Tag Archives: Ann Hui

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It made me think of the Third Man, just the structure of how the story unfolds, like as if Rollo Martins was a married couple on their honeymoon stumbling onto the tail end of No Pockets in a Shroud.

I actually picked this up because I always love John Ireland’s villain in Railroaded. and he definitely didn’t disappoint as the he-man hero husband in this one. In fact everyone did a great job – keep a look-out for the sinister, serpentine woman & her hell-spawn spouting poison in the street, a grand single-scene supporting performance. Well I liked it anyway, I doubt she got any awards, but true artists never do! Actors like that lady prefer to live in the shadows… Read More »

Synopsis:
Critically-lauded but somewhat distant drama from Ann Hui.

Review by Kozo (taken from Love HK FIlm):
Award-winning political drama from Ann Hui treads on rich territory and results in a noble, but emotionally lacking effort. Using the work of real-life activist Father Franco Mella (played here by Anthony Wong) as a guideline, Ordinary Heroes moves from the plight of the boat people through the tragedy at Tiananmen Square with a sweeping view of political activism in Hong Kong.
The situations and storytelling are top notch but ultimately the film proves a better portrait than a story. The film doesn’t try to educate viewers about Hong Kong’s political history, and instead concentrates on a long-unrequited romance between Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-Sheng and Loletta (now Rachel) Lee. Sadly, that plotline proves of tenuous interest, which isn’t helped any by Lee Kang Sheng’s obviously dubbed acting. The relationships, while affecting, don’t truly reach a conclusion in the film, which is sad because it seems that Hui is reaching for one. Read More »

Yiu-Kwok is a high school teacher, having a perfect family. Good times don’t last long, when a student, Choy-Nam, falls in love with him. For dealing with a relationship with Mr. Seng, a beloved teacher of the couple, his wife Man-Ching requests a leave for a month. A midlife crisis mixing with pressure sends him into an emotional tailspin. Everything seems to lead him towards Choy-Nam, the forbidden fruit. History seems to repeat itself. Read More »

Russell Edwards at Variety:
Domestic violence gets a compelling once-over in Hong Kong vet Ann Hui’s “Night and Fog,” which rises above its low-budget limitations on the basis of its hot-button topic and stellar performances. Establishing an air of fatalism at the start, this is a distinctly grim companion piece to Hui’s 2008 pic, “The Way We Are,” which offered a more benign portrait of the same Hong Kong town. Hui’s home fanbase should ensure respectable B.O. upon release in May for a subject many would like swept under the carpet. Further afield, the pic will become a fixture of quality fest programs. Read More »

A social worker falls in love with a teenager, and remembers an affair she had with a professor while she was at university.

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Cosmo [email protected]
“I spent a year at the Vidal Sassoon headquarters,” brags Lydia (Brigitte Lin), a sprightly social worker trying to impress Tian-An (David Ng), a stock market whiz kid and aspiring hairstylist. It’s a fitting overture for a movie brimming with striking hair, from Tian-An’s very 1987 mullet to Cai-Wei’s very 1966 bob-with-bangs, from Dr. Zhang’s (George Lam) caterpillar mustache to Lydia’s butch-adjacent boy-cut. It works; Tian-An falls for Lydia, and despite their nearly 20-year age difference, their relationship flourishes in health and happiness—or does it? Read More »

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Set in a surprisingly minimalist San Francisco, Patrick Tam’s stylish slasher movie manages to evoke both Antonioni and Mario Bava in this tale of a ravishing young co-ed (Brigitte Lin) whose studly boyfriend (Chang Kuo-chu) turns into a demented stalker after the suicide of his sister. Read More »

IMDB:
An unemployed hairdresser and a strange nurse, meet at a club and start a romance. Since meeting her, the young man encounters unexplained things which she says are spirits she can see. They run into people apparently under attack by ghosts and unexplainable deaths to the point that he wants to call off the relationship. The morbidly quirky mystery unravels as they track down details of the decades old death of a loan shark. Read More »