ha, Kent Tong,
Cecilia Yip)
Daring in form and casually nihilistic in content, this
New Wave classic is a youthful slice-of-death drama as
notorious for its open attitude to sex – there’s lovemaking
on a moving tram! – as it is for its abruptly violent climax.
84
Man on the Brink
邊緣人 (1981)
Dir Alex Cheung (Eddie
Chan, Kam Hing-yin)
A fresh-faced policeman (Chan)
assigned to infiltrate the triads sinks into a downward
spiral of violence in this early New Wave gem. Clearly
inspired by Serpico (1973), Cheung’s gritty look at his
protagonist’s escalating alienation and disillusionment
would later kick-start the sub-genre of undercover cop
drama in Hong Kong.
83
The Magic Blade
天涯‧明月‧刀 (1976)
Dir Chor Yuen (Ti Lung,
Lo Lieh, Ching Li)
Ti’s poncho-wearing, solitary
swordsman slashes through the vanity of the martial
underworld in Chor’s most celebrated adaptation of wuxia
novelist Gu Long. If low on realistic characterisation, this
swordplay fantasy hypnotises with its brooding ambience
and imaginative weapon designs.
82
Happy Together 春光乍洩 (1997)
Ip Man 葉問 (2008)
Dir Wilson Yip (Donnie
Yen, Simon Yam)
After S.P.L. (2005), Dragon Tiger
Gate (2006) and Flash Point
(2007), the Yip-Yen combo reaches its zenith with this
engrossing martial arts biopic on the titular Wing Chun
legend. Patriotic fluff it certainly is, but Yen displays
enough deadpan cool and dignified invincibility to shine in
the role of his life.
81
Mambo Girl
曼波女郎 (1957)
Dir Yi Wen (Grace Chang,
Peter Chen Ho, Kitty Ting Hao)
Chang made her star turn in
this Mandarin musical about a talented singer-dancer
who, while showered with affection by her family and
classmates, discovers on her 20th birthday that she’s an
adopted orphan.
80
The Great Devotion
可憐天下父母心 (1960)
Dir Chor Yuen (Cheung Wood-yau, Pak Yin)
A beloved schoolteacher contracts tuberculosis, sees
his five children begging on the street and borrows from
a loanshark before finding his infant daughter dead due
to delayed medical attention in this classic melodrama –
arguably the ultimate weepie for parents.
79
Happy Together 春光乍洩 (1997)
Dir Wong Kar-wai (Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung
Chiu-wai, Chang Chen)
A pair of bickering Cantonese gay lovers (Cheung and
Leung) stranded in Argentina may be an unusual idea
of cinematic poetry but Wong, who was named best
director at Cannes, managed the impossible with this
lyrical break-up movie. His eye for wistful symbolism –
highlighting Buenos Aires as Hong Kong’s antipode – is
out of this world.
78
C’est la vie, mon
chéri
新不了情 (1993)
Dir Derek Yee (Anita Yuen,
Lau Ching-wan)
Yuen plays the role of her life in this superb remake of
Doe Ching’s Love Without End (1961). As an ultra-bubbly
cancer patient from a Cantonese opera-singing family, her
doomed romance with Lau’s worn-out jazz composer is
still one of our cinema’s greatest romances.
77
Ah Ying 半邊人 (1983)
Dir Allen Fong (Hui So-ying, Peter Wang)
A pioneer of Chinese docu-drama, Fong’s
naturalistic movie compassionately tells the tale of an
unlikely relationship between two frustrated dreamers: a
young woman (Hui) reluctantly working for her fish hawker
FAVE 5 of Karena Lam, actress,
July Rhapsody (2001), Claustrophobia (2008):
parents, and an idealistic middle-aged acting teacher
(Wang) hoping to realise his film project.
76
Intimate
Confessions of a
Chinese Courtesan
愛奴 (1972)
Dir Chor Yuen (Lily Ho, Betty Pei Ti)
Controversial on its initial release due to its lesbian and
exploitation themes, Chor’s rape-revenge epic – mixing
swordplay with period erotica – still arrests the senses
with the sheer intensity of its tale, which sees a defiant
beauty (Ho) exacting vicious retribution on her tormentors
years after being abducted into a high-class brothel.
75
The Purple Hairpin
紫釵記 (1959)
Dir Lee Tit (Yam Kim-fai,
Pak Suet-sin)
A laborious collaboration with the
influential Cantonese opera librettist Tong Tik-sang, Lee’s
seminal screen adaptation of the Ming dynasty opera is
arguably the best Yam-Pak film alongside Butterfly and
Red Pear Blossom, also directed by Li in 1959.
74
Beast Cops
野獸刑警 (1998)
Dir Gordon Chan, Dante
Lam (Anthony Wong Chau-sang,
Michael Wong)
One of the funniest police thrillers in Hong Kong cinema,
this offbeat dramedy alternates between meat cleaver
battles with vicious mobsters and bantering sessions
among three unorthodox cops, who philosophise their way
through a lifestyle of drugs, bribes and loose women.
73
The House of
72 Tenants
七十二家房客 (1973)
Dir Chor Yuen (Hu Chin, Yueh Hua,
Ching Li)
A crowd-pleasing social satire which struck a chord with
the TVB-loving population of the time, Chor’s adaptation
of a 1940s stage comedy turns domineering landlords,
corrupt firefighters and policemen into the laughing stock
of the people – revitalising Cantonese dialect cinema
along the way.
Summer Snow 女人，四十。43 / An Autumn’s Tale 秋天的童話 22 / Zu: Warriors from the Magic
Mountain 新蜀山劍俠 38 / C’est la vie, mon chéri 新不了情 78 / Viva Erotica 色情男女 94
March 14 – 27 2012 timeout.com.hk 23
72
PTU (2003)
Dir Johnnie To
(Simon Yam,
Maggie Shiu, Lam Suet)
Yam bends the rules in this
convoluted nocturnal thriller, which is set in nightmarish
motion when Lam’s uniformed buffoon loses his gun and
his Police Tactical Unit mates decide to secretly retrieve it
for him before the night ends. Cynical irony abounds.
70
Once Upon a Time in China 黃飛鴻 (1991)
71
The Blue and the
Black 藍與黑
The Blue and the
Black 2 藍與黑續集 (1966)
Dir Doe Ching (Linda Lin Dai,
Kwan Shan, Pat Ting Hung)
Released in two parts on the second anniversary of Lin’s
suicide, Ching’s adaptation of Taiwanese writer Wang
Lan’s poignant WWII novel charts the decade-spanning
affair of a pair of star-crossed lovers.
70
Once Upon a Time in China
黃飛鴻 (1991)
Dir Tsui Hark (Jet Li, Yuen Biao)
Jet Li turned from Mainland wushu champion to
international action star with Tsui’s nationalistic
reinvention of the folk legend of Wong Fei-hung. Its
warehouse combat scene, partly taking place on flopping
ladders, is one of the best fight scenes of kung-fu cinema.
69
Come Drink with
Me 大醉俠 (1966)
Dir King Hu (Cheng Peipei, Yueh Hua)
Before the iconic director moved
to Taiwan and shot Dragon Gate Inn (1967) and A Touch
of Zen (1971) – two of the greatest martial arts films ever
made – Hu refined the genre with this deliberately-paced
quest for justice.
68
To Liv(e)
浮世戀曲 (1992)
Dir Evans Chan (Lindzay
Chan, Josephine Koo, Anthony
Wong Yiu-ming)
Starting out as a cinematic response to Liv Ullmann’s
condemnation of our city’s deportation of 51 Vietnamese
refugees in 1990, Chan’s impossibly intellectual postTiananmen essay-cum-melodrama offers everything from
a Van Gogh ‘prank’ to a reciting of Invisible Cities.
67
After This Our Exile
父子 (2006)
Dir Patrick Tam (Aaron
Kwok, Ng King-to, Charlie Young)
Kwok won his second of two
consecutive best actor awards at the Golden Horse with
this crisply edited, Malaysia-set drama, which takes an
unflinching look at a gambler’s destructive influence on –
and unfathomable betrayal of – his young son (Ng).
66
Mr. Vampire
殭屍先生 (1985)
Dir Ricky Lau (Lam
Ching-ying, Ricky Hui)
A supernatural game-changer that
started a franchise and
FAVE 5 of David Bordwell, film historian
and author, Planet Hong Kong (2000):
24 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
set the rules for all things jiang shi, Lau’s uproarious
horror comedy popularised the mythology of Chinese
hopping vampires.
65
Police Story
警察故事 (1985)
Dir Jackie Chan (Jackie
Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung)
Chan defied death – and incurred
a variety of injuries – as a brave cop in this pinnacle of
action choreography, whose death-defying stunts amaze
from start (which sees the actor hang onto a doubledecker bus with an umbrella) to finish (with an escalatorjumping climax).
64
The Butterfly
Murders 蝶變 (1979)
Dir Tsui Hark (Lau SiuMing, Michelle Yim)
The maverick director’s careerlong schizophrenic sensibilities originated here: a
breathtaking debut which encompasses everything from
a wuxia writer-turned-detective as narrator to millions of
butterflies as its terrorisers. Hitchcock would have smiled
with envy.
63
Love in a Puff
志明與春嬌 (2010)
Dir Pang Ho-cheung
(Shawn Yu, Miriam Yeung)
From the hazy ambiance of its
KTV lounge parties to its uncannily realistic portrayal of
Cantonese banter’s amusing ways, Pang’s bittersweet
rom-com about two chain-smoking would-be lovers (Yu
and Yeung) looks reality square in the eye.
62
The Killer
喋血雙雄 (1989)
Dir John Woo
(Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee)
That church! Those white doves!
The awesomely sappy Cantopop soundtrack! Arguably
Woo’s most artistically accomplished film of the 1980s,
this one-last-job epic plays like a perfect cross between
Jean-Pierre Melville and Sam Peckinpah, deftly reversing
Chow and Lee’s roles in City on Fire (1987).
61
The Way of the
Dragon 猛龍過江
(1972)
Dir Bruce Lee (Bruce Lee, Nora
Miao, Chuck Norris)
Chuck Norris may be able to slam a revolving door, but
he’s still no match for Bruce Lee’s fearless country
bumpkin – who is, however, afraid of naked Italian
ladies. The Colosseum duel (and some hairy moments)
aside, the kung fu star’s Rome-set directorial effort also
surprises with its comedic touch.
60
92 The Legendary la
Rose Noire 92 黑玫瑰
對黑玫瑰 (1992)
Dir Jeff Lau (Tony Leung Ka-fai,
Maggie Shiu, Wong Wan-sze)
A nostalgic comedy that inducted Lau into post-modern
cinema hall of fame, this accidental classic parodies
1960s Jane Bond movies with a pitch-perfect sense of
style and wackiness.
59
Parents’ Hearts
父母心 (1955)
Dir Chun Kim (Ma
Si-tsang, Wong Man-lei, Lam Karsing, Yuen Siu-fai)
No one does a forced smile better than Ma in this family
melodrama. As an underemployed performer struggling
financially to care for his ailing wife and send his two
children to school, the real-life Cantonese opera star
turns in a heartbreaking performance which epitomises
the hardship of his generation.
58
Dangerous
Encounters –
First Kind
第一類型危險 (1980)
Dir Tsui Hark (Lin Chen-chi, Lo
Lieh, Che Bo-law, Albert Au)
An early testament to Tsui’s readiness to disturb and
provoke, the movie’s first cut was banned here for its
bombing premise and anti-social sentiments. Re-edited
with a new storyline about American arms smugglers,
Dangerous Encounters remains a hysterical thriller soaked
with teen violence and full-on social anarchy.
Chungking Express 重慶森林 25 / Come Drink with Me 大醉俠 69 / Shanghai Blues 上海之夜 /
Police Story 警察故事 65 / The Mission 鎗火 52
57
Festival Moon 中秋月 (1953)
Dir Zhu Shilin (Han Fei, Jiang Hua)
The twisted irony in social customs is
devastatingly explored in Zhu’s powerful film, which sees
a debt-ridden white-collar worker (Han) juggle between the
need to send his boss gifts during Mid-autumn Festival
and maintaining the basic dignity of his family.
56
Peking Opera Blues
刀馬旦 (1986)
Dir Tsui Hark (Brigitte Lin,
Cherie Chung, Sally Yeh)
This early milestone for Film
Workshop is a gender-bending, genre-blending crowdpleaser. Frenetically paced throughout, the comedy-cumespionage thriller provides an exhilarating spin on the
political chaos of 1910s China.
55
Autumn Moon 秋月 (1992)
Dir Clara Law (Masatoshi Nagase, Li Pui-wai)
A teenage schoolgirl (Li) living with her senile
grandmother finds a kindred spirit in a Japanese tourist
(Nagase) wandering in a state of existential confusion. A
meditative tale of migration and urban ennui.
54
The Prodigal Son
敗家仔 (1981)
Dir Sammo Hung (Yuen
Biao, Sammo Hung)
An invincible fighter (Yuen)
discovers that his father has paid off all his opponents
to save him in this engrossing Wing Chun comedy by
Hung, who directed, choreographed and impressed as the
leading man’s eccentric master.
53
Ashes of Time
東邪西毒 (1994)
Dir Wong Kar-wai (Leslie
Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung
Ka-fai, Tony Leung Chiu-wai)
A Jin Yong adaptation, Wong Kar-wai-style. Structured
with the concept of cyclical repetition from the Chinese
almanac, the auteur’s impressionistic riff on the classic
wuxia novel The Eagle-Shooting Hero is a desert-bound
swordplay drama whose only concern seems to be its
characters’ sentimental longings.
48
52
The Mission
鎗火 (1999)
Dir Johnnie To (Francis
Ng, Jackie Lui ,Roy Cheung)
Firing guns in messianic poses
becomes an art form in the extraordinary shopping mall
shoot-out in The Mission, which follows five hitmen as
they form a camaraderie of bodyguards for a triad kingpin.
A minimalist thriller with style and attitude to spare.
51
God of Gamblers
賭神 (1989)
Dir Wong Jing (Chow Yunfat, Andy Lau, Joey Wang)
The high-grossing action comedy
that inspired countless sequels, prequels, spin-offs and
rip-offs, Wong’s definitive gambling movie is anchored by
a sparkling Chow Yun-fat – all slicked-back hair, tuxedo
and cocky smirks.
50
Our Sister Hedy
四千金 (1957)
Dir Doe Ching (Mu Hong,
Yeh Feng, Lin Tsui, Soo Fung)
Marriage seems to be on
everyone’s mind in this Cathay Studios rom-com. As the
tomboyish third daughter of an affluent widower, Lin’s
titular role vivaciously oversees the matters of the heart
of her siblings – including the selfless eldest (Mu), the
promiscuous second (Yeh) and the innocent youngest
(Soo) – while bumbling towards her own self-discovery.
49
Dirty Ho 爛頭何 (1979)
Dir Liu Chia-liang (Gordon Liu, Wong Yue)
Action choreography at its most imaginative,
this martial arts freakshow boasts a litany of memorable
set-pieces involving fighters ‘pretending’ to be physically
handicapped, mentally deranged or – in the most
fascinating case – not really fighting at all.
48
McDull, Prince de la Bun
麥兜．菠蘿油王子 (2004)
Dir Toe Yuen (Voiced by Andy Lau, Sandra Ng)
Those who dismiss McDull as a cutesy piggy animation
have missed the point: the franchise’s deceivingly
innocent façade is mere sugar coating for acute
McDull, Prince
de la Bun 麥兜．
菠蘿油王子 (2004)
observations and disheartening commentaries on our
city. This second film, which poetically follows the dumb
working-class kid McDull’s search for his birth father, is
the best of all, parodying everything from our penchant for
redevelopment to our absurdly rigid education system.
47
Reign Behind a
Curtain 垂簾聽政
(1983)
Dir Li Han-hsiang (Tony Leung Kafai, Liu Xiaoqing, Chen Ye)
Nuanced acting, an obsession with period detail and the
rare opportunity to shoot at Beijing’s Forbidden City lends
this sequel to The Burning of the Imperial Palace (1983)
an authenticity seldom witnessed in Qing dynasty palace
films. Leung’s tortured portrayal of the dying emperor – in
the film’s first half alone – was enough to earn him best
actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
46
Motherhood 慈母心 (1960)
Dir Tso Kea (Cheung Ying, Wong Man-lei)
The sins of the patriarch filter down to the next
generation in Tso’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play
Ghosts. Eighteen years after he was sent overseas by
his suffering mother (Wong), the son (Cheung) of an
affluent household returns as a shadow of himself – both
physically and spiritually – before unwittingly falling for
his philandering father’s illegitimate daughter (Ha Ping),
conceived through the rape of a housemaid.
45
The Eight Diagram
Pole Fighter
五郎八卦棍 (1983)
Dir Liu Chia-liang (Gordon Liu,
Alexander Fu Sheng, Kara Hui)
A solemn classic remembered for its tragedies both onand off-screen, this Song dynasty-set revenge epic marks
the final screen appearance of the martial arts superstar
Fu Sheng – who died in a car accident during production –
and tells of the patriotic Yang family’s attempt to avenge
their dead members, who were ambushed by a traitor
conspiring with northern invaders. Gordon Liu makes
up for Fu’s absence in the role of Yang’s fifth son, who
becomes a Buddhist monk and shines in some of the
greatest pole fighting sequences ever put on celluloid.
44
Tears of the Pearl River 珠江淚 (1950)
Dir Wang Weiyi (Li Qing, Wong Sun, Cheung Ying)
Opening in a rural Guangdong recovering from
the Sino-Japanese War, this morally upright tearjerker
chronicles the tragic fate of a peasant couple driven
away to the city by a nasty landlord (Cheung) – only for
the husband (Li) to get tricked into the army, and the
wife (Wong) into prostitution. Bringing together some
of the best talents among Shanghai leftist filmmakers
(including famed director Cai Chusheng, who produced
the film), Wang’s story of love, perseverance and post-war
hardship is often considered the first critically acclaimed
Cantonese movie after the war.
43
Summer Snow
女人，四十。 (1995)
Dir Ann Hui (Josephine
Siao, Roy Chiao, Law Kar-ying)
Hui shows her humanist sensibility
with a bittersweet drama on life’s capriciousness.
Having always hated each other, a middle-aged working
FAVE 5 of Simon Yam, actor,
PTU (2003), Election (2005):
Crime Story 重案組 / PTU 72 / Full Contact 俠盜高飛 / Night and Fog 天水圍的夜與霧 /
Echoes of the Rainbow 歲月神偷 94
March 14 – 27 2012 timeout.com.hk 25
37
With a gibberish good-versus-evil plotline, the help of a
Hollywood special effects team, and his very own delirious
appetite for the visually entrancing, Tsui’s trend-setting
swordplay fantasy is a surreal spectacle like no other.
Every scene is a wonder in this hallucinatory story, which
roughly concerns a human soldier’s (Yuen) quest for
two mythical swords to save the world while a legendary
reverend (Hung) battles to restrain a destructive monster
for 49 days. Great pulpy fun.
The Orphan 人海孤鴻 (1960)
37
The Orphan 人海孤鴻 (1960)
Dir Lee Sun-fung (Ng Cho-fan, Pak Yin, Bruce Lee)
After losing his wife and daughter, and becoming
separated from his young son during the war a decade
earlier, a man (Ng) becomes a dedicated orphanage
director who crosses paths with a parentless pickpocket
(a very impressive teenage Bruce Lee before his move to
the US) and decides to make him a better person. The
Orphan’s long-lost colour negative was located in London
in the 1990s – certainly one of the greatest finds in Hong
Kong film preservation.
36
housewife (Siao in a multiple-award-winning role) finds
herself quickly becoming the caretaker of her father-inlaw (Chiao), a former air force lieutenant who’s losing
his mind to Alzheimer’s. Her timid husband (Law) isn’t of
much help, but love, amid the gently comical domestic
chaos, is still in the air.
42
Shaolin Soccer
少林足球 (2001)
Dir Stephen Chow
(Stephen Chow, Zhao Wei,
Ng Man-tat)
“How are we different from a salted fish if we have no
dreams in life?” asks Chow’s street cleaner in the actordirector’s delirious crowd-pleaser, in which washed-up
kung fu disciples band together to win a footy tournament.
An embarrassingly life-affirming underdog sports movie
made special by its reckless abandon to entertain,
Shaolin Soccer would eventually see the fellowship
conquer evil – or, more precisely, ‘Team Evil’. Through its
myriad of pop culture references, from Dragonball to The
Matrix, the comedy became the top-grossing Hong Kong
movie at the time.
41
City on Fire
龍虎風雲 (1987)
Dir Ringo Lam (Chow Yunfat, Danny Lee, Sun Yeuh)
Often regarded as a key inspiration
for Reservoir Dogs (1992), Lam’s heist flick – despite
its riveting action – is perhaps better appreciated as a
character study of a world weary undercover cop and lawenforcing protagonist (Chow, playfully intense) who is torn
between his police duty and loyalty to his criminal friends,
after being assigned to infiltrate a crime gang and set
FAVE 5 of Nicholas Winding Refn,
director, Bronson (2008), Drive (2011):
26 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
them up for an arrest. This, incidentally, is where thieves
in shades became all the rage.
40
The Kingdom and
the Beauty
江山美人 (1959)
Dir Li Han-hsiang (Linda Lin Dai,
Zhao Lei)
The huangmei diao film that consolidated the Chinese
operetta form’s popularity in Hong Kong, this lavish
Shaw Brothers production recounts a fairytale romance
abruptly and dishearteningly curtailed. When the restless
emperor of the Ming dynasty disguises himself as a
commoner and takes a stroll to the south, he quickly falls
for a peasant girl (Lin) and promises to marry her after
spending one night together – only for class divide and
youthful callousness to get in the way.
39
My Intimate Partner 難兄難弟 (1960)
Dir Chun Kim (Patrick Tse Yin, Woo Fung)
A year before Jules et Jim swept through the
French New Wave, two penniless buddies (Tse and Woo)
struggle to stay alive, and feel butterflies over the same
virtuous but unavailable beauty (played by Nam Hung,
who sees the two as ‘friends’) in Chun’s urbane comedy.
An influential prototype for the local sub-genre’s honest
fool/streetwise sidekick combo, My Intimate Partner is as
gently delightful as it’s awkwardly romantic.
38
Zu: Warriors
from the Magic
Mountain
新蜀山劍俠 (1983)
Dir Tsui Hark (Yuen Biao, Adam
Cheng, Brigitte Lin, Sammo Hung)
One-Armed
Swordsman
獨臂刀 (1967)
Dir Chang Cheh (Jimmy Wang Yu,
Chiao Chiao)
The conflicted psyche of an expert swordfighter is
unforgettably captured in this Shaw Brothers classic,
which launched an iconic character that would be recycled
over the decades. After suffering maiming at the hands
of his master’s smitten daughter (whose affections are
not returned), Fang Gang (Wang) departs for a quiet life
in the country, only to chance upon the remaining half of
a powerful martial arts manual – which, of course, is just
what a one-armed fella needs!
35
Rouge
胭脂扣 (1988)
Dir Stanley Kwan (Anita
Mui, Leslie Cheung, Alex Man,
Emily Chu)
Small wonder this contemporary ghost story has been
canonised as one of the great Chinese-language films.
At the centre of it all is Mui’s hypnotically solemn
performance as the ghost of a courtesan returning to look
for her lover (Cheung), who has possibly survived their
suicide pact in 1934. Kwan’s supernaturally nostalgic
drama is a haunting reminder of both the transience of
city life and, well, how we just don’t kill ourselves for love
like we used to any more.
34
Drunken Master
醉拳 (1978)
Dir Yuen Woo-ping
(Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien,
Hwang Jang-lee)
Chan establishes his brand of martial arts slapstick
in the only way he knows how: by turning the often
straight-faced and always disciplined folk hero of
Wong Fei-hung into a clownish trouble-maker.
Essentially a succession of hard-hitting one-on-one
combats connected by a flimsy storyline, this kung fu
spectacle follows Chan’s young punk as he picks fights,
eats without paying, and finally redeems himself by
learning the legendary Drunken Fist from his sadistic
teacher, Beggar Su (Yuen).
The Killer 喋血雙雄 62 / Bullet in the Head 喋血街頭 / The Blade 刀 / Chungking Express 重慶森林 25 /
Fallen Angels 墮落天使
33
Father and Son 父子情 (1981)
Dir Allen Fong (Shi Lei, Lee Yue-tin)”
Fong was named best director at the Hong
Kong Film Awards for each of his first three films. With
this autobiographical debut feature – also a best picture
winner at the Awards’ first edition – the New Wave helmer
reinvented the 1950s sub-genre of Cantonese father-son
melodrama with his neo-realist aesthetics. Despite its
historical accuracy and working-class flavour, the affecting
story of a stern father and his school-hating, cinema-loving
son has touched viewers from all social backgrounds.
32
Mad Detective
神探 (2007)
Dir Johnnie To,
Wai Ka-fai (Lau Ching-wan, Andy
On, Lam Ka-tung)
While To and Wai’s long-time collaboration had produced
its fair shares of major hits (Fulltime Killer, Running
on Karma), few could have anticipated the meticulous
plotting of this psychodrama packaged as a crime thriller.
Centring around a loony ex-inspector (Lau) who can see
the ‘inner demons’ of others, this weirdly fascinating
detective mystery merges Wai’s supernatural drift and
fatalistic worldview with To’s film noir sensibilities and
clinical shifts to ultra-violence. The Wellesian climax,
mirroring The Lady from Shanghai, reveals the characters’
fractured personas to near perfection.
31
Ordinary Heroes
千言萬語 (1999)
Dir Ann Hui (Loletta Lee,
Tse Kwan Ho, Anthony Wong Chausang, Lee Kang-sheng)
An essential and one-of-a-kind homage to the decades of
social movement in Hong Kong, Hui’s sprawling political
drama depicts the lives of various characters, including
Tse’s social activist and Wong’s Maoist Catholic priest,
all tied together by Loletta Lee’s role: a young woman
who’s lost her memory following an ‘accident’. Highlights
include a street play about the late Ng Chung-yin.
30
The Eternal Love 同命鴛鴦 (1960)
Dir Zhu Shilin (Fu Che, Hsia Moon, Kung Chiuhsia, Bao Fong)
Zhu’s clinical adaptation of Puxian opera classic After
the Reunion is a love story so fatalistically tragic it
could make Shakespeare envious. It begins with three
celebratory occasions – a 20-year-old scholar’s (Fu)
triumphant return from the imperial exams, his impending
wedding to the beautiful daughter (Hsia) of an aristocrat,
and his mother’s (Kung) newly-given honour as a chaste
widow by the emperor – and ends with four suicides
brought about by a maze of feudalistic taboos and
26
unfortunate decisions. An unforgettable 90-minute waltz
into hopelessness.
mid-19th century, Chan’s epic captivates with its heroic
taste for blood… and tears.
29
25
In the Face of Demolition 危樓春曉
(1953)
Dir Lee Tit (Cheung Ying, Tsi Lo-lin)
A laid-off teacher (Cheung) buries his sympathy and
takes on the thankless job as a rent collector in one of
the storylines of this community drama: a panorama of
tough luck, unemployment and raw humanity. Charting the
misfortunes of nearly a dozen residents of a ramshackle
partitioned tenement, this kitchen sink drama classic
famously provides the motto (“All for one and one for
all”) for its production company, Union Film. Bruce Lee
appears briefly as the kid of an impoverished couple.
28
A Simple Life
桃姐 (2011)
Dir Ann Hui
(Deanie Ip, Andy Lau)
The most recent film on our list is
a slice-of-life master-class – and a lock for best picture
at next month’s Hong Kong Film Awards – that speaks to
all generations. Described in our recent five-star review
as being ‘gently humourous, intensely moving but never
outwardly sentimental’, this graceful based-on-true-events
drama observes the dignity of the final years in the life of
Sister Tao (Ip, named best actress at Venice), now in the
care of the middle-aged son (Lau) of a family for which
she has been a housemaid most of her life.
27
China Behind 再見中國 (1974)
Dir Cecile Tang Shu-shuen (Tsang Kei-luk, Poon
Yu-man, Siu Siu-ling, Fung Bo-yin)
With its unflinching view of the Cultural Revolution,
Tang’s 1966-set drama about five Guangzhou residents
attempting to flee to Hong Kong was banned by censors
from release until 1987. One of the earliest films to deal
with the clash of communist and capitalist ideals that
would inevitably manifest itself with the 1997 handover,
the moral degradation and spiritual disenchantment of its
characters reveal the dehumanising effects felt by both
sides of the border.
26
The Warlords 投名狀 (2007)
Dir Peter Chan (Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi
Kaneshiro, Xu Jinglei)
Before making his gloriously divisive tribute to Chang
Cheh’s One-Armed Swordsman with last year’s Wu
Xia, Chan had already unleashed a superior remake of
another Chang classic, The Blood Brothers (1973). In
place of David Chiang, Ti Lung and Chen Kuan-tai are Li,
Lau and Kaneshiro, all magnetically watchable actors.
As soldiers and bandits unite in war-ravaged China in the
Chungking Express
重慶森林 (1994)
Dir Wong Kar-wai (Takeshi
Kaneshiro, Brigitte Lin, Faye Wong)
Who could forget Faye Wong’s
frisky fast-food joint waitress or Brigitte Lin’s Cassavetesinspired smuggler in a blond wig? Jubilantly realised
and populated by acutely lovelorn, if slightly unhinged,
characters, the two loosely connected stories in this ad
hoc project – shot quickly and cheaply amid the postproduction limbo of Ashes of Time – delightfully tackles
loneliness and chance encounters. Frenzied, quirky and
irresistibly romantic, this hip little film channels the impish
spirit of early Godard.
24
Raining in the Mountain 空山靈雨 (1979)
Dir King Hu (Hsu Feng, Tung Lin, Sun Yue)
Under the long, long shadow cast by Hu’s other
seminal classics sits this oft-neglected masterpiece, shot
back-to-back with Legend of the Mountain on location in
South Korea. Deliberately paced and meticulously edited
(by the director himself, who also wrote the screenplay
and supplied the art direction), Raining is a simple story
masterfully told, concurrently observing the choosing
of a new abbot and the attempted theft of a priceless
scripture in a Ming dynasty Buddhist monastery.
23
A Chinese Ghost Story 倩女幽魂 (1987)
Dir Ching Siu-tung (Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang,
Wu Ma)
“Dawn, please don’t come…” As Sally Yeh pleads
soulfully to James Wong’s iconic tune on the soundtrack,
the forbidden love between Cheung’s scholarly tax
collector and Wang’s glamorous ghost meets its
heartbreaking demise. Based on a Pu Songling short
story that has also been adapted into Li Han-hsiang’s The
Enchanting Shadow (1960) and Wilson Yip’s eponymous
2011 film, this Tsui Hark-produced supernatural action
fantasy spawned two hit sequels and remains a vital
showcase of our cinema’s madcap inventiveness. It’s like
a sensual Evil Dead romance!
22
An Autumn’s Tale
秋天的童話 (1987)
Dir Mabel Cheung
(Chow Yun-fat, Cherie Chung,
Danny Chan)
The favourite romance of many a Hongkonger, this Alex
Law-scripted drama is essentially a story of two lonely
souls: a Hong Kong student (Chung) who moves to New
York for her fickle boyfriend (Chan), and her older but no
The
Warlords
投名狀 (2007)
FAVE 5 of Dante Lam, director,
Beast Cops (1998), Beast Stalker (2008):
City on Fire 龍虎風雲 41 / School on Fire 學校風雲 / Dangerous Encounters – First Kind 第一類型危險 58 /
The Secret 瘋劫 96 / Man on the Brink 邊緣人 84
March 14 – 27 2012 timeout.com.hk 27
Theperfect
HongKongfilm
How can you tell when you’re watching a brilliant Hong Kong movie?
To celebrate ‘The 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films’, Edmund Lee pinpoints six
crucial elements that appear again and again on our silver screen…
The
Spooky
Bunch
Chinese
Opera
撞到正
Laugh, Clown, Laugh
笑笑笑
The traditional art form that
preceded the birth of Hong
Kong cinema – and has
made its influence felt
ever since
The
Eternal Love
同命鴛鴦
The Love Eterne
梁山伯與祝英台
C’est
la vie, mon
chéri
新不了情
Peking Opera Blues
刀馬旦
Durian Durian
榴槤飄飄
Parents’
Hearts
The Purple Hairpin
紫釵記
父母心
The Kingdom and
the Beauty
Rouge
Comrades:
Almost a
Love Story
江山美人
胭脂扣
甜蜜蜜
Homecoming
似水流年
Boat
People
An
Autumn’s
Tale
投奔怒海
秋天的童話
China
Behind
再見中國
28 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
Culture
Shock!
It’s all about East meets
West, Hong Kong meets
China, capitalism meets
communism – plus the
requisite migration
experience
Election 2
黑社會：以和為貴
The
Wild, Wild
Rose
After
This Our
Exile
O Father,
Who Art Thou?
Sorrows
of the
Forbidden
City
野玫瑰
之戀
McDull,
Prince de
la Bun
父子
The Blue
and the
Black
清宮秘史
藍與黑
麥兜．菠蘿油
王子
A psychoanalytic thesis could
probably be written about our
filmmakers’ Oedipal desire to
discover the real face of their
father – or take revenge on
their paterfamilias…
Forbidden
Love
To
Liv(e)
浮世戀曲
What’s so great about those
repressed and generally
unconsummated love affairs
which have come to
define our cinema?
Motherhood
慈母心
The
Arch
董夫人
The
Orphan
人海孤鴻
In the
Mood for
Love
Intimate Confessions
of a Chinese Courtesan
Once Upon
a Time in China
花樣年華
愛奴
黃飛鴻
The Perfect Hong Kong Film
Fist of
Gallants
Fury
打擂台
The Warlords
投名狀
Made in
Hong Kong
Crouching
Tiger, Hidden
Dragon
香港製造
The Way of the
Dragon 猛龍過江
Martial
Arts
Drunken
Master
臥虎藏龍
精武門
Come Drink
with Me 大醉俠
Because every single Chinese
person on the face of the Earth
knows kung fu – and there’s no
better place to show off your
moves than on the big
screen
醉拳
Shaolin Soccer
Ashes of Time
少林足球
東邪西毒
Gallants
打擂台
The Eight
Diagram
Pole Fighter
五郎八卦棍
The
Killer
喋血雙雄
The
Mission
One-Armed
Swordsman
鎗火
City on
Fire
獨臂刀
龍虎風雲
A Better
Tomorrow
英雄本色
Zu: Warriors from
the Magic Mountain
Jianghu
The ‘lakes and rivers’
where wuxia heroes bond
over chivalrous ideals have
provided the backdrop to
some of Hong Kong’s most
iconic movies
新蜀山劍俠
Ip Man
葉問
Drunken
Master
醉拳
Hard
Boiled
辣手神探
March 14 – 27 2012 timeout.com.hk 29
23
A Chinese Ghost
Story 倩女幽魂
(1987)
less puerile cousin (Chow), who settles her down before
cheering her up with such sophisticated fares as, eh,
going to Broadway musicals. Predictable it may be, but An
Autumn’s tale is as irresistibly heartfelt a film as it comes.
sublime wackiness. Yet beneath all the time-travelling and
supernatural slapstick of this postmodern two-parter is a
traditional love story so cheesy it’s actually romantic. Also
featuring the now-customary Wong Kar-wai spoofs
21
18
The Story of a
Discharged Prisoner
英雄本色 (1967)
Dir Patrick Lung Kong (Patrick Tse
Yin, Sek Kin, Wong Wai)
Everyone wants a piece of our rehabilitating hero (Tse
in a leather jacket), an expert safecracker who’s recruited
by both sides of the law after a decade in prison –
but will his unforgiving mother and upright brother
understand? While this humane precursor of 1980s
hero films may be eternally outshined by its much noisier
remake (A Better Tomorrow), Lung’s early-career tale of an
ex-con trying to go straight is an unsung masterpiece in
its own right.
20
Center Stage
阮玲玉 (1992)
Dir Stanley Kwan
(Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau,
Tony Leung Ka-fai)
At once an acting showcase for a present-day film
star (Maggie Cheung) and a moving tribute to 1930s
Shanghai screen legend Ruan Lingyu, Center Stage
elegantly weaves together original footage of Ruan’s films,
Cheung’s partly fictionalised re-enactment of her private
life, as well as real-life interviews among cast and crew
members. A meta-fictional exercise that sheds light on
stardom from every angle possible, the film also helped
Cheung to a Berlin Silver Bear award for best actress.
19
A Chinese Odyssey
Part One: Pandora’s
Box 西遊記第壹佰零壹回
之月光寶盒
A Chinese Odyssey Part
Two: Cinderella
西遊記大結局之仙履奇緣 (1995)
Dir Jeff Lau (Stephen Chow, Athena Chu, Law Kar-ying)
From the genius casting of the irreverent Chow as the
Monkey King to the masterstroke of letting Buddhist
monk Tang Xuanzang (played by Law, no less) burst into
The Platters’ Only You, Lau’s wildly imaginative Journey
to the West adaptation is deservedly recognised for its
FAVE 5 of Mabel Cheung, director,
An Autumn’s Tale (1987), Echoes of the Rainbow (2010):
30 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
Cold Nights 寒夜 (1955)
Dir Lee Sun-fung (Ng Cho-fan, Pak Yin,
Wong Man-lei)
Ng and Pak had starred opposite each other a
number of times but the 1950s screen couple –
almost always typecast as vulnerable husband and
independent yet devoted wife – were arguably at their
heart-wrenching best in this excellent adaptation of a
Ba Jin novel. Successively torn apart by his possessive
live-in mother, her wish for a better future, the ongoing
devastation of war and his steadily deteriorating
physical condition, these star-crossed lovers are two
for the ages.
17
Made in Hong Kong
香港製造 (1997)
Dir Fruit Chan (Sam Lee, Wenders Li, Neiky Yim)
Made for chump change and shot on leftover film stock,
Chan’s mischievously morbid effort tells the sad story
of a triad member (Lee) who’s dropped out from school
and abandoned by his family; even his friendship with
a mentally disabled larkie (Li) and a terminally ill girl
(Yim) seems to be cursed by the trio’s possession of
a schoolgirl’s suicide notes. Every frame of this tale of
wasted youth and irresponsible adults – possibly Hong
Kong’s most acclaimed indie feature ever – screams of
muffled anguish.
16
Homecoming
似水流年 (1984)
Dir Yim Ho (Josephine Koo,
Siqin Gaowa, Xie Weixiong)
Taking respite from her chaotic
life in Hong Kong, a businesswoman (Koo) returns to
her ancestral home in southern China, where she’s
been away for 20 years. There she reunites with her two
childhood friends (Siqin and Xie), who are now leading a
mundane married life in an agricultural community, and
the three become consumed by complicated emotions
arising from their widening moral and materialistic divide.
Inspired by his father’s passing, Ho exquisitely turns his
nostalgic longing for family roots into a lyrical meditation
on the sentimental bonds which await across the border.
14
Infernal
Affairs
無間道 (2002)
15
Sorrows of the Forbidden City
清宮秘史 (1948)
Dir Zhu Shilin (Zhou Xuan, Shu Shi, Rhoqing Tang)
The greatest of Qing dynasty court dramas also happens
to be the most historically important Hong Kong film
ever made. First released during the civil war, Shanghai
filmmaker Zhu Shilin’s mega-budget epic – about the
vicious political wrangling between Empress Dowager
Cixi (Tang), Emperor Guangxu (Shu) and his wife Pearl
concubine (Zhou), all mesmerisingly portrayed – was
cited by Mao Zedong as ‘a film of national betrayal’ in
1954, before being labelled ‘a traitor’s film’ by the Gang
of Four in 1967, thereby kicking off the devastating
Cultural Revolution.
14
Infernal Affairs 無間道 (2002)
Dir Andrew Lau, Alan Mak (Tony Leung Chiu-wai,
Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang)
If you really think about it, they should have put a spoiler
warning on all promo posters and film stills of this
exemplary undercover cop thriller: after all, what’s the
point of a suspense noir when even your elderly neighbour
– and her maid – knew that Tony Leung is going to put
a gun to Andy Lau’s head at the movie’s climax? More
ridiculous still: some guy called Marty did an obscure little
remake (The Departed) and won a piece of bronze or two
in Hollywood, where Hong Kong was spelled as ‘J-a-p-a-n’.
13
Fist of Fury
精武門 (1972)
Dir Lo Wei
(Bruce Lee, Nora Miao)
After his master Huo Yuanjia is
poisoned by the Japanese, gifted disciple Chen Zhen
(Bruce Lee) becomes a murderous avenger who can’t
stop terrorising the Hongkou Dojo and any racist banner in
his sight, including the notorious ‘Sick Man of East Asia’
and ‘No dogs and Chinese allowed’. Eventually, Lee will
kick towards the colonial oppressors while being fired at
with pistols, turning himself into a nationalistic martyr with
the most iconic of final freeze-frames.
12
Comrades: Almost
a Love Story 甜蜜蜜
(1996)
Dir Peter Chan (Leon Lai, Maggie
Cheung, Eric Tsang)
Destiny is calling Lai’s new immigrant from northern
A Better Tomorrow 英雄本色 3 / Homecoming 似水流年 16 / Boat People 投奔怒海 2 / Infernal Affairs 無間道 14 /
As Tears Go By 旺角卡門
China, who forms a ‘friendship’ – with benefits – with
Cheung’s Guangzhou comrade out of loneliness and a
shared passion for the Mandarin pop legend Teresa Teng.
The catch? He has a fiancée back home and she has her
materialistic ambitions to fulfil. Definitely a love story and
certainly one of our cinema’s very best, Chan’s nine-times
Hong Kong Film Awards winner charts the decadespanning near-romance with acute cultural awareness and
a sublime touch of emotional delicacy.
11
The Wild, Wild Rose 野玫瑰之戀 (1960)
Dir Wang Tianlin (Grace Chang, Chang Yang)
Wong Jing’s half-serious assertion that his father
Wang Tianlin ‘has a bit of Wong Kar-wai in him’ does look
to have some weight based on this Cathay noir musical, a
localised but no less stylish adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen.
Grace Chang shines in the leading role as a sassy
nightclub singer who, after taking up a dare to seduce
the engaged pianist (Chang Yang), soon falls for the train
wreck of a man. As the two’s emotional tangle sends
them into a downward spiral, their film is right up there
among Hong Kong’s greatest musicals.
10
Long Arm of the Law
省港旗兵 (1984)
Dir Johnny Mak (Lam Wai,
Wong Kin, Kong Lung)
A marvellous pre-cursor to the
explosive crime thrillers of John Woo and Ringo Lam,
Johnny Mak’s directorial debut follows several Red
Guards-turned-armed robbers through the sharp end of
these Mainlanders’ dreams of making a fortune in the
more ‘modernised’ Hong Kong. Led by a highly soughtafter criminal intending to pull off a heist at a Tsim Sha
Tsui jewellery store, the infamously violent Big Circle
gang – while finding their loyalty increasingly split by the
allures of the city – soon become the hottest target of
the police force after being tricked by a small-time triad
boss and sometime informant into murdering a corrupt
cop. With memorable set-pieces ranging from a helicopter
ambush – which may have inspired the mob boss
sequence in Godfather III (1990) – to a gunpoint standoff
that undeniably anticipated some of Woo’s most famous
scenes, Long Arm of the Law tops it off with a climatic
shootout inside the claustrophobic Kowloon Walled City
that even today remains a milestone of our action cinema.
9
of power. At its most ingeniously cynical, the film has
made a mockery of our simplistic capitalist ideals and
democratic aspirations in the very same stroke.
8
The Private Eyes
半斤八兩 (1976)
Dir Michael Hui (Michael Hui,
Sam Hui, Ricky Hui)
As their popularity snowballed
from the early days of television broadcast, the iconic Hui
Brothers team left behind a trail of vernacular comedy
movies that struck a resounding chord with working class
audiences. Easily one of the best from writer-director
Michael, The Private Eyes immediately impresses with
its wordless opening credit sequence showing only the
characters’ feet – in which a private detective tails his
subject in a pair of miserably broken shoes, only to have
one of his soles accidentally ripped off before stepping
on a beggar’s bowl and a cigarette stub with his exposed
foot. A cheeky, stingy boss who’s all too ready to exploit
his employees, Michael’s small-time private eye is
nonetheless faithfully aided by a honest, kung fu-fighting
apprentice (Sam) and a stupid, stammering assistant
(Ricky) who will literally test a bomb for him. Together with
the funky soundtrack by Sam and his band, The Lotus,
the movie also tapped into our collective consciousness
with a range of riotous gags, from aerobics for chicken to
a Sammo Hung-choreographed, Bruce Lee-inspired fight
scene with flour and sausages.
7
The Arch 董夫人 (1969)
Dir Cecile Tang Shu-shuen (Lisa Lu, Roy Chiao, Hilda
Chou Hsuan)
The legendary first feature by Cecile Tang – one of
the extremely few woman filmmakers then working
in Hong Kong – is a curious anomaly in many ways.
One of the most significant arthouse classics in our
film history despite its limited distribution, The Arch
was photographed by the great Subrata Mitra (regular
cinematographer for Satyajit Ray) in crisp black and
white – amid a wave of lavishly coloured period dramas
at the time – and edited by Les Blank and CC See with
a Nouvelle Vague edge that intricately utilises freeze
frames, quick zooms and fleeting flashbacks to visualise
its protagonist’s fragmenting psyche. Lu plays Madam
Tung, a dignified middle-aged widow soon to be honoured
by the emperor for her chastity. She is, however,
tormented by her suppressed desire for a cavalry
captain (Chiao) temporarily billeted in her aristocratic
residence; and when the captain turns his attention to her
flirtatious young daughter (Chou), our heroine’s misery is
completed. It is, in other words, as if Alain Resnais met
Henrik Ibsen in 17th century China.
6
Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon
臥虎藏龍 (2000)
Dir Ang Lee (Chow Yun-fat,
Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang)
After spinning our heads for decades with its delirious
showdowns, the wuxia genre finally conquered the world
with – of all stories – a poignant romance about two
pairs of would-be lovers perpetually repressing their
feelings. Looking to hang up his sword and settle down
with his longtime muse (Yeoh), a mighty swordsman
(Chow) is sucked into another one-last-job scenario as
an aristocrat’s daughter (Zhang) recklessly juggles the
thrills of the martial arts world, her secret affection for
a bandit (Chang Chen), and the wish of her family to set
her up for an arranged marriage. Described pertinently by
Ang Lee as ‘Sense and Sensibility with martial arts’, this
visually stunning, gravity-defying masterpiece won four
Oscars (including best foreign language film) and ushered
in a new era of traditional Chinese movies made with a
global audience in mind, most aptly exemplified by Zhang
Yimou’s Hero (2003).
5
Days of
Being Wild
阿飛正傳 (1990)
Election 2 黑社會：以和為貴 (2006)
Dir Johnnie To (Louis Koo, Simon Yam, Nick Cheung,
Lam Ka-tung)
Fans of Hong Kong gangster flicks breathed a collective
sigh of relief when Johnnie To ended the genre’s
post-Young and Dangerous impasse with his majestic
two-part epic. Taking off from Election’s (2005) nearanthropological interest in the triad society’s origins,
the veteran action auteur merges wit and gore in a
disturbingly resonant political satire – very astutely
disguised as a stylistically subdued dramatisation of the
power struggles surrounding the biannual voting process
at the top of ‘Hong Kong’s oldest triad’. A slow-burning
crime caper spiced with occasional bursts of sadistic
brutality (most memorably, a character is literally ground
up and fed to the dogs), Election 2 is further enhanced
by its political subtext: the candidates here, elegantly
played by Koo and Yam, are not only trapped by their own
lust of power or wealth, but also the mainland Chinese
government’s omniscient influence on their handover
FAVE 5 of Li Cheuk-to, artistic director of
Hong Kong International Film Festival:
9
Election 2
黑社會：
以和為貴 (2006)
Cold Nights 寒夜 18 / The Arch 董夫人 7 / Dangerous Encounters – First Kind 第一類型危險 58 /
Days of Being Wild 阿飛正傳 5 / The Mission 鎗火52
March 14 – 27 2012 timeout.com.hk 31
4
2
5
Days of Being Wild
阿飛正傳 (1990)
Dir Wong Kar-wai (Leslie
Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy
Lau, Carina Lau, Jacky Cheung,
Tony Leung Chiu-wai)
The movie with which Wong Kar-wai became an auteur,
Leslie Cheung became James Dean reincarnated and
many of the unsuspecting mainstream audiences became
bored out of their minds, Days of Being Wild is, above
all, a hymn to rebellion: an intention noticeable from
both Wong’s deliberate ditching of the conventional
genre formula, as well as the fact that his film shares
its Chinese title with Nicholas Ray’s masterpiece Rebel
Without a Cause (1955) – apparently with a cause. Set
in a 1960s Hong Kong which had never quite looked this
gorgeous before, Wong’s nostalgic reverie wrapped its
unacknowledged – but totally unmistakable – political
allegories in entrancing lights and shadows, presented
for the first time here by the inimitable trio of Wong,
production designer William Chang and cinematographer
Christopher Doyle. For critics, playboy Yuddy’s
determination to leave his foster mother to look for his
unknown birth mother has been regularly compared
to Hong Kong’s then-impending Handover, while the
character’s comparison of himself to a fabled kind of ‘bird
without legs’ – and thus could only land when it died –
also mirrored the sense of rootlessness keenly felt by
the population.
4
The Love Eterne
梁山伯與祝英台 (1963)
Dir Li Han-hsiang (Betty Loh
Ti, Ivy Ling Po)
The Chinese folk legend of the
Butterfly Lovers may have been adapted countless times
but this sumptuous rendition – with its catchy tunes,
poetic lyrics and eye-searing colour scheme – is hard to
FAVE 5 of Shu Qi, actress,
Three Times (2005), A Beautiful Life (2011):
32 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
投奔怒海
(1982)
3
A Better Tomorrow
英雄本色 (1986)
Dir John Woo (Chow Yun-fat,
Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung)
To understand how this particular
John Woo-Chow Yun-fat collaboration – instead of
their more stylistically accomplished The Killer or Hard
Boiled – captured the imaginations of a generation is
perhaps to chart the history of cinephilia in Hong Kong.
With a Chinese title that translates as ‘the true nature
of heroes’, Wu’s seminal heroic bloodshed movie has
indeed combined the best of several (movie) worlds: as a
relatively faithful remake of Patrick Lung Kong’s The Story
of a Discharged Prisoner (1967), it is further spiced up
by the principle of brotherhood and the honourable code
of yi stemming from martial arts epics of yesteryears –
especially those by his mentor Chang Cheh, for whom
Woo had previously served as assistant director. While
梁山伯與祝英台
(1963)
3
Boat People
be surpassed either artistically or historically. Essentially
doubling the fun of gender masquerade in the original
story, The Love Eterne casts the Amoy opera actress
Ling Po in the male shusheng role of Liang Shan-bo, a
young scholar who chances upon Zhu Ying-tai (Loh), an
aristocratic daughter who attends a male-only school
disguised as a boy. The two immediately become ‘sworn
brothers’ and subsequently spend three years together as
classmates. However, after Zhu reveals her true identity,
these BFFs’ decision to get married is tragically halted by
her father’s plan to marry her off to a rich family, and the
innocuous flirting gives way to a tear-jerking climax in the
movie’s third act. A timeless work of art from a short-lived
genre, this definitive huangmei diao film was a box office
sensation and a cultural phenomenon across Southeast
Asia (and especially in Taiwan), with Ling receiving a
special award for outstanding performance at Taiwan’s
Golden Horse Awards – because the judges couldn’t
decide whether to name her best actor or actress!
The Love Eterne
A Better
Tomorrow
英雄本色 (1986)
deliciously pitting Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung’s brother
characters against each other as mortal enemies on
opposite sides of the law, the action classic is also
exponentially enhanced by Chow’s charismatic portrayal
of Mark, the trench-coated partner-in-crime who’s left
a burnt mark on our public consciousness: who could
forget the sight of him lighting a cigarette with a burning
banknote? His cockiness is exceeded only by his loyalty
and heroism; in our approving minds, Mark is us.
2
Boat People
投奔怒海 (1982)
Dir Dir Ann Hui (George Lam,
Season Ma, Andy Lau, Cora Miao)
Boat People is unquestionably
one of the key films in Hong Kong cinema, and yet it’s
only with increasing distance that we begin to appreciate
how infinitely evocative – as all great art is – this political
thriller has managed to be. Centring around a Japanese
photojournalist (Lam) who revisits the post-Liberation
Vietnam in 1987 to document its rebirth, Hui’s film
captivatingly reveals the horrors facing people in the port
of Danang, who are sometimes sent to forced labour
camps that are misguidedly labelled as ‘new economic
zones’. Intriguingly, the film has for many years been seen
as a foretelling of our own city’s destiny after 1997 – an
interpretation not the least weakened by the Chinese
authorities’ view of it as an ‘anti-communist’ work. The
director herself has always denied the symbolic values of
her work, and, watching it now in the cold light of day, it’s
not too farfetched for one to believe her film was simply a
based-on-real-events drama intending to reveal the plight
of the Vietnamese refugees, who were causing quite a
stir in Hong Kong. Irrespective of the political readings
it attracted, Boat People remains first and foremost a
masterful drama about the survival of people, who may
be possessing even less control on their lives than they
thought. Its tragic sense of fatalism is haunting.
An Autumn’s Tale 秋天的童話 22 / A Better Tomorrow 英雄本色 3 / Comrades: Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 12 /
Fight Back To School 逃學威龍 / Police Story 警察故事 65
1
In the Mood for Love
花樣年華 (2000)
Dir Wong Kar-wai (Tony Leung Chiu-wai,
Maggie Cheung)
“He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty
window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And
everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.”
And so our greatest Hong Kong film concludes with a quotation from writer
Liu Yi-chang’s stream-of-consciousness novella, Intersection, which loosely
inspired Wong Kar-wai into capturing the tentative affair between two wouldbe lovers who cross paths briefly before parting forever.
The same destiny, ironically, could be said to apply to the diverging
receptions of this rapturous film itself: just as it had stormed the global
arthouse market and propelled its director into the league of the world’s
greatest living auteurs, the multiple-award-winning drama looks set to be
perpetually overshadowed by its canonised prequel, Days of Being Wild, in its
home city – thanks partly to the 1990 film’s matchless feat in gathering six
major stars for one elaborate narrative experiment. For any self-respecting
Hong Kong critic who has witnessed the phenomenon first hand, it must feel
a little sacrilegious not to love the Leslie Cheung-fronted heartbreaker.
Unlike Days of Being Wild – or in fact, 2046, which again charts the
crisscrossing relationships among an ensemble cast and neatly rounded
up Wong’s unofficial 1960s trilogy – In the Mood for Love is essentially a
romantic two-hander which characteristically shuns the overt emotional
wrestling of its two bookending films. The result is a film so simple in its
premise – and so chaste and subtle in its expression – that the slightest
turns of heads are bound to give an ecstatically poignant impression.
The year is 1962, and as next-door neighbours living in a crowded
apartment complex, Mr Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung
in a cheongsam showcase) gradually discover their spouses are having a
clandestine affair. Alternately finding solace by spending time with each
other, and masochistically toying with the other’s emotions by rehearsing
imaginary breakups, the two soon consummate their mutual longing by roleplaying as their cheating partners.
Drenched in sumptuous colours and a hypnotic soundtrack that swings
from Nat King Cole to Latin melody, the film is ably fashioned by William
Chang and unfailingly photographed by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee
Ping-bin, two of the very best cinematographers in world cinema. Beneath
the entrancing visual palette is a repressed romance which finds its apt
denouement among the Angkor Wat ruins – a sublime touch of storytelling
that renders In the Mood for Love as close to perfection as a Hong Kong film
has ever attempted to be. Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are in the mood for love
but little more than that. All they can share are furtive glances, weightless
words and a concrete reassurance that history forgets.
Top 5 ‘not-quite Hong Kong’ films
From Taiwanese classics helmed by HK directors to Mainland masterpieces starring HK screen icons, here are five borderline ‘HK films’ that should top your viewing list
1. Dragon Gate Inn 龍門客棧
(1967)
Swiftly after moving to Taiwan,
Hong Kong auteur King Hu
(Come Drink With Me) unleashed
one of the greatest wuxia movies
ever made.
2. Farewell My Concubine
霸王別姬 (1993)
Leslie Cheung takes the tragic
lead in Chen Kaige’s Palme d’Or
winning portrait of a tortured love
triangle set against the political
turmoil of mid-20th century China.
FAVE 5 of Ann HuI, DIRECTOR,
Boat People (1982), A Simple Life (2011):
34 timeout.com.hk March 14 – 27 2012
3. A Touch of Zen 俠女 (1971)
As if any confirmation was
needed, King Hu followed
up Dragon Gate Inn with a
breathlessly experimental martial
arts epic that cemented his place
in the pantheon of world cinema.
4. The Winter 冬暖 (1967)
One of the seminal dramas in
Chinese cinema, Li Han-hsiang’s
Taiwanese romance charts its
working class protagonists’
emotional yearnings with
penetrating poignancy.
5. Lust, Caution 色，戒 (2007)
Tony Leung and Tang Wei lose
their clothes – and themselves
– in Ang Lee’s Hong Kong-based
espionage thriller, spiced with a
shockingly candid portrait of sex
and desire. EL
A Better Tomorrow 英雄本色 3 / Days of Being Wild 阿飛正傳 5 / Infernal Affairs II 無間道II / Rouge 胭脂扣35 /
Long Arm of the Law 省港旗兵 10