Stephen Tung and Jacky Cheung in the improbably named Pom Pom and Hot Hot

Jacky Cheung and Stephen Tung partner up in Joe Cheung’s weirdly titled Pom Pom and Hot Hot (1992), a somewhat typical buddy cop/action comedy that boasts — seemingly out of nowhere — an impressive guns ablazin’ finale that could stand next to some of the best action sequences Hong Kong cinema has to offer. Kudos have to go to star Stephen Tung who served double-duty as the film’s action director.

In addition to the two main stars, Alfred Cheung, Loletta Lee, and Bonnie Fu provide entertaining, if uneven laughs in supporting roles, but really, it’s Lam Ching-Ying who steals the show as the duo’s superior officer, a ridiculously entertaining gunplay savant who wouldn’t be out of place in a classic John Woo film. His brief confrontation with a villainous hitman prior to the big climax ranks as a major highlight of the movie.

(more…)

Yep, that’s Maggie Cheung in Boys are Easy.

By all rights, this 1993 Wong Jing-directed farce should not be as funny as it is, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t entertained all the way through. A lot of the film’s charm is a direct result of the game performances given its all-star cast. Consider the big names involved: Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching, Tony Leung Ka-Fei, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, and the man himself, Ekin Cheng! The plot — or what passes for one — is all over the place, but what do you expect in a Wong Jing film?

Eager to get all of his daughters married off, Ching Sing (Richard Ng) hatches a daring plot with his son, Ching Siu-Pei (Jimmy Lin) to achieve this incredibly old-fashioned goal: he fakes a cancer diagnosis, telling them he only has a month to live. And so, due to Ching’s manipulations, the three girls do their best to pretend they have boyfriends to placate their “dying” father.

(more…)

Round 1, Fight! Alex Man vs. Jacky Cheung in As Tears Go By

[Periodically, Ronin on Empty will be taking a look back at some Hong Kong cinema classics, albeit with a specific emphasis on “Great Moments” — i.e. classic scenes that no Hong Kong cinema fan (old or new) should miss. Of course, “classic” will not only entail super-cool, gobsmacking moments, but also the downright ridiculous stuff, too. The numbers — #1, #2, etc. — are not indicators of ranking, but merely a way to keep a running tally of how many “great moments” we can list here. Readers are welcome to send in their own fave scenes as well.]

From Ronin on Empty reader “Jason” comes a personal film pick that he wants to add to my ongoing “Great Moments in Hong Kong Cinema” column. Jason writes:

The confrontation between Tony (Alex Man) and Fly (Jacky Cheung) at the end of Wong Kar Wai’s “As Tears Goes By” deserves to be the next greatest moment. The movie also marked the directorial debut of one of the greatest HK director, and the rare collaboration of two of the biggest “teen wong” of HK.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

(more…)

Jacky Cheung and Tang Wei in Crossing Hennessy

Ivy Ho has written screenplays for a number of Hong Kong films, two of which — Comrades, Almost A Love Story (1996) and July Rhapsody (2001) –  rank amongst my favorite Chinese films of all time. I haven’t had a chance to watch Ho’s directorial debut, Claustropobia (2008), but when I heard that Jacky Cheung and Lust, Caution’s Tang Wei would be starring in her second film, Crossing Hennessy, I just had to check it out.

And now I have.

To be honest, I really wanted to love Crossing Hennessy, but in the end, I only kind of liked it. The premise certainly intrigued me. In the film, two people are forced by their respective guardians to meet up, albeit with the added expectation that maybe the two of them will get hitched sometime in the near future. One problem — both the man and the woman are “involved” with other people. Forty-year-old bachelor (but not virgin) Loy (Jacky Cheung) lives at home and is still hung up on his childhood ex (Maggie Cheung Ho-Yee), while Oi Lin (Tang Wei) has a hot-tempered boyfriend named Xu (Andy On) who’s biding his time in jail. With Loy’s ex now single again, and Xu soon to be released, it’s no surprise that our protagonists’ hearts are elsewhere.

(more…)

Compiling a top ten list of the decade’s best movies is tough work. There are a ton of great Hong Kong films out there, and some just couldn’t make the cut on so short a list. To compensate for any perceived oversights, I’ve decided to list choices #11-#25. I’m certain that some of my picks might be a little unorthodox or downright surprising, but I’m just going to have to follow my gut here, folks — critical or reader consensus against me be damned.

BEST OF THE REST

11. Time and Tide (2000) — I unabashedly love this movie, and it came very close to making the top ten. Whatever hesitancy I had in embracing Nicholas Tse as a leading man disappeared completely thanks to this movie, as his little brother/big brother chemistry with rugged rock n’ roller Wu Bai (who provides a killer soundtrack) is just part of what makes this movie so good. The other part is the action — in particular, that breathless, suspense-filled sequence that makes up a good chunk of the film’s second half. I’m hard pressed to forget that pulse-pounding tenement assault or the decidedly unconventional baby delivery sequence that caps the film. Time and Tide is an action fan’s dream, and, the last great Tsui Hark movie (so far) – and yeah, I saw Seven Swords.

(more…)