The Skinny:
LoveHKFilm.com is going on hiatus for the foreseeable future. I’m guessing at least a year, not counting the three-plus months since our last update in December 2016. Sorry, we won’t be around to review the 12 movies starring Louis Koo and Lau Ching-Wan coming out in 2017. Have fun and we’ll see you when we see you.

The Long Version:
How much time have you got? Because you’ll need it if you intend to read this whole thing. If you’re only interested in Asian movies, and not LoveHKFilm.com or the site webmaster, then you should totally skip this.

Last warning.

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We were always Twits, but now we’re on Twitter. Look who’s excited:

“Yesssssss! I’m STOKED for this, man!”

Oh, hmm, wrong guy for this site. How about this:

“Oh boy! LoveHKFilm.com on Twitter!
It makes me drool. I also need walkies.”

The official LoveHKFilm Twitter feed can be found RIGHT HERE GO NOW. There’s actually another LoveHKFilm Twitter out there but I have no idea who runs it or what they do. I’m guessing it’s not related to me because my multiple personality disorder was cured back in 2004.

Joining Twitter is just another part of this website’s quest to take over the universe, or at least find other ways to prevent our eventual death. As the site enters its ninth year online, we haven’t done much to enhance ourselves beyond some barely updated blogs and a greater dedication to writing about movies that nobody cares about. There are some personal reasons in there too, but I shan’t bore you with them because this post is about LoveHKFilm.com and not the dope who runs the thing.

Right now, I’m the only one who’s using it, but sooner or later, I hope to add a few other people so we can collectively dispense news, tidbits or chatter relating to Hong Kong Cinema and the HK film scene. As such, when I write about myself on Twitter I will likely be talking in the 3rd person. I’m sure that’ll excite people.

“Actually, this news makes me sad. Why does
LoveHKFilm have to find new ways to hurt us?”

Sorry Cecilia. We’ll stop making fun of you for a week.

Anyway, LoveHKFilm Twitter is now launched. If we can use it for another 6 months before mothballing it, it’ll already be a success.

Charlene Choi has a little message for everyone:

“Yay, I’m on happy pills!”

Charlene is in a good mood, so we all should be too. The State demands it.

Kevin Ma of the Golden Rock pointed me in the direction of the following YouTube clip. It’s a RTHK (Hong Kong’s resident public broadcasting organization) segment about a young man from the U.K. named Nick, who decided to come to Hong Kong to break into the film industry. His inspiration: INFERNAL AFFAIRS, which he’s seen 30 times. You can watch the embedded segment below. It’s in Cantonese but Nick speaks mostly in English.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION ALERT: Check out both the 2:40 and the 6:34 mark of the embedded RTHK video featuring Nick.

After viewing this segment, my respect for both Nick and RTHK just went up a few notches - all because of their choice of web destinations.

Seriously, I wish Nick the best of luck. The film biz is thankless and difficult, and not for anyone who thinks opportunities and acclaim should be handed to them on a silver platter. He seems humble and hardworking, and if he does make it I’m sure he’ll have earned it.

Good luck, Nick! If you’re reading this, contact me and I’ll buy you a drink someday. I would show you a location from INFERNAL AFFAIRS but I’m sure you’ve found them all.

Man, times are tough:

Action figures for only US$2

Actually, I have no idea if that’s really the deal at the above store because I have yet to walk in and shop. I should, though, because nothing makes a person feel better in times of economic crisis than adding more useless crap to your apartment. Either way, the sign and its superb Engrish kicks ass.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that we’ve just added a new blog, Ronin on Empty from longtime site reviewer Sanjuro. Now that his blog is here, I’ll let him handle all the personal stories and tangential topics, while I use my blog to cover official site business, e.g. dish on the LoveHKFilm Awards, plus installments of Kozo’s Mailbag and even some minor film-reviewing - some of it from writers who are not me.

This week, I’m featuring two reviews from some guy named Koh So who writes for YesAsia.com. You can find his work on YumCha!, YesAsia.com’s content platform. It’s a place where reviews, news, and other assorted Asian Entertainment goodies can be collected for use by people who use the fancy Internets. Koh So is impossibly more upbeat than I am, so whenever he reviews something, he spins it positive.

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It’s been a while.

Running LoveHKFilm.com and its associated businesses, subsidiaries, and licensed properties can sometimes be quite a chore. Even when I ignore its main product - film reviews - I’m usually dealing with a related commitment, be it a favor or freelance job acquired through the site, emails in relation to the site, or personal meetings having something to do with the site. Since I now live and work in Hong Kong because of the site, I can now count almost everything I do every day as something having to do with the site. When you put it in those terms, the whole thing can feel slightly alarming.

Back to the main point: I owe LoveHKFilm.com some new reviews soon, which is no big deal because that’s the way the site works. Without new reviews, LoveHKFilm.com would become a shadow of its former self, a 35 year-old statue guarding the lane while speedy guards blow past me for an easy layup. That’s right, just like Shaquille O’Neal.

“I am the greatest! Well…I was about six years ago.”

However, since the inception of Damn You, Kozo! I have gained a new responsibility: I now owe this blog some posts, which is more difficult to handle than I first thought. There are two reasons for this. 1) I have lots of ideas, but lack the time and energy for proper execution, and 2) I have yet to master the art of the short blog post. If I could somehow satisfy myself with a 200-word blog post I’m sure I could become ultra-prolific.

I also seem to enjoy putting lots of pictures on my posts. If I simply broke that habit I’m sure I could double or triple my output.

Then again, how can I resist posting photos like these:

“Edison is so dreamy…except his skin is dull
and fatigued. He should use L’OREAL Hydra
Energetic moisturizing gel cream to hydrate
and reduce his skin’s natural pastiness.
Because he’s worth it.”

Speaking of Daniel Wu’s pitchman abilities, they’ve apparently claimed another victim. Just a week or so ago, I celebrated my latest birthday, and someone - after getting a load of this blog post - saw fit to present me with my own can of L’OREAL Hydra Energetic moisturizing gel cream, so I too can tighten, hydrate, and, uh, anti-dull my skin.

The first step towards meterosexuality

I think the above qualifies as a Sign of the Apocalypse.

My birthday is only the most recent thing that’s eaten up time. There was also an ill-timed bout of sickness, and your usual things such as work, weather, and Sexy Photos Gate, which has been covered respectably by our sister blog, The House Where Words Gather. I commend Sanney’s ability to dissect the issue intelligently and without active bias. I have the ability to do neither, because when I see the Sexy Photos Gate-related photos that Apple Daily has seen fit to unearth, I can’t help but make jokes about them.

By the way, did you know that Edison recently survived an assassination attempt?

The assassin (right) almost got the drop on Edison Chen (center),
but the grey-suited bodyguard (left) intervened quickly,
using his Index Finger of Death (TM) to strike the assassin
in the throat, instantly rendering him mute, unconscious,
and unable to participate in any future karaoke activity.

Apple Daily is a treasure trove of fab celebrity photos. They’ve outdone themselves with their coverage of Sexy Photos Gate, but there are plenty of non-Edison pictures available in their fine daily postings, too. Frankly, I have so many fun photos saved up by now that I have no idea when or how to use them.

Here are a few examples:

Zhang Ziyi’s pink dress also doubles as a personal space protector

Upon meeting, the two Wongs
discovered that their individual
filmographies share many similarities.

Media Asia boss Peter Lam, Johnnie To, Shu Qi, and Miriam Yeung.
There’s a real story behind this photo but it’s more fun
to look at it and make up your own. It can be a contest.

Apple Daily rules.

Anyway, time for some navel gazing.

Lee Hyo-Lee.
Or is it Lee Hyolee or Lee Hyori?
Inconsistent romanization only
makes Google Image Search more difficult.

Fourteen months ago, I started LoveHKFilm.com’s current update schedule, which is known as “Whenever I feel like it.” Originally, that was done to prevent the grind of the two-week update, but it actually caused me to update the site far more than I originally used to. What I discovered was that site updates were not dependent on a fixed time interval or even my mood, but only upon the movies that I see.

Recently, LoveHKFilm.com has gone three weeks without new reviews, which is pretty unusual. That’s all because the movies I’ve seen all fall into one of two categories: A) movies that already have reviews on LoveHKFilm.com and B) movies that shouldn’t be reviewed by LoveHKFilm.com. Here’s what I saw recently:

Movies that already have reviews on LoveHKFilm.com:
Blood Brothers (dir. Chang Cheh, 1973)
Bullet and Brain (dir. Keung Kwok-Man, 2007)

Movies that shouldn’t be reviewed by LoveHKFilm.com:
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (dir. Julian Schnabel, 2007)
Sweeney Todd (dir. Tim Burton, 2007)
Enchanted (dir. Kevin Lima, 2007)
Vantage Point (dir. Pete Travis, 2008)

So to assuage the three people who are wondering why the site has been so quiet, that’s the reason why: because I’m not seeing anything that I need to review. Not to worry; soon Empress and the Warriors, Playboy Cops, Shamo, and Fatal Move will get released, which means I’ll have some new movies to eviscerate review. March also sees the release of L for Love, L for Lies, the new travesty effort from Patrick Kong, auteur of twin terrors delights Marriage with a Fool and Love is Not All Around. It’s going to be a busy month.

However, it’ll also be a busy month for another reason: the Hong Kong International Film Festival. This year marks my fourth year in Hong Kong, but this will be the first year I go insane and check out 21 films at the HKIFF, a number that guarantees to send me straight to hell.

If you’re curious, here’s the lineup:

3/18 Candy Rain (7:15pm)
3/18 Drifting Flowers (9:30pm)
3/20 I Just Didn’t Do It (6:45pm)
3/21 Winds of September - Taiwan (7:15pm)
3/21 Winds of September - China (9:45pm)
3/22 City Without Baseball (6pm)
3/22 Besieged City (9pm)
3/23 Home Song Stories (12:30pm)
3/23 Run Papa Run (6pm)
3/23 A Decade of Love (8:45pm)
3/24 Kabei (3pm)
3/26 In Love We Trust (7:15pm)
3/27 The Way We Are (7:15pm)
3/29 First Born Unicorn (9pm)
3/30 Soul of a Demon (12:30pm)
3/30 Sex is No Laughing Matter (6pm)
4/2 Winds of September - Hong Kong (7:15pm)
4/4 Love is Elsewhere (6pm)
4/6 Coffee or Tea (6pm)
4/12 A Brighter Summer Day (7pm)
4/13 Mahjong (5pm)

You can read all about the movies here.

All of the above are Asian films without reviews on LoveHKFilm.com. Quite obviously, this means two things:

1) If you want to kick my ass, now you know where I’ll be and when. I couldn’t make this any easier for you.

2) I may have to resort to the “800 words or less per review” rule I instituted during last fall’s Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. Hell, I may do that one better and go for a “600 words or less per review” rule, because there will be regular Hong Kong movies coming out alongside the above 21 movies. Who knows if I’ll survive the experience. If I do, that means more reviews for everyone. If not, that means I’ll have given up and the Internet will have one less self-proclaimed, questionably-qualified film reviewer. I see winners in either eventuality.

Regardless, I look forward to the fest, because seeing movies without expectations is much more enjoyable than seeing a film after being inundated with print and television advertising. Admittedly, I haven’t seen a lot of advertising yet for Playboy Cops, but the poster doesn’t inspire me with much confidence:

They kick ass AND have fun. What could be better?

Managing expectations is the key to enjoying modern cinema. That didn’t help me much at Kung Fu Dunk, but everyone who I’ve talked to about the film enjoyed it a lot more than I did, with some of them actually saying, “After listening to you, I expected the worst, but it wasn’t that bad!” I’ve also had similar responses after lending people my copy of D-War. It could be our new tagline:

Lowering Expectations Since 2002

Anyway, we’ll see if we can handle our March-April workload. If we can, I’d consider it an achievement. In the meantime, I’ll attempt to perfect the art of shorter blog posts, in order to keep this thing going on a semi-weekly to bi-weekly basis. And if worst comes to worst, I’ll just post funny pictures. I have tons of those.

“Dammit, Edison! I told you to exfoliate and hydrate
every other day! Now your skin is oily and improperly
balanced! You’ll never get rid of that shine now!”

I had even money on being cut, but apparently Attack of the Show left me in their Hong Kong travelogue. You can find me between shots of awesome Kung Fu movies and Bey Logan:

I probably have stories to tell about the experience and the resulting clip, but I’ll leave that for another time, if ever. Now that this whole thing is finally over, I hope we can leave it in the past - like our memory of that movie Himalaya Singh. We now return to our normal semi-unnecessary blogging.

Stephen Chow thanks you for your time:

“Thank you for putting up with this.”

In a likely horrific development to some, LoveHKFilm.com will be on television again.

“Shoot my good side.”

Only a few longtime readers may remember, but a few years ago, I managed a mini guest gig on The Screen Savers, an entertainment program on the G4 network that pushes geek culture to the world at large. My experience consisted of sitting in a make-up chair and running through the questions, which had to do with such movies as Kung Fu Hustle, Casshern, and 2046. After that, I went to the studio and answered those questions, LIVE on camera. Luckily there was no flop sweat involved, but I think I shaved at least two years off my life due to the stress.

As evidence for the above, you can find an archived interview stored here. I do have a video clip of the segment, but I have not yet figured out that new-fangled YouTube thing yet. So, it won’t be posted here anytime soon.

The same thing may or may not occur with my next TV appearance, which is scheduled to occur sometime in early January. I was recently contacted to appear in a segment of Attack of the Show, the followup program to The Screen Savers, only this time they’re in Hong Kong (where I am), and there was no make-up chair or live broadcast. On the downside, there was also no rehearsal so I had to pretty much make up my answers on the fly, which is not easy for a usually camera-shy individual like me.

More photos from the Hong Kong shoot:

“Attack of the Show” host Zach Selwyn and the guy who runs this website

A young John Woo (far right) makes a guest appearance.

The most important part of this development: that this happened on Sunday, December 16th, three days after the opening of The Warlords, and practically the only free day I had until the following weekend. I was only notified of this appearance on the previous Thursday, so that means that the day I had earmarked to write a Warlords review had just been booked. As a result, I wasn’t able to write Warlords until the following week, though there are other reasons, which you can read about in this rambling post.

Fortunately or not, this TV appearance is not the precursor to even more media attention, or the crowning of LoveHKFilm.com as some sort of major information source like a bunch of other sites. We’ve been online only five years, and are only featured in out-of-context blurbs on Australian DVDs (Reportedly, they managed to get a recommendation out of our Confession of Pain review. God bless them.). We haven’t even interviewed Bey Logan - which is, as everyone knows, the most important thing any Hong Kong Cinema site must do to gain entry into the online fraternity. All we do is watch movies and dish about them. Frequently people disagree. Sometimes they get upset. It’s the way of the world.

So, I am not convinced that this site has somehow arrived. What would convince me? If LoveHKFilm.com had its own Wikipedia entry, then I would believe we’ve made it. Until then, I’m just glad that we’re the 22,081st most-visited website in the world. In Australia, we’re the 4762nd most visited site - probably because of those Confession of Pain DVDs. Thanks a lot, Hopscotch Films!

Kozo signing an autograph…we mean, the release form.

UPDATE: In case people actually do want to see the Webmaster make a fool of himself on television, Attack of the Show airs on the G4 network in the United States, and G4/Tech TV in Canada. However, I’m really not sure when it’s airing. And who knows, I might be cut for more time with Bey Logan.