Twitch-O-Meter: Five Hong Kong Gems (2000-2001)

Rather than focus on that decline, though, I want to shine a spotlight on the years 2000 and 2001 for a very personal reason: those were the years of my first wide exposure to the Hong Kong movie scene. 

Admittedly, I came to the party so late that everyone was already suffering from massive hangovers. And no sane person would argue that those years could possibly compete against the glory days of the Shaw Brothers in the late 1960s to early 1970s, or the Second Golden Age of the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Still, in those two years, the Hong Kong film industry cranked out a number of small gems.  Beyond the better-known (outside Asia) titles such as Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love and Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer, Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai’s Needing You made a movie star out of Sammi Cheng and revitalized the romantic comedy, Jingle Ma’s Tokyo Raiders showcased Tony Leung’s charm and supplied an excess of silly entertainment, Patrick Leung’s imperfect boxing drama Born Wild was dark, brooding, and stylish, Derek Chiu’s police drama Comeuppance was quietly intelligent, and Lo Chi Leung’s Double Tap featured Leslie Cheung in one of his best performances as an unhinged marksman.

Here are my fab five (most comments adapted from my very own site, A Better Tomorrow, seldom updated nowadays):

5. Dummy Mommy Without a Baby (Best English Title). Miriam Yeung was considered a poor man’s Sammi Cheng at this point of her career, but she was cheerfully endearing as a woman who fakes a pregnancy to keep her job and finds that her condition opens up previously unimagined opportunities in Joe Ma’s comedy.

Bonus: Most Corrosively Addictive First 20 Seconds of Any Theme Song Ever.  Trust me on this and spend the 99 cents at iTunes—search for “Re Xue Qing Nian”. (Note that their 30-second sample is from the middle of the song, which isn’t as good as the first 20 seconds.)

(Other candidates considered for Best English Title: Horror Hotline: Big Head Monster, Could You Kill My Husband Please?, and Clean My Name, Mr. Coroner!.)

4. Francis Ng, 2000 AD (Best Performance). I liked Gordon Chan’s Hollywood-style thriller much more than most other people, but   no one can argue that Francis Ng stands out. In a supporting role, he portrays a police officer assigned to protect computer geek Aaron Kwok. The cop is unflappable—efficient yet concerned for his own people as well as civilians. His most memorable line comes as bullets are whizzing all around in a parking garage: “This is business as usual for a civil servant.”

3. From the Queen to the Chief Executive (Most Stirring Political Drama). Typical of most Hong Kong directors, Herman Yau’s resume ranges all over the genre map, but his very best work may well have been this little-seen film about prisoners “detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure” for years without a sentence. Sound familiar? Rather than an overly predictable “social drama,” the filmmakers crafted an absorbing, emotional, and powerful story about lives gone adrift and the importance of human forgiveness.

2. Spacked Out (Most Accurate Portrayal of Young People). Early adolescence is a time of blinding confusion and emotion; it’s captured quite authentically in Lawrence Lau’s drama, which focuses on four early-teenaged girls as they attempt to come to grips with the growing complexity of their lives. Most scenes are just the right length: they make their point and then get of the way for the next scene. The four lead actresses are not too polished, and their sometimes amateurish performances work to the good. The screenplay by Yeung Sin Ling keeps the focus on the girls without wasting any time on their male companions, a refreshing touch.  A well-made and vital movie.

1. A War Named Desire (Most Deserving of Rediscovery). Released more than two years before Infernal Affairs, Alan Mak’s third directorial effort featured Francis Ng as a gangster and Gigi Leung as a gun-toting associate.  Ultimately it becomes an absorbing and moving drama, enlivened by striking visuals, punch-clock editing, and a stirring musical score. The final third of the film, especially, makes up for a slow, rather routine start. The structure—nearly the entire film is an extended flashback—irritated me at first, but now I can appreciate the noirish edge that it lends to the story about two brothers and a doomed trip to Thailand.  Along with the more recent Moonlight in Tokyo, which Mak co-directed with his Infernal Affairs co-scripter Felix Chong, it makes the case that Mak may be the most promising directorial talent in Hong Kong who has yet to receive the recognition he deserves.