Zhang Ziyi wants to wish you an even happier Lunar New Year!

“This stuffed cow has seen me naked, too!”

In other news, the annual LoveHKFilm Awards will be announced Sunday, March 15th, 2009. I would tell you to mark your calendars, but because these awards are less important than the day-old donut sale at Dunkin’ Donuts, I won’t presume to do so. Instead, I ask that you drop by to see the results if you would be so kind as to deign us with your presence. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t deign.

(more…)

Completely minor announcement: there will be no “End of 2008″ post on this blog anytime soon, and barring another self-serving edition of Kozo’s Mailbag, I’ll probably be stepping away from this blog for a few more weeks.

Someone is already unhappy about the news:

“Whaddya mean no ‘End of 2008′ post?
What am I supposed to do now?”

(more…)

Aaaaaaaad, we’re back. These toys in my living room say “Hi”:

Clearly, my toy collection kicks ass

Anyway, the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival is now over. During that 17-day period I consumed 18 movies, 5 short films, 2 regular theatrical releases and plenty of bad food. Amazingly, I did not get sick, though I do recall nodding off during my screening of 881.

 
Hokkien musicals put this cat to sleep, too

(more…)

Damn You, Kozo briefly returns from the dead. In celebration, Yotsuba says “Hi.”

“You’re still reading this blog? Poor saps.”

It’s a new month, but I doubt I’ll be able to spend much time on Damn You, Kozo. That’s because the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival is occurring in just one week’s time, and before then I still have to write a review for PAINTED SKIN and maybe BUTTERFLY LOVERS. We’ll see how it goes. If I can I’ll squeeze in one or two entries between screenings.

(more…)

I should not call what I’m doing blogging, because I don’t actually blog. I just post every month or so.

I would apologize for this long absence from Damn You, Kozo!, but that would assume that people actually read this thing. In many ways, LoveHKFilm.com is what it is because I assume nobody ever reads it. Our lack of attentiveness to our visitors is also why we’re totally behind, and why many other sites have leapfrogged us in traffic, popularity, and online self-congratulation. It’s also why I named this blog Damn You, Kozo!, because aside from completely usurping another person’s real name and identity, Kozo simply can’t keep up with the Joneses.

Bruce Lee said it best:

“DAMN YOU, KOZO!”

Ah, that feels better.

Anyway, in recent Hong Kong news, this person is getting married:

NOTE: Not an actual wedding photo

Everybody loves Kelly Chen - provided that you talk to the correct six out of ten people. Chances are that the four out of ten people who actually liked An Empress and the Warriors can be found in those six, and why not? The film features Kelly in heavy armor, plus the wonderful sight of Leon Lai spitting on Kelly’s bare back:

The magic of the movies!

This picture cracks me up:

You could interpret this photo at least three different ways

About Empress, someone should really talk about the genius casting one day. Thanks to the triumvirate of Donnie Yen, Kelly Chen, and Leon Lai, every audience member is guaranteed to dislike at least one person in the starring cast. Could it have killed them to cast a single actor who doesn’t have active detractors?

If you hate Hui Siu-Hung, you will go to hell

Empress and the Warriors also marks the first Mei Ah Blu-ray Disc. Ownership of a PlayStation 3 has put me on the Blu-ray bandwagon, and despite not being entirely enthused about Empress, I will be buying it. Other titles on my Blu-ray to buy list include the Infernal Affairs Trilogy, Chungking Express, and nearly anything with Tsui Hark’s name on it - short of Black Mask 2 and Missing, that is. I’d still pick up The Legend of Zu.

“Wow, I’m really sorry about Missing!”

He better be.

I doubt that the victory of Blu-ray over HD DVD will inspire a flood of Hong Kong catalog titles onto Blu-ray Disc. Such a flood did occur during the late nineties when DVD first hit the market, but even now, Hong Kong home video is beset by a terrible, terrible scourge that has destroyed home entertainment:

This logo is evil

Illegal downloading is the evil stepchild of the above, and is responsible for far more lost revenue, but I sincerely believe that crappy VCD quality - and its willing acceptance by Hong Kong consumers - is indicative of how the populace as a whole thinks of entertainment. Basically, everyone here is okay with watching movies with poor resolution, bad color, and zero features. Given that, is it a surprise that everyone’s okay with watching the latest and greatest in Asian Entertainment on You Tube?

Everyone in this photo illegally downloads

Back to Kelly’s concert:

Probably one of Kelly’s more conservative outfits

Kelly announced her upcoming marriage at the final show in her recent Hung Hom Coliseum concert series - a nice touch, since hers was the final appearance from a big star before the venue undergoes at least a year of renovation. I actually attended an earlier show (a.k.a. not the one where she said she was getting married), and here was my vantage point:

Kelly has always been a decent, if not spectacular singer - and really, she’s much better at singing than acting. The main draw here was her eye-popping assortment of wacky costumes and themes, which ranged from the cute bear-headed thing:

Love the boots

To the mermaid thing:

Hopefully Disney won’t sue

To the midriff-baring thing:

I think this was my favorite

To the white futuristic outfit with mega-huge goggles thing:

In the future we’ll all dress like this

Here’s one with Leon Lai as an accessory:

Too bad Donnie wasn’t there

Special mention must go to Kelly for her various yoga poses and exceptional good humor, which was evident because she didn’t act bothered by the people leaving their seats during her concert. For some reason, it seemed like every number was a new excuse for a bathroom break for the audience. Some people even got up to leave early. I felt like I was at a Laker game.

“Is this concert EVER going to get any better?”

In general, the concert was a fine diversion, but it was also curiously low-energy. Having attended a few other concerts in my time in Hong Kong, I must rate Kelly’s as the most non-crucial of the bunch - at least, from an audience standpoint.

About her marriage, it managed to occupy all the newspapers for a good 2-3 days here in Hong Kong - a nice change, since the news was entirely positive, and had nothing to do with scandal, judgmental mud-slinging, or accidental exposure. Sadly, it’s the exception to the norm over here.

Anyway, seeing Kelly allows me to check off yet another on my “Stars I Want To See Live, But Not Necessarily Meet” List. Now that Kelly is out of the way, my number one is sadly Leon because I’d like to see him, but yeah, meeting him is not a priority at all. If a meeting ever occurred, this could be my reaction:

An actual photo from the Kelly Chen concert

If someone asked which celebrity is the one I would most like to meet, that’s obvious: Ekin Cheng is still the number one. I hope it occurs one day, simply so we can take a picture and I can send a general “nyah-nyah” in the direction of those who think I don’t like Ekin Cheng.

Ekin and Charlene Choi on the set of Storm Warriors:

I think they’re made of wax

By the way, I still have not written about my Aaron Kwok concert experience. It may never happen now. I’m sure he’s all broken up.

Here’s a pic of him anyway:

“Tetsuooooo!!!!!”

Aaaand one last photo of Kelly:

She has something in her eye

Photo credits: As usual, thanks to Apple Daily - with an assist from Ming Pao, Sina.com, plus the World Wide Web.

One of these days soon, I’ll get around to updating this blog with:

- A minor photo essay on my trip to Italy
- A new edition of Kozo’s Shopping Cart of Crap

Somewhere in there I’ll squeeze in the 10 or so reviews I’m working on.

In the meantime, here’s some awesome personal news: my local 7-11 just got a brand new Slurpee machine:

 
My best friend this summer.

This means two things: A) now I can get Slurpees near my home to help combat the oncoming muggy days of Hong Kong Summer, and B) it’ll actually function properly because it’s new. A few years back, I tried out a Slurpee machine in Wanchai, but it was apparently old and ignored, because it dispensed a Slurpee that was 80% syrup and 20% everything else. After drinking that Slurpee, my blood sugar level hit an all-time high of 90%.  The sugar high was so great that I woke up the following morning in Aberdeen on a junk, sans wallet. At least I still had my pants.

So this summer, if I miss a site update, that’s probably where I’ll be: getting a Slurpee at 7-11. Maybe nobody else cares, but I sure as hell do. In my book, Storm Riders 2 has nothing on this news.

These guys probably wouldn’t care to hear that.

“No set visit for you!”

Again, it’s been a while. Chow Pak-Ho wears the message that I wish to share:

I know one person who owns this shirt,
and about seventy-five people who should wear it.

Welcome to your regularly scheduled bi-weekly Damn You, Kozo! blog post. As usual, I’d like to thank Apple Daily for supplying all our photos. Frankly, they’re the greatest newspaper in the history of time EVER.

Kelly Chen’s facial expression shows her appreciation of my sarcasm:

“Do you have to be such a prick?”

On to the actual subject here: Man, I’m beat.

The Hong Kong International Film Festival has finally ended the majority of its program, and I have zero screenings left to attend. I saw some good films and some bad films at the fest. Most will be showing up on LoveHKFilm.com as reviews, but there will likely be a few that I don’t touch. One film in particular I don’t wish to review because I was so unimpressed with it that even writing about it makes me sad. Also, despite the general perception that I’m picky and mean, I find negative opinion tiring and sometimes more damaging than saying nothing at all. So…at least one film won’t get reviewed.

Shawn Yue is down with that:

“Man, that’s awesome! I’ve so got the munchies.”

I also won’t be reviewing another film, Coffee or Tea, until its official theatrical release because the fest screening had a temp music track that I found egregiously overblown. As a result of its completely overwrought music score, my perception of the entire film was probably affected. I would prefer to wait a few months until its finalized before I pass judgment on whether or not I liked it.

Also, I got ill during the fest and missed three films, including a couple I was really looking forward to. Those films were the award-winning Home Song Stories, and quite sadly, the Lawrence Lau duo City Without Baseball and Besieged City. I’ll have to check them out later, but my attempt to be timely has failed miserably.

I did drag myself out of bed those days to check out a few films that I really wanted to see, including Sylvia Chang’s Run Papa Run, but thanks to my lack of complete recovery, I ended up with a five-to-seven day period of sluggishness and discomfort I fondly refer to as “Hell in March”. As a result of the sick days my work fell way behind, my LoveHKFilm.com review writing fell way behind, and this blog - which occupies a lower rung on the importance ladder than everything else in my life - fell totally behind.

So yeah, I’m tired. This is what I look like now:

Permanent ink is a real killjoy

Film Festivals are tiring - and potentially dangerous to my health - but I have to say that I really enjoy them. Prior to coming to Hong Kong, I was never really partial to film fests, but after attending a few here, I’ve changed my mind. I now like film festivals so much, that I simply can’t go a whole month without a new one.

As a result, I’ll be off to another film festival at the end of the week, the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, where I’ll get to see one of Johnnie To’s new PTU television movies, plus The Sparrow, and a bunch of other Asian films that I look forward to checking out. I’m not sure why I’ve decided to go film-fest-o-rama with my life, but hey, that’s where the wind is taking me right now: to Italy, and far away from Hong Kong’s increasingly muggy weather.

As far as LoveHKFilm.com is concerned, all this rampant movie-watching means that I should probably institute a 600-words-or-less limit when writing future reviews because my potential review backlog will likely number twenty or more films. The other option is to turn off that portion of my brain, not review anything, and just act like your average paying audience member. It could make me happier. Like this man:

Andy Lau is thinking of the poor people
who paid to see All About Love.

Also, during my time in Italy, I will be completely unwired. I don’t have a working wi-fi laptop, and I don’t intend to queue for public workstations so it’s entirely possible that I won’t be checking out this site, this blog, or the entire damn Internet for close to a week. Once I return from Italy, I’ll have a whole slew of Hong Kong movies to catch up on reviewing, including the sequel to Barbara Wong’s Truth or Dare, plus the new Wong Jing spectacular My Wife is a Gambling Maestro. There’s also that Jet Li/Jackie Chan debacle movie, The Forbidden Kingdom, to check out.

Considering the above, this may be the only time I update Damn You, Kozo! in April. I would say that’s sad, but anyway, most of the stuff that appears on blogs is extraneous and unnecessary, so we can think of this month as simply “cutting the fat” from this website and the World Wide Web at large. I’m happy to do my part to slim down the Internet. We should get an award for Bandwidth Conservation.

These guys are also enthused:

“We support your decision to conserve bandwidth!
Please stop this website and blog immediately!”

No problem. I’ll get right on it.

I have yet to share my experience at Aaron Kwok’s recent Hong Kong concert, though this picture is likely worth a thousand words:

“I’m just acting! Really!”

I’ll remember to talk about it in detail one day, but I can probably sum it up right now in one word: fabulous.

Back to the main subject of this post: Ekin Cheng’s manager, Sandy Lamb San-San reportedly told media today that Ekin would hold a concert somewhere in Hong Kong to celebrate his twentieth(!) year in the entertainment industry. It likely won’t be at the Hung Hom Coliseum because sadly, Ekin probably isn’t big enough for that venue anymore.

But who cares? It’s an Ekin Cheng concert and I’m in Hong Kong to see it. I can’t begin to tell you how long I’ve waited for this day.

I predict my experience at the concert will involve the following:

- The concert will start late because all Hong Kong concerts start late. I predict at around 8:15 pm.
- Ekin will wear something shiny.
- Jordan Chan will be the guest performer and they’ll talk about how old they are.
- I will bring a neon sign with “梁詠琪” printed on it.*
- At 8:18 pm, I’ll attempt to throw a DVD copy of For Bad Boys Only at Ekin’s head to let him know that I’m still upset about paying to see it in the theater. Thanks to YesAsia.com’s previous “Buy 3 Get 1 Free” campaign, I now own multiple copies of the DVD so I’ll have multiple chances to tag him in the noggin. If I bring some VCDs, I can double my ammunition.
- I’ll hire someone to run up on stage to heckle Ekin for every single time he killed or help kill Roy Cheung or Francis Ng in a movie. I count six times, for Young and Dangerous, Young and Dangerous 3, Young and Dangerous 4, Born To Be King, A Man Called Hero, and Heroic Duo. I’ll throw in a seventh and eighth time for Infernal Affairs 2 because both Roy and Francis died in that, and I believe Ekin was responsible even though he didn’t appear in the film.
- At 8:23 pm, I’ll fend off my first attack from irate fans. I may bring pepper spray.
- At 8:27 pm, I’ll be escorted out by 4 security guards, one of whom will say to me, “I love your site, even though I don’t always agree with your reviews.”
- On my way out I’ll buy a ticket for the second concert to continue pursuing my dream.

Sadly, I probably won’t even be able to make it inside the second concert because members of the Ekin Cheng Forum will show up in force to stop me, likely assisted by their irate boyfriends, who have been forced to skip a PSP ad-hoc wireless party to beat up some guy outside the Ekin Cheng concert.

I cannot predict the outcome of the ensuing melee, but I hope Roy Cheung or Francis Ng appear to back me up. Roy and Francis, if you’re reading this, please show up. Thanks to Exiled and Once Upon a Time in Triad Society 2, I believe you both have the ability to kick ass.

If you’re in Hong Kong at the time, I welcome you to show up and support my cause. If anyone needs extra incentive, I found this photo on my hard drive:

T-shirts don’t lie

Actually, I would like to own a shirt like that too.

*梁詠琪 = Gigi Leung Wing-Kei

Because I still can’t finish yet another edition of Kozo’s Shopping Cart of Crap - it keeps ballooning because I keep buying more DVDs - I’m going to start yet another feature on this blog. It’s a Movie News Roundup, affectionately called “Damn You, Movie News!” But since everything is in newsbite form, we can also call it News Bullets of LoveHKFilm. We even have a mascot for the occasion:

Run, Leon, Run!

Note that this new feature will not take the place of the movie news that you can find on such fun sites as The Golden Rock or Kaiju Shakedown. I have neither the time nor language ability to effectively deliver news like those other sites, and some is probably so late as to be bothersome. Hell, this may be the only time I attempt such a feature.

Also, most of this news here is second or third hand, i.e. people tell me about it in passing and whatever I recall gets typed up here. What that means is that it’s practically all hearsay and should not necessarily be considered accurate. In this way, I’m not unlike many other members of the media.

CJ7 premieres!

Who in this picture looks the most unhappy?

Stephen Chow’s CJ7 just had its premiere here in Hong Kong, and reporters are all abuzz about the supposed frosty relationship between Stephen Chow and his new find, Kitty Zhang Yuqi. She’s the most comely female in the picture above. To better understand why Stephen Chow cast her, there’s this photo:

Stephen Chow has an undeniable eye for, uh, talent

What they’re saying is that she’s misbehaving and that Chow is blocking her from further opportunities, including a supposed Hollywood role in that rumored Will Smith-produced remake of The Karate Kid. At the premiere, the two reportedly never spoke or even exchanged eye contact. She was also late to the premiere and completely skipped an earlier promotion because she wasn’t feeling well.

If people recall, Zhang made headlines a while back when she went and got eyelid surgery during the filming of CJ7, causing potential continuity problems for the film, and understandably pissing Stephen Chow off to no end. Previously, Chow has had publicized issues with two more of his “discoveries”, Eva Huang Shengyi and Cecilia Cheung, though the latter was handled somewhat amicably - which was why Cheung ended up having a cameo in Shaolin Soccer. What this has to do with the current rumored Chow-Zhang rift is something that one can only speculate on. Go ahead and give it a try.

Possibly more frustrating to the average “who cares about gossip” moviegoer is the fact that numerous Hong Kong dailies, including the Apple Daily, Oriental Daily, and Orisun, revealed spoilers or the end of the film in their online and print stories. In the case of the Apple Daily, the ending was revealed in the story headline. The others were kind and either put the spoilers in the body of the story, or the sub headlines. This occurred in periodicals dated January 25th, 2008. That’s a full six days before the film’s release.

As a result of the above, the Hong Kong Media wins our Supreme Bonehead Award, which is reserved for those who ruin it for EVERYONE. Nice job, Hong Kong media! It’s days like today when the inability to read Chinese is a blessing.

By the way, I did hear that Kitty Zhang gave away the ending much earlier in Mainland interviews. She rocks!

This guy rocks, too:

“One day, I will leave this boy everything I own.”

 

CJ7 merchandising blitz!

Yep, now for an extra $19 Hong Kong dollars at Kentucky Fried Chicken, you can own your very own CJ7 plush toy with attached Fai Chun, or a new year blessing or wish.

I own lots of crap.

This particular one has carries the wish, “Girlfriend won’t change to Yu Fa.”

In case you’re wondering, this is Yu Fa:

Tsui Hark announces new film, abandons a dozen others

It seems like Tsui Hark gets attached to a new movie every other week (Like The Eye 3 - will he ever make that?), but the other day, he held a press conference to talk about his new film, which may or may not be a retooling of his classic Peking Opera Blues. Here’s Tsui with his actresses at the event.

“We’ve just hit our third bar tonight!”

For the record, the actresses are - yes, it’s her again - Kitty Zhang (in the fab platinum wig) , Zhou Xun and Guey Lun-Mei from Jay Chou’s Secret. The combo is certainly attractive from a male heterosexual perspective, but the released images are bizarre-looking, to say the least:

My guess on the English language title is Tsui Hark’s Powerpuff Girls.

I think Guey Lun-Mei is playing Blossom.

Tsui Hark’s 21st century track record doesn’t really inspire confidence, so it’s understandable if this new film is greeted with a collective raised eyebrow. I actually enjoyed Time and Tide and even Seven Swords. However, Black Mask 2 and The Legend of Zu were under whelming, to say the least.

But, as is the case with everything, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. There are some people who swear that The Legend of Zu is a masterpiece. I got an email once from someone who said, “You sir, are an idiot,” because I said in my review that The Legend of Zu was confusing and “like swimming in cement.” It was only my opinion, but this person was bothered enough to write in to ask me what the hell was up. Obviously I was heartbroken and went and amended my review right away.

And obviously, Stephen Chow hasn’t blocked Kitty Zhang from making this film, so, uh, I have no idea what the real story is there.

Yumiko Cheng stars in movie that most people probably don’t care about

Here’s a movie that I bet the movie geek websites are not talking about. Walking wardrobe malfunction Yumiko Cheng is starring in Yet Another Youth Film (NOTE: not actual film title) with Yan Ng, some guy, singer Jason Chan, some other girl, and a few other people. I predict many film careers will start and end with this movie.

A minute after this photo was taken, Yumiko Cheng’s top fell off

Here’s Yumiko attending the start-of-shoot ceremony. Her reaction to the ceremonial cutting of the roast pork is odd, to say the least:

“Ooo, he’s cutting off the head! Yay!”

 

Ekin Cheng stars in new film, almost hits pedestrians with car

Ekin Cheng is making a new movie! This is so exciting that I’ve decided to extend the lifespan of LoveHKFilm.com so we can at least review it:

“Hey, you’re that guy from Anna in Kung-fu land! That sucked!”

Ekin stars with Karena Lam in this romance, which marks the directorial debut of Ivy Ho, better known as the screenwriter of Comrades, Almost a Love Story and July Rhapsody. Ho also wrote Divergence and Linger, but our memory is selective and we can’t quite recall what happened in those films. Or, we don’t wish to.

Anyway, when shooting the above scene, Cheng accidentally put the car in reverse, annoying the locals with his lousy driving skills. So, besides his acting and his Mandarin, Cheng’s driving is also below par. On the other hand, this is the fourth time he’s co-starred with Karena Lam, so he’s obviously way superior to anyone here.

Damn you, Ekin Cheng!

“Look Karena, it’s that silly Kozo person. Let’s laugh at him together.”

 

Sammi Cheng returns from Everlasting Regret exile to make new film

Also on the movie rebound is Sammi Cheng, who teams with Eason Chan for a comedy in which she plays a police inspector.

Cheng waiting in the van:

Sammi Cheng mistakes the window for a mirror

The good news is that Sammi Cheng has finally chosen to return to Hong Kong film, and is doing a commercially-viable audience film rather than an award-baiting arthouse picture. In even more good news, the film is being directed by Alan Mak and Felix Chong, who made the underrated Moonlight in Tokyo and had something to do with those Infernal Affairs movies.

I’m not sure what the bad news is, but I’m sure the HK media will come up with something.

Wong Jing casts TVB starlet Fala Chen in new film

Making her screen debut in a new film is Fala Chen, who will be working with Simon Yam and Wong Jing on some unknown motion picture that will probably be better than Beauty and the Seven Beasts and worse than Colour of the Truth.

Hopefully, this is also her last film with Wong Jing.

In a coincidence, Fala Chen will also be playing a police inspector, though she’s obviously much younger and has arguably greater marketing upside than Sammi Cheng does. Who is Fala Chen, you ask? She was once crowned Miss Asia America, and is one of TVB’s rising starlets.

She’s better known around Hong Kong for appearing in dramas like this:

Plus posing for photos like this:

We call this fan service.

Francis Ng suffers for art, sports bad hair in film

Finally, in our upcoming movie file there’s this new film, starring Francis Ng and Taiwan star Terri Kwan:

“I had electroshock therapy yesterday.”

Eric Tsang is producing this thriller, which is about a hitman and a prostitute. I’m sure everyone is excited now. What I’m most excited about is Francis Ng’s hair, which may be more entertaining than the film, and could go down in the pantheon of Crappy Hair Hong Kong movies. Ng is a veteran of crappy hair anyway. Who can forget him in The White Dragon:

Not the new Star Trek movie.

Producer Eric Tsang is also a Crappy Hair Veteran. Check him out in A Wondrous Bet:

“It’s not alive, so stop speaking to it.”

Not to mention The Pye Dog:

“It’s also a mop.”

While we’re discussing Crappy Hair, the stars of Tsui Hark’s new film look a little extreme:

Pop quiz: Stephen Chow is unhappy with which girl?

But can their bad hair really top this trio?

How can they fight without depth perception?

And hey, who can forget this spectacular ‘do?

“It’s me again!”

Andy Lau refuses to be left out!

“Rule #1: Nobody talks about Fight Club.”

However, to me the greatest Crappy Hair Movie of all time is none other than Future Cops:

I bought a DVD of this film just for these screen captures

Why I fixate on movie hair is unknown, but that’s the way it goes. Bad hair and bad outfits are always easy to pick on because, well, they’re bad. It’s the same reason that we can’t stop talking about Wong Jing movies or D-War. Besides, hairstyles are fun.

But we’re out of news. Here’s one more picture from the CJ7 premiere:

CJ7: It’s really a horror film.