Film: 春田花花同學會 (2006-McDull the Alumni)

A great Hong Kong comedy from 2006! Great light-hearted comedic acting that bring out the best in a collection of parodies of Hong Kong culture. A good choice of the cast and a nice extension of the Hong Kong animation McDull. I enjoyed the guy who did the “Point” scene or should I say “Tniop”. Reminds me of “turnip”. The first time I saw Sandra Ng 吳君如in Golden Chicken, I did not think very highly of her acting. In retrospect, it was probably because I found no meaning in the plot whatsoever and though her performance may have been great, the storyline subtracted from it.

All else aside, I have to admit there would not be much of a benefit from watching the movie relying on subtitles because they are pretty skewed from the real lines of the movie. And like most parodies, to get the full effect of the movie, you’d really have to understand the culture of Hong Kong to enjoy the movie.

 

Film: 七小福 (1988-Painted Faces)

Finally, saw a good movie that had a great sense of humor, well-developed plot, and moving performance delivered by a superb cast from 洪金寶 Sammo Hung to all the young actors in the film. I particularly admired that as the film follows the young students growing up in the Peking Opera School, documenting a time period of universal “growing up” passages, it was realistic and very humble, never overly patronizing or overdone. The topic of friendships, of adhering to one’s ideals and values, and never giving up a dream that 于占元 Master Yu had taught to his students is very real. The film touched on the topic of love and adoration that every teenager goes through but stopped short of idealizing it, making the story more realistic and enabling the audience to relate to those emotions.

This is the kind of Hong Kong film I would be proud of, versus some of the current pop culture films in standing like 72 Tenants of Prosperity.

Part 1 of 12 of the film