Kenny Bee

  • Patrick Tam – Sat sau woo dip mung AKA My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (1989)

    Patrick Tam1981-1990ActionHong KongRomance

    A young couple separates under pressure from vicious Triad gangsters–she becomes a mobster’s unwilling moll, and he travels abroad to work as an assassin. But their love stays strong, and when the two are reunited, their rekindled emotions lead them into extreme danger.Read More »

  • Hark Tsui – Shang Hai zhi yen AKA Shanghai Blues (1984)

    1981-1990DramaHark TsuiHong KongMusical

    AMG: Shanghai Blues combines romantic comedy, slapstick, music, and several classic coincidences (a favorite ploy of director and writer Tsui Hark to tell the story of a man (Kenny Bee) and a female dancer (Sylvia Chang) who meet under a Shanghai bridge in 1937 as they seek shelter from the Japanese bombing of the city. They are immediately drawn to each other and make a pact to meet under the bridge again when the war has ended. But their plans are thwarted and ten years later, the man gets an apartment in Shanghai (where he works as a musician, songwriter, and clown) unaware that the dancer — for whom he has been searching — is his downstairs neighbor. Meanwhile, a young, bubbly woman makes friends with the dancer at the club where she performs and inadvertently causes a considerable mix-up that at first looks fated to keep the star-crossed lovers apart.Read More »

  • Hsiao-Hsien Hou – Feng er ti ta cai AKA Play While you Play AKA Cheerful Wind (1981)

    1981-1990ArthouseAsianHsiao-hsien HouTaiwan

    The pop-star leads from Hou’s first feature, Cute Girl, are reunited in the director’s follow-up, a brisk work of bubble-gum romance that begins to experiment with the rules of the genre. This time, Taiwanese singing sensation Feng Fei-fei plays Hsing-hui, a trendy photographer visiting a seaside village in Penghu with her successful boss/fiancé. When she happens upon a flute-playing medic blinded in an ambulance crash (Kenny Bee), sparks fly, songs are sung, and she’s left with the tough decision of who to say “I do” to. Despite the eye-rolling premise, Hou infuses the film with enough formal ingenuity (long takes, telephoto lenses, on-location shooting) that a case can be made for its auteurial significance.Read More »

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