Comments (2) Jun 02 2009

The New York Asian Film Festival and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, New York are proud to announce a special focus on Hong Kong films and filmmakers called Hong Kong Never Dies!

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There has been a lot written about the “death” of Hong Kong’s film industry in the last ten years, mostly by folks who don’t know nothing. Sure the production bubble of the early 90’s popped and there was a lot of trauma while the industry readjusted to a realistic size, but what people don’t realize is that great movies have never stopped coming from Hong Kong, and a new generation of filmmakers have sprung up to replace the John Woos and Jackie Chans who moved away. “Hong Kong Never Dies!” consists of ten titles, five of which are part of the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s “New Action” promotional project, and these ten movies join a line-up of over 50 feature films competing in this year’s New York Asian Film Festival for both the Audience Award and the Jury Award.

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AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS
(2008, Hong Kong, Ching Siu-tung)
Starring Kelly Chen, Donnie Yen, Leon Lai
Ching Siu-tung (action director of HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) turns in a Cantopop confection of warring armies, secret treehouses, Kelly Chen falling in love, and Donnie Yen stripping off his shirt and screaming, “Who wants some of me?” Campy, over-the-top, and slightly mad, this cracked big budget blockbuster is the kind of turn-off-your-brain summer film that is as essential as air conditioning for beating the heat.
95 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
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EXODUS
(2007, Hong Kong, Pang Ho-cheung)
Starring Simon Yam, Annie Liu, Nick Cheung
This taut, tense movie doesn’t waste a minute as it delivers a pared-to-the-bone black comedy version of the war between the sexes, thinly disguised as an arthouse film. Simon Yam discovers a secret plot by women to destroy all men. Deadpan and po-faced you’re never quite sure if the director is kidding or not. Given that the director is Pang Ho-cheung, one of Hong Kong’s fastest rising new talents, and a gifted comic director, he’s probably kidding, but maybe not. After all, why are women always going to the bathroom together if they’re not using that time to plot against their husbands and lovers?
95 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
Part of the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s “New Action” program.
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EYE IN THE SKY
(2007, Hong Kong, Yau Nai-hoi)
Starring Simon Yam, Kate Tsui, Tony Leung Kar-fai
It’s Simon Yam vs. Tony Leung Kar-fai in this sleek thriller directed by Yau Nai-hoi, a screenwriter with credits for dozens of Johnnie To movies under his belt. Simon Yam is the leader of the SU (Surveillance Unit) playing a lethal game of tag with Tony Leung Kar-fai, and his gang of hapless jewel thieves who cross paths with a kidnapper. Johnnie To’s Milkyway Image production company has become the training ground for many of Hong Kong’s newest behind-the-camera talents, and Yau Nai-hoi’s slick, assured directorial debut testifies to the fact that it’s turning out some of the best new filmmakers in the business.
90 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
Part of the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s “New Action” program.
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HIGH NOON
(2008, Hong Kong, Mak Hei-Yan)
Starring Lam Yiu-Sing, Sham Ka-Kei, Anjo Leung Hiu-Fung
Eric Tsang produced the youth film project, Winds of September, which resulted in three feature films about kids coming of age, one set in Taiwan, one set in Mainland China and one set in Hong Kong. 24-year-old director, Mak Hei-yan, shot HIGH NOON, the Hong Kong segment, and her movie crackles with the relentless energy of Hong Kong itself. Seven high school kids find their friendship falling apart as they go from being a bunch of annoying young slackers to being seriously victimized by life over the course of the film. Shot on DV it veers wildly between youth drama and hardcore exploitation, pulling itself together in the end to deliver a powerful punch. As Variety says, “Young Mak is one to watch.”
106 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
Part of the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s “New Action” program.
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IP MAN
(2008, Hong Kong, Wilson Yip)
Starring Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Fan Siu-wong
Hong Kong action cinema is back, and it’s gonna crack your back, jack! Donnie Yen stars in this biopic of Bruce Lee’s master, Ip Man, one of the great teachers of wing chun, the badass martial art invented by a Buddhist nun. With action choreography by the amazing Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen (a major martial artist) in the lead role, Wilson Yip (FLASHPOINT, SHA PO LANG) in the director’s chair and Fan Siu-wong (THE STORY OF RICKY) co-starring, it is physically impossible for this movie to be any more awesome.
106 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
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MAGAZINE GAP ROAD
(2007, Hong Kong, Nick Chin)
Starring Jessey Meng, Qu Ying, Elvis Tsui, Richard Ng
With director Nick Chin in attendance
Ice cold pimps, low life players and high class prostitutes populate this glittering Hong Kong noir where the cityscape gleams like a handful of jewels thrown across the night sky. One classy escort has left The Life behind and joined high society, but when a hooker she worked with comes looking for help escaping from Hans, their violent pimp, she stands to lose everything she’s built. A rare independent movie from Hong Kong, and one of the best-looking genre movies to come along in years.
90 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.

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PLASTIC CITY
(2008, Hong Kong, Yu Lik-wai)
Starring Joe Odagiri, Anthony Wong
It already played the festival circuit in a different cut, but this is the completed, and completely different, version of Yu Lik-wai’s psychedelic gangster movie. Yu is one of Hong Kong’s original indie filmmakers, starting his career with films like 1999’s LOVE WILL TEAR US APART and 2003’s ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES. These days he works often as Jia Zhangke’s cinematographer so, as you’d expect, PLASTIC CITY is a dazzling visual freak-out. Shot in Brazil and starring Hong Kong’s Anthony Wong and Japan’s Joe Odagiri, it starts as a typical gangster film, before it trips out and sails into the stratosphere as Anthony Wong becomes a shaman and Joe Odagiri leads an army of child soldiers. As Wong says, “Don’t stare too long at the white tiger, or it will destroy you.” Right on, man.
92 minutes. In Mandarin, Portuguese and Japanese with English subtitles.
Part of the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s “New Action” program.
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TACTICAL UNIT: COMRADES IN ARMS
(2008, Hong Kong, Law Wing-cheong)
Starring Simon Yam, Maggie Siu, Lam Suet
Another film from Milkyway Image, this time directed by Law Wing-cheong, Johnnie To’s associate director on movies like FULLTIME KILLER and PTU. This movie is actually a sequel to PTU, and it tells the tale of the same crew of PTU beat cops chasing down armored car hijackers in the Hong Kong mountains, all of them completely out of their element in the wilderness of the New Territories. As bad luck, office politics, random coincidences and equipment failures multiply it looks like these cops are going to be lucky to make it home in one piece. An ode to the clock punchers who keep us safe, not because they’re heroes but because it’s their job.
91 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
Part of the Hong Kong Film Development Council’s “New Action” program.
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WARLORDS
(2007, Hong Kong, Peter Chan)
Starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Three of Hong Kong’s biggest stars – Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro – team up in this massive action movie about three blood brothers in the middle of the Taiping Rebellion. As big, meaty and satisfying as a flame-roasted leg of wild boar, WARLORDS is the kind of movie you tear into with relish, wiping its bloody juices off your chin with the back of your hand as you sit on a throne made of the bones of your enemies.130 minutes. In Mandarin with English subtitles.

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WRITTEN BY
(2009, Hong Kong, Wai Ka-fai)
Starring Lau Ching-wan, Kelly Lin, Mia Yan
With director Wai Ka-fai and lead actor Lau Ching-wan in attendance
Wai Ka-fai has written almost every single Johnnie To movie, and co-directed several others (MAD DETECTIVE, RUNNING ON KARMA). In this film, Wai directs Hong Kong’s best actor, Lau Ching-wan, in the story of a woman whose dad dies, so she writes a book where she died and he lived, and in that book his character writes a book where he died and she lived…and on and on in an endlessly recursive loop as wounded characters desperately apply fiction to dull the sharp edges of their grief. Like a Charlie (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) Kaufman movie made in Hong Kong.
89 minutes. In Cantonese with English subtitles.

Comments (2) Jun 02 2009