With the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards a little less than two weeks away, it’s time to start a series of blog posts breaking down the nominees in eight categories: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best New Actor. My knowledge of the “nuts and bolts” of filmmaking can be charitably described as perfunctory so I won’t be doing the technical categories.

Rather than save the top category for last, let’s start the proceedings with a bang by looking at the Best Film category. The nominees are:

THE WARLORDS
PROTEGE
THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT
THE MAD DETECTIVE
EYE IN THE SKY

Before ranking the five nominees, it bears mentioning that, had it qualified, Ang Lee’s LUST, CAUTION would be the prohibitive favourite. It outpaces all of the nominated films in production, acting and storytelling. While some would argue that LUST, CAUTION has its flaws, they are relatively minor compared to each of the nominees which are all notably flawed in some form or another.

5. THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT

Regular readers of this blog will know that I don’t have great affection for this film and was dismayed when it was named Best Film by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. In preparation for this post, I watched the movie again to see if I could see what its supporters are seeing in the film. While I gained a new appreciation for its fine technical craftsmanship and can understand what the HKFCS was talking about when it lauded Ann Hui On-Wah’s “exquisite brushwork”, I still believe that the film lacks “emotional content”. It’s an skillful exhibition of acting and filmmaking but it leaves most viewers looking at the finger pointing to Moon instead of showing them the heavenly glory.

A comparison to last year’s HKFA Best Film, AFTER THIS OUR EXILE, is telling. Both offer a depressing narrative of a downward spiral but while AFTER THIS OUR EXILE paints an emotionally impactful portrait of the relationship between a father and son, THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT leaves most viewers cold. Minds register the cruelties of life that Ye Rutang endures but hearts are not touched. As a result, most viewers will look at the negative world-view of THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT and say: “Yeah, so?”

Definitely not the response that an award-winning film should elicit.

4. THE WARLORDS

Like THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT, THE WARLORDS features accomplished film technique but it has significant storytelling problems that keep it from serious consideration for the Best Film title. In its depiction of a fictionalized account of the August 22nd, 1870 assassination of provincial governor Ma Xin-Yi (馬新眙), the film needlessly complicates an oft-told tale that has customarily been presented as a simple wuxia fable about the nature of honour, brotherhood and betrayal. I may, for a future post, open a House Where Words Gather investigation on the history behind THE WARLORDS and get a copy of 《江湖奇俠傳》 (”Astonishing Tales of Jiangwu Heroes”) by Ping Jiang Bu Xiao Sheng (平江不肖生) — the early 20th Century book which details the story of the Ma Assassination. For now, I’ll just say that it’s my understanding that Ma was in government for personal fortune rather than the public good and that he obtained his high position by exploiting and betraying his “brothers” rather than through heroic military feats.

It is, then, puzzling that Peter Chan Ho-Sun and company chose to confuse viewers by introducing but not adequately explaining extraneous plot elements like the Taiping Rebellion, the role of Christianity in the conflict, the various political factions of the Qing government and the treachery of the Kui army. The film would have been much more effective had it concentrated on the relationship between the three sworn brothers and the familiar 偽君子 (ngai gwan ji or “false gentleman”) narrative of the Ma Xin-Yi based character. A story focused on honour and betrayal would have resonated deeply with viewers. Most people understand brotherhood, loyalty and duplicity. Very few people understand, or care about, the decline of the Qing Dynasty in the late-19th Century or the significance of Suzhou and Nanjing during the Taiping Rebellion.

Perhaps Peter Chan and his writers felt that they needed to add historical gravitas to justify the film’s billing as a “lavish epic made for multiple markets”. Perhaps they added the “I’m doing this for the good of the people” plot thread because they didn’t want Jet Li to play a full-on corrupt scumbag. Whatever the reason, award-winning films do not have the muddled storytelling found in THE WARLORDS.

3. THE MAD DETECTIVE

I think that it’s appropriate for me to step aside here and let three of my “inner personalities” speak about the film:

Marcus Tullius Cicero from ROME: Immortals. Immortals, I say. In the years since Milkway Image was formed in 1997, Johnnie To Kei-Fung and Wai Ka-Fai have carved their names deep in the eternal stone of Hong Kong culture. By delivering a stylish, fresh perspective on the crime genre in efforts like TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1 and THE ODD ONE DIES, they were a beacon of light during the creative darkness around the time of the Handover. They persevered through the Asian economic crisis and put out a series of enthralling little gems like THE LONGEST NITE, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED and WHERE A GOOD MAN GOES. They earned well-deserved commercial success with popular works like RUNNING OUT OF TIME and NEEDING YOU. Since then, be it working together or working apart, they have sustained a level of excellence and have continued to provoke and entertain audiences with titles like RUNNING ON KARMA and ELECTION. THE MAD DETECTIVE is no exception. Once again, To and Wai continue to innovate by using a standard crime drama platform as a springboard to give insight into human nature. The Muses themselves could not have inspired a finer premise. Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai truly are heroes of Hong Kong Cinema.

Cameron the Terminator from TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES: I can’t say that this movie is tight. I processed the film through my human psychology subroutine and it predicts that audience interest level will be high initially but will decrease considerably as the film progresses. I do not detect much substance in the premise beyond the “inner personality” concept and later events do not mesh cohesively with earlier events. I calculate that most humans will feel disappointment after watching the film because the expectations raised in the first part of the movie are not met in the second part.

Tamio Kageyama, deceased Japanese novelist and IRON CHEF judge: The film got my attention from the very first sequence when Lau Ching-Wan’s Inspector Bun solves a crime by having himself zipped inside a suitcase and kicked down a flight of stairs. A marvelous opening. I was intrigued further when it was revealed that Inspector Bun could see “inner personalities”. A very provocative idea. From that point on, I feel that the film didn’t take full advantage of these two creative constructs. The best of the Milkyway films have a well-developed foundation that builds to an explosive climax. Recall the gunfights at the ends of PTU and EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, the tragedy at the end of RUNNING ON KARMA or the revelation at the end of ELECTION 2. By contrast, the concepts in THE MAD DETECTIVE feel under-developed. There is little depth to the Inspector Bun character beyond his eccentricity and the “inner personality” idea leads to an ending that goes “pop, pop, pop” like a string of Lunar New Year firecrackers rather than the “boom” of the better Milkyway titles. THE MAD DETECTIVE is a decent film with a remarkable premise but it doesn’t measure up to the standard of excellence that defines award-winning films.

2. PROTEGE

When I was considering what to write about PROTEGE, I couldn’t help thinking of AMERICAN IDOL judge Randy Jackson because my general opinion of the film mirrors his standard line of criticism for the Idol contestants: “Yo dawg … I didn’t agree with some of the choices the film made but it was a’ight … kinda pitchy though … some parts of it were ‘off’ … but it was a’ight”.

Leading the way with 15 nominations, PROTEGE takes a sweeping look at the drug trade in Hong Kong. The film admirably details everything from the way the drug kingpin manages his operation to the efforts of the police to stop the illicit activity to the toll it takes on junkies and their loved ones. Unlike THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT, it also gets viewers to care about its characters be it the lonely undercover cop played by Daniel Wu or the ailing drug lord played by Andy Lau Tak-Wah. Some may argue that a pervasive anti-drug message taints the film but having seen my share of ham-fisted “very special episodes” of LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, I didn’t find the “don’t do drugs” message cloying or intrusive.

The problem with the film is that it’s “pitchy”. It hits several notes that are off key. Leading the way is the Louis Koo character and his story arc. Koo’s junkie is more of a caricature than a character and his fate rings strikingly false in a film that is otherwise infused with realistic detail. Furthermore, one of PROTEGE’s dramatic crescendos — a police raid on a drug processing facility — is marred by two instances of unintentional comedy: the Wile E. Coyote-like downfall of one of the drug workers and Liu Kai-Chi breaking out his TVB physical comedy mannerisms at an inopportune time.

A “best film of the year” should be note perfect. It should move viewers with well-orchestrated rhythm and impeccably-controlled pitch and tone. PROTEGE is a commendable effort but it falls short.

1. EYE IN THE SKY

In an earlier post, I wrote that EYE IN THE SKY was a solid film that had a thoroughly captivating first sixty minutes but a flawed, though not fatally so, final thirty minutes. Two months later, I stand by that assessment and, having compared it to its fellow nominees, feel that it should win the HKFA for Best Film. Admittedly, the ending relies too much upon coincidence but that’s a relatively small flaw when you consider the problems with the other Best Film nominees. I don’t think it is the best of the 2007 crop of films but it is the best in the group of the five nominated films.

I think EYE IN THE SKY has only an outside shot of winning the award. I suspect some voters may believe that it is too slight to be worthy of the best film title. I have a feeling that THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT will come away as the winner.

If this were the Republic of Sanneyistan Film Awards, then LUST, CAUTION would be declared Best Film of 2007 and HOOKED ON YOU and MR. CINEMA would get nominations instead of THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT and THE WARLORDS. Frankly, I’m surprised that two films celebrating HONG KONG didn’t get any attention in this category for the HONG KONG Film Awards. I can understand how some may feel that MR. CINEMA does not deserve consideration because of the way it totally sidestepped the events of June 4, 1989 but, surely, solid arguments can be made that it and HOOKED ON YOU were better films than THE WARLORDS. To me, the nomination for THE WARLORDS is based mostly on reputation and the billing of the film as a grand epic rather than actual merit. It’s like when a 38 year-old veteran gets selected to be play in an all-star game even though he hasn’t performed at an all-star level in years. THE WARLORDS is fine as entertainment but it doesn’t come close to being worthy of a best film nomination. I think a Western equivalent would be if the Academy nominated SPIDER-MAN 3 for the Best Film Oscar this past year. I put SPIDER-MAN 3 and THE WARLORDS in the same boat. They were both surrounded by a tremendous amount of buzz. They look great and sound great but both have storytelling problems and lack any real charm.

IMAGE CREDITS: Warner Brothers (ENTER THE DRAGON screen grab), HBO (ROME promotional graphic), Fox Broadcasting Company (Summer Glau, Randy Jackson), Fuji TV (Tamio Kageyama)

An amuse-bouche of a post today before the start of a series of posts previewing the upcoming Hong Kong Film Awards.

Rumours of a relationship between HK starlet Isabella Leong Lok-Si, 19, and 39 year-old Richard Li Tzar-Kai (李澤楷; official site), the son of legendary business magnate Li Ka-Shing has put the dead horse of “Sexy Photos Gate” squarely in the rear view mirror of Hong Kong’s entertainment media. Earlier this month, reports surfaced alleging that Leong and Li have been involved for months and that Li has nobly declared that he will take care of Leong and her family for as long as he lives. Reportedly, Michelle Yeoh — Leong’s co-star in the Summer 2008 release THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR — introduced the pair.

Neither Li nor Leong have responded publicly to the rumours but flames have been fanned by news of a contract dispute between Leong and her management company EEG (Emperor Entertainment Group). According to numerous reports, Leong has hired lawyers to help her extricate herself from the long-term contract she signed with EEG. As EEG typically holds all the cards when it comes to contract situations with their talent, observers of the HK entertainment circle speculate that Leong must be emboldened because she has the powerful backing of Li. Indeed, there are rumours that Li is ready to offer EEG HK$10 million for Leong’s contract but Leong’s lawyers believe that the contract can be voided because Leong signed it when she was younger than sixteen — the legal age in Hong Kong for entering into contracts.

To be continued …

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Long-term contracts between entertainment companies and their talent is quite common in the HK entertainment circle. Creating an “idol” takes a serious investment so companies protect themselves with long-term contracts in case one of their “idols” becomes unwieldy and wants to leave for greener pastures. For the talent, the trade-off for this modern-day equivalent of indentured servitude is having the benefit of the tremendous star-making resources of a company like EEG on their side. Joey Yung Tso-Yi, for instance, is reportedly in year nine of a fifteen-year contract she signed with EEG in 1999. She won’t become a free agent until she is 34 years-old in 2014.

If a prospect does not turn out to be profitable like Joey Yung, the company can simply terminate the contract and release the talent. Worse yet, a prospect can end up in a situation like Grace Ip (葉佩雯 aka Yip Pui-Man). Between 1998 and 2000, EEG heavily promoted Ip — giving her roles in high profile projects like GEN-X COPS. Then, the company reportedly discovered that she was dating Eric Kwok Wai-Leung of the band Swing. According to speculation, EEG felt that a relationship would hinder Ip’s ascension to superstardom so the company asked Ip to break things off with Kwok. When Ip refused, she was “frozen”. To add insult to injury, EEG supposedly refused to release Ip from a seven-year contract she signed in 1998. As a result, she was forced to wait until late-2005 before she could sign with another record label. Ip was finally able to release an album, ON MY OWN, in August 2006.

Mommas don’t let your babies grow up to be entertainment circle celebrities, make ‘em doctors and lawyers and such …

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And so it begins …

EEG is apparently taking the first steps at rehabilitating the humiliated Gillian Chung Yan-Tung. This weekend, Ming Pao Weekly reported that Chung had a meeting recently with “Hollywood producer” Elliot J. Brown. Supposedly, EEG and Brown are helping Chung plan a career in Hollywood. The news would be somewhat impressive if it was not for the fact that Brown’s accomplishments in Hollywood are less than impressive. As was the case with the “naive and foolish” press event, this “news” has probably done more harm to Chung’s career than good. Reaction on discussion boards is comprised mostly of jokes that Chung is going to star in Western “remakes” of Hong Kong movies with titles like ERECTION and THE MISSION-ARY POSITION.

IMAGE CREDITS: Sina.com (Isabella Leong), RichardLi.com (Richard Li), File Photo (Grace Ip)

Welcome to The Tea House where I get ready for the day I become the benevolent dictator of the Republic of Sanneyistan by coming down from my hermetic cyber-mountain top and interacting with my loyal subjects, uh, readers.

I was going to call this feature “Sanney’s Mailbag” but I only received Congressional approval for an e-mail address this past weekend (go here for details) and “Sanney’s Comment Box” sounds like something you need to fill with kitty litter. In the end, I decided to play off the House Where Words Gather theme and call this feature “The Tea House”. Picture all of us sitting at a table and having a pleasant conversation while sharing a nice big pot of tea and some freshly-steamed siu mai dumplings (燒賣).

Let’s start things off with some comments on the comments from the last post “Sypmathy for Mr. Imprudence”:

Eliza Bennet writes: Comparing her [Cecilia Cheung] to Maggie of now would not be fair. Better compare her to Maggie of her age. But Tang Wei? Her performance was not bad at all but all the nostril flaring didn’t bring anything new at the table. I’d like to see her do something else before I form an opinion on her acting prowess.

aircompass writes: I think it’s much too early to place Tang Wei’s talent. She’s certainly a charming and intelligent girl, but one decent performance does not a Maggie Cheung make.

I adore Cecilia Cheung, however. I think she always brings something good to the table, and I think she’s a very reliable and effective dramatic actress.

Upon reflection, I wish I would have done a better job of writing that last paragraph about Cecilia Cheung’s acting. I didn’t mean to compare her with Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk or Tang Wei. I was referring to the type of role and not the actresses. I should have written: “I don’t think she has the chops to give a subtle performance required by complex roles like Su Li-Zhen/Mrs. Chan from IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE or Wang Chia-Chih/Mak Tai-Tai from LUST, CAUTION.”

I think Cecilia Cheung is a solid actress. She has a great screen presence that engages you and makes you care about her characters even if they are a dopey shopping addict or some otherworldly, mystical hot babe. It’s just that I don’t think her acting skills are refined enough to handle roles that call for a lot of subtlety.

By the way, I agree with aircompass about Tang Wei. She gives an outstanding performance in LUST, CAUTION but it’s way too early to place a “Screen Queen” crown on her head.

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Glenn writes: I think I’ve made my love for Cecilia’s acting well known on this site; I’m a sucker for her crying bits where her already raspy voice gets even further choked up. Works every time for me.

Man, I’m feelin’ ya on this one. The raspiness is the vocal equivalent of a hot babe wearing nothing but a men’s white tuxedo shirt.

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Eliza Bennet writes: Edison Chen at the press con (heh) didn’t seem sincere to me. It actually seemed like he was expecting some sort of a reaction from everyone.

He didn’t strike me as entirely sincere either. His proclamation that he was going to dedicate himself to “charity and community work” seemed about as genuine as O.J. Simpson declaring, years ago, that he was going to dedicate himself to “finding the real killers”. I was just saying that despite the prepared script, you could sense that — at the core — there was a real human who has been severely humiliated. By contrast, at their press event, EEG chose to present corporate creation Gillian Chung™ instead of genuine human Gillian Chung so it was hard for people to connect with her and feel any real sympathy for her plight.

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Viktor writes: I find it is a disgrace that the people involved are now judged by the quality or authenticity of their press conferences. The fact remains that they did no wrong to anybody (the allusion to Nixon’s crookery in “Sexy Photos Gate” is malicious, to say the least).

I don’t think anyone is trying to equate what Edison Chen and his partners did in private to Nixonian crookery. Adding the “-gate” suffix to any sort of controversy has just become a convenient way for the media to label scandals. Earlier this month, the Obama-Clinton race for the Democratic presidential nomination begat “NAFTAgate”. Since September, American football fans have been subjected to endless talk about “Spygate”. I think that “-gate” has become mostly disassociated with the original Watergate scandal. If you go to Wikipedia, you can see a list of more than twenty scandals that have had “-gate” attached to it.

The Eastern Heretic and the Poisonous West (left) with their American counterparts the Venerable West (centre) and the Eastern Dowager (right).

Linguistically speaking, I’ll admit that I was surprised when I saw that the Chinese media attached “-gate” to the scandal. Chinese and English are so different, it’s often difficult to translate concepts from one language to the other. You don’t see the American media calling Senator John McCain of Arizona the “Venerable West” or Senator Hillary Clinton of New York the “Eastern Dowager”. I’m guessing that, for logistical reasons like article length and headline length, calling it “Sexy Photos Gate” was easier than using the unwieldy “Edison-Gillian-Bobo-Cecilia Picture Scandal”. Moreover, the latter became inaccurate when more starlets became involved.

As for Gillian Chung and Edison Chen being judged by their respective press conferences, I’ll paraphrase Hyman Roth from THE GODFATHER, PART II and say simply: “this is the business they’ve chosen”.

Besides, I think most people are judging Gillian Chung™ and Edison Chen™ rather than the actual Gillian Chung or the actual Edison Chen. I think you have to be very naive or very foolish if you don’t understand that there is a distinction between the public persona and the private person. Based on how he presents himself to the public eye, you’re entitled to have an opinion like Edison Chen™ is a poseur — a dopey, bad-boy wannabe who, if caught in a gunfight, would probably pull a Ruby Wong from PTU rather than take nine to the body like 50 Cent. However, unless you know him personally, it’s impossible to have a reasonable opinion on the actual Edison Chen. Put it this way, there has got to be a difference between Edison Chen™ and the actual Edison Chen. There must be something endearing about the actual Edison Chen because multiple women liked him enough to have relations with him and trusted him enough to let him take compromising photographs of them.

By the way, congratulations to Shawn Yue Man-Lok! I think it’s now safe to declare him the winner of the long and bitter Shawn Yue-Edison Chen “teen idol” rivalry.

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Glenn writes: While I do agree that Charlene [Choi Cheuk-Yin] is the more talented of the Twins, I can’t recall anything memorable beyond comedy roles — has she done anything even close to drama? I haven’t watched Diary yet; maybe that will prove me wrong? She was good in Leave Me Alone and My Wife is 18 — made that film far better than it should have been.

My memory may be faulty so the timeline may be slightly off but I believe Charlene Choi established her dramatic acting bona fides way back in 2000-2001 before EEG hooked her up with Gillian Chung. I believe both HEROES IN LOVE and FUNERAL MARCH were made and released before Twins released their first album in the Autumn of 2001. While Ah Sa got nominated for the Best New Artist HKFA for her role as a “girl with a terminal disease” in FUNERAL MARCH (losing an honourable decision to Karena Lam Ka-Yan’s performance in JULY RHAPSODY), HEROES IN LOVE was the better showcase of her young acting talents.

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A comment about Damn You, Kozo! … Kozo’s rant about inconsistent romanization brought to mind a conversation I had recently with someone about “legacy kids” (children of people who are rich, powerful or famous). This person, who shall remain nameless, hates George W. Bush with a passion and was trying to make the argument that, generally speaking, legacy kids grow up in a pampered environment so they don’t develop the skills that allow them to handle important positions when they are adults. I have to admit that I found the argument convincing until the person used Kim Jong-Il as another example of an “incompetent legacy kid”. It’s not that I think Kim Jong-Il is doing a bang-up job governing North Korea, it’s that the person I was talking to referred to Kim Jong-Il as Kim Jong II (Kim Jong The Second).

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A little help … Any Microsoft Excel experts out there? I’m flirting with the idea of running a Hong Kong Film Awards predictions contest and I need someone to help me develop a formula so that I can determine the winner without having to manually go through every entry. If you can help, please get in touch with me.

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Have you seen PROTEGE? If you have, please read this post and discuss the ending with me.

IMAGE CREDITS: Lung Poon Restaurant (Siu Mai), TVB (Screen grab from LEGEND OF THE CONDOR HEROES), The Huffington Post (John McCain, Hillary Clinton), Milkyway Image (Ruby Wong), Reuters (Kim Jong-Il)

SPOILER WARNING: This post talks about the ending of Derek Yee Tung-Sing’s film PROTEGE. If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want the ending spoiled, you know what you have to do …

I’m wondering what people think happened with Daniel Wu’s character in the closing scene. Did the little kid stop Daniel Wu from shooting up or was it a callback to the beginning of the movie when she picked up the needle and threw it in
the trash after her mother shot up? I zaprudered the scene and it looks like she arrives just as he’s about to shoot up but it’s hard to tell.

What’s your opinion? Did Daniel Wu’s character realize that the little girl gave his life meaning or was he on the road to becoming a junkie like the girl’s mother?

I’ll share my thoughts about the movie later this month when I break down the Best Film category for the upcoming Hong Kong Film Awards. Right now, I’ll just say that — for a “best film of the year” candidate — it has a lot of problems.

IMAGE CREDIT: Film Unlimited (PROTEGE screen grab)