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Review
by Kozo: |
Quite
possibly Hong Kong's most promising young director,
Edmond Pang Ho-Cheung has made a career out of subverting
expectations and having fun when he probably shouldn't.
His black comedies You Shoot, I Shoot and Men
Suddenly in Black took rather dark topics (professional
killers and adulterous husbands) and wrung off-color
giggles out of them. Both were also surprising, and
even complex motion pictures from a dwindling film
industry largely composed of unchallenging copies.
Pang's newest, AV, also goes for complex and
darkly funny, and it succeeds resoundingly at both
attempts. But does it really add up to all that much?
AV tells the
story of four soon-to-be-college grads (Wong Yau-Nam,
Lawrence Chou, Derek Tsang, Jeffrey Chow) who are
about to embark on the big adventure known as life.
However, before they do, they futz around through
endless days of unimportant pastimes and seemingly
aimless talk. Job interviews and sexual misadventures
get brought up, but apparently, the foursome is looking
for something to do to cap their last responsibility-free
days together. What can they do? Hmmm...how about
borrow a page from their expelled classmate Kar-Lok
(Tsui Tin Yau), a would-be filmmaker who got thrown
out for allegedly using a film project to solicit
an unsuspecting girl. The foursome decide to take
Kar-Lok's sexual harassment a step further, and concoct
an elaborate plan to hire a Japanese porn actress
(or "AV Girl") for a fake film. Then...they'll
have sex with her. That's it. Brilliant!
But with every dream
comes a price. While others pay in blood, sweat, or
tears, our wholesome foursome pay the good old fashioned
way: with cash and chicanery. They need about 2.5
million yen to hire their chosen AV dream girl (Manami
Amamiya, who just so happens to be a real AV girl),
so they assemble what they can, then get a sizable
chunk through an entrepreneur loan given to young
people with a dream. Seeing the four guys attempt
to win over the loan officer (Eric Kot in a great
cameo) is funny stuff, but not as funny as their attempt
to come up with the rest of the money. After meeting
Manami's manager, the fellows need an extra 1.5 million
yen, so they invite all their classmates in on their
plan: give us a bunch of cash, and you can be close
enough to touch a real AV girl. That's the pitch.
The hook: the notion that 30 years ago, students on
their very campus were socially conscious and politically
active, and accomplished something substantial and
worthwhile. Those students were part of a movement,
and did something that would last beyond their meager
college lives. Joining forces to hire an AV girl for
a fake film? It's the 2005 version. Again, brilliant.
But also pretty damn
funny. Those looking for politically correct material
might as well rent the latest Wong Jing film, which
is usually politically incorrect but in such a mindless,
inane way that taking it seriously and getting offended
would be like getting upset that a six month-old child
still craps their pants. AV drops a political
correctness bomb, and tries to make international-scale
solicitation into some sort of a feel-good epic for
like-minded youngsters - of which there are likely
many. Of course, Edmond Pang has tongue (or something
else, maybe) firmly planted in cheek, meaning he's
sending up a myriad of clichés, platitudes,
and attitudes in the most roundabout way possible.
His targets here: aimless youngsters, the reverence
for all things media, the silliness of the job market,
and probably the rigid guidelines of the film's producer,
Mei Ah. Hell, he could even be lampooning George Bush
and the War on Terrorism for all we know. Pang doesn't
spell out every satirical nod, but his handheld camera
and quick pacing make everything go down incredibly
easy. As a witty, off-color indie jokefest, AV is dynamite stuff.
What AV isn't
is completely coherent, or even that meaningful. As
said before, not every satirical nod in AV gets an explanation, but the ones that do only seem
to register as wishful thinking. Pang brings up the
parallel between his modern day porn star seekers
and the student activists of the seventies not just
once, but a total of three times, including
an ending coda that would seem to indicate significance.
The film also proffers emotion and even a semblance
of meaning, alluding that the protagonists actually
grow through their attempts to bone an AV girl. While
similar films do succeed at such off-color thematic
excess (Risky Business is a perfect example),
it's questionable if AV really does it. More
than anything it seems that Pang's continued attempts
at earmarking AV for meaning are simply part
of a larger, more elaborate joke than anything the
film attempts onscreen. That joke: that this is a
meaningful movie. The butt of the joke: us, the paying
audience.
Still, if Edmond Pang
wants to pull the wool over our eyes with many more
films like AV, then he's welcome to do it.
Pang is an exceptionally clever director. So clever,
in fact, that his films are frequently very worthwhile
even when they accomplish absolutely nothing. AV is intriguing and involving for the majority of its
running time, and though some of his choices could
be perceived as disingenuous, misogynist, or just
plain insulting, there's a wit and darkly funny edge
to the proceedings that make the whole strangely enthralling.
Pang's films are still far enough apart that he hasn't
yet earned the title of "one-trick wonder,"
though he does rely far too much on narrative twists
to tie his films together. AV does contain
a few twists, but they're really not all the film
is about. AV is pretty much about the ride
- and though it may not necessarily head anywhere,
it's still a ride worth taking. (Kozo 2005) |
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