ponderings of the pococurante

前天晚上去了豫园看灯会，观摩的主要是人海，但是喜气洋洋的，感觉还是不错。后来跟朋友在老城区溜达，久违的灵感也终于回来了，当然，这也跟我带新的相机出去也有关。谢谢长辈的提携以及各位朋友的支持！我要坚持拍下去！

Zhou Xun plays Li Mi, a plucky Kunming cab driver secretly nursing a broken heart and obsession—the man she loved disappeared
four years ago and their one-way line of communication are the letters that he writes to her, which she religiously stores and memorizes. Caught between faith and desperation, nothing, it seems, will reunite Li Mi with her old flame.

Then Li Mi takes on a fateful fare: two shifty migrants that have something to hide. Many convenient coincidences later, in a plot invovling hostage-taking, extortion, drug mules, mistaken identities, and changed identities, and Li Mi just might be close to finding her missing lover and closing the door on that part of her life.

It is in the nature of these films to rely on coincidences and other deus-ex-machina elements to move the plot forward—it doesn’t matter that they aren’t realistic, because movies aren’t based on probability theory in the first place. However, you sometimes wish that there could be a bit more judgment exercised as to when enough is enough and it’s time for you to sober up and go home. The tangled skein of the plot does get unraveled by the end, but as enjoyable as it is to know (almost) everything that transpired in this movie universe, there in a sense in which presenting all the facts makes the film seem too pat, too clever. It would have been better to leave the audience some unsettling loose-ends to quibble over.

As far as performances go, Zhou Xun, as Li Mi, is obviously the center of the film. She has plenty of good moments and a few maudlin ones, but otherwise manages to carry the film. Variety seems to concur:

Pic is motored by another saturated perf from the remarkable, throaty-voiced Zhou, who’s ably partnered from the halfway mark by Zhang (the lead in the big-budget war drama “Assembly”) as the tough but fair cop. Deng, also from “Assembly,” is fine as the slippery Ma/Fang.

However, there was one performance bothered us a bit, which was that of Wang Baoqiang’s, the young actor that has become quite popular in China for his small but often memorable roles in films, ranging from A World Without Thieves to Li Yang’s Blind Shaft, as well as
the main role in the hit TV series Soldier Sortie. What tends to grate is the fact that he plays similar roles in so many of the movies:the innocent, hapless migrant worker. It was, in his earlier films, somewhat endearing. No matter what side of the law he was on, he was always the victim and the hero—he represented the pure heart of inner China, the migrants who can no longer make (or want to make) a living off the land and are forced to the move to seamy underbelly of Chinese cities, a moral vacuums where dodgy characters operate and manipulate them. Wang’s performance is not bad as it goes, but you wonder whether or not the guy, barely twenty-five years old, has already been typecast.

Final verdict: nothing life-changing, but not a bad yarn. This is a step in the right direction.
We wouldn’t mind seeing a few more Memento-esque films come out of China. Missing
people, mistaken identities, desire, obsession—take these ingredients and give it a dark spin.

Zhou Xun plays Li Mi, a plucky Kunming cab driver secretly nursing a broken heart and obsession—the man she loved disappeared
four years ago and their one-way line of communication are the letters that he writes to her, which she religiously stores and memorizes. Caught between faith and desperation, nothing, it seems, will reunite Li Mi with her old flame.

Then Li Mi takes on a fateful fare: two shifty migrants that have something to hide. Many convenient coincidences later, in a plot invovling hostage-taking, extortion, drug mules, mistaken identities, and changed identities, and Li Mi just might be close to finding her missing lover and closing the door on that part of her life.

It is in the nature of these films to rely on coincidences and other deus-ex-machina elements to move the plot forward—it doesn’t matter that they aren’t realistic, because movies aren’t based on probability theory in the first place. However, you sometimes wish that there could be a bit more judgment exercised as to when enough is enough and it’s time for you to sober up and go home. The tangled skein of the plot does get unraveled by the end, but as enjoyable as it is to know (almost) everything that transpired in this movie universe, there in a sense in which presenting all the facts makes the film seem too pat, too clever. It would have been better to leave the audience some unsettling loose-ends to quibble over.

As far as performances go, Zhou Xun, as Li Mi, is obviously the center of the film. She has plenty of good moments and a few maudlin ones, but otherwise manages to carry the film. Variety seems to concur:

Pic is motored by another saturated perf from the remarkable, throaty-voiced Zhou, who’s ably partnered from the halfway mark by Zhang (the lead in the big-budget war drama “Assembly”) as the tough but fair cop. Deng, also from “Assembly,” is fine as the slippery Ma/Fang.

However, there was one performance bothered us a bit, which was that of Wang Baoqiang’s, the young actor that has become quite popular in China for his small but often memorable roles in films, ranging from A World Without Thieves to Li Yang’s Blind Shaft, as well as
the main role in the hit TV series Soldier Sortie. What tends to grate is the fact that he plays similar roles in so many of the movies:the innocent, hapless migrant worker. It was, in his earlier films, somewhat endearing. No matter what side of the law he was on, he was always the victim and the hero—he represented the pure heart of inner China, the migrants who can no longer make (or want to make) a living off the land and are forced to the move to seamy underbelly of Chinese cities, a moral vacuums where dodgy characters operate and manipulate them. Wang’s performance is not bad as it goes, but you wonder whether or not the guy, barely twenty-five years old, has already been typecast.

Final verdict: nothing life-changing, but not a bad yarn. This is a step in the right direction.
We wouldn’t mind seeing a few more Memento-esque films come out of China. Missing
people, mistaken identities, desire, obsession—take these ingredients and give it a dark spin.

A lot of critics, such as the NY Times Nathan Lee, did not like this film.
Here’s some of what he says:

The details of this saga, a threadbare patchwork of postcard exoticism, turgid characterizations, stilted duels and lackluster spectacle, are projected via the imagination of a little girl cognizant, it would seem, of the full repertory of high-gloss, empty-headed pictorialism deployed by corporate advertising.

Tarsem, as the filmmaker prefers to be called, made his name marketing soft drinks and sneakers, and “The Fall” bids to sell its audience on a visionary quest full of romance, intrigue, fabulous sights and fantastic creatures (Charles Darwin, swimming elephants, white people with dreadlocks). It’s strictly bargain bin.

Ouch.

Roger Ebert is a bit more sympathetic to the movie, saying:

Tarsem’s “The Fall” is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance “The Fall,” filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.

That’s the initial wow-factor, a feeling that has any visual sensibility or heck, anyone with a still beating heart ought to share. The images are simply stunning, though I suppose Nathan Lee would argue that this art for art’s sake stuff is still essentially vacuous. I would like to know the locations, spread over 28 countries, where the film was made: there is one place which is MC Escher like in its geometry of strange, angular staircases. When the black-clad bad guys are running up and down the stairs like so many evil ants, it’s just about as good as anything computer-generated in Star Wars (I mean the prequels) or the Matrix. Perhaps it is more stunning knowing that there were supposedly no CGI in the movie at all (just old style special effects).

The film’s style is a mashup of fantasy, historical drama and animation. In the end, you see the characters (in 1915 LA) watching silent films…including the early action and stunt work in films. I suppose I’m a sucker for this meta-cinematic stuff, you know, the Cinema Paradiso-esque love letter to the cinema business, because I do love movies, and of course everyone who loves the movie loves to bask in the glow of kindred spirits. The delight of watching the oh so cute wiggling and squirming faces of children in the hospital ward watching the “flickers” is a mirror with which the narcissistic cinephile gazes at himself.

But, critics will have their criticisms. A bit interesting of a read is the Onion A.V. club’s interview with Tarsem. The stunning locations: he piggybacked them off of commercial ad work.

And then after that, I needed the characters’ backstories, so for those, I went around the globe, saying “I need to go to this location, this location,” places I’d scouted for 17 years. I would only take ads that went to those regions. So I’d shoot an ad, and then bring my actors over to shoot on location.

Anyhow, it’s a great interview, full of interesting things about his filmmaking style and methods, as well as some tidbits about his life. Like this bit about how he got into commercials, videos, and films:

So I told my dad, and he said no way. Every year, we’d go to England, because my dad was in the airlines and he got free tickets, and at that point, he just stopped it. He said, “No, you’re gonna jump ship.” He wouldn’t let me come abroad with him unless I graduated in business. I love science, but business was absolutely something I dreaded. So I barely went to college, I lied and cheated like mad, I had other people sit for my exams, everything possible. And then I got a 99 percentile on the GMAT, which got me—I could pretty much go to Harvard. So we applied out there, and my dad said, “Okay, now it’s done. He’s settled down, calmed down.” And he sent me on my way there. He sent me to visit my cousin in Vancouver, and I called from Canada and said “I’m going to go study film.” And he said, “Get to the other coast and go straight away to Harvard! Ninety-ninth percentile, you should be able to get in wherever you want!” I said “no,” and he said, “Okay, then you don’t exist any more.”

Oh, and as far as Deception and Righteous Kill….well, it’s always a joy watching De Niro and Pacino, but really, this geriatric thriller stuff doesn’t really move me. Plot twists are so common to films of this sort that it makes us jaded, I think, and that’s not good for the cinema in general. Oooh, the good guy was really the bad guy, it was an inside job, he was pulling the strings the whole time, you know how it goes. These are two terrific actors, but really, this and Deception truly belong in the category of Mc Thriller, because that’s what they are, boilerplate thrillers. I know that sounds like a paradox but this, I truly believe, is a new Hollywood genre. They are typically slick productions with your typical repertory of cinematic tricks, the high contrast shots, the moody lighting, the skewed color palettes, etc. Everyone plays their part, which is fine and good, but that’s the problem: you forget these films right after you watch them, because nothing is real and nothing leaves any lasting impression on you.

Tarsem’s film, whatever its faults, is as Roger Ebert said, something that you just have to see because it exists. It’s just an audacious thing and you can’t say that about Deception or Righteous Kill. I know that this might seem like apples and oranges, but its just that these are the last three movies that I happened to watch, so are most recent in my mind.

tarsem, the fall, movies, REM, video, art, photography, life, career

A lot of critics, such as the NY Times Nathan Lee, did not like this film.
Here’s some of what he says:

The details of this saga, a threadbare patchwork of postcard exoticism, turgid characterizations, stilted duels and lackluster spectacle, are projected via the imagination of a little girl cognizant, it would seem, of the full repertory of high-gloss, empty-headed pictorialism deployed by corporate advertising.

Tarsem, as the filmmaker prefers to be called, made his name marketing soft drinks and sneakers, and “The Fall” bids to sell its audience on a visionary quest full of romance, intrigue, fabulous sights and fantastic creatures (Charles Darwin, swimming elephants, white people with dreadlocks). It’s strictly bargain bin.

Ouch.

Roger Ebert is a bit more sympathetic to the movie, saying:

Tarsem’s “The Fall” is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance “The Fall,” filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.

That’s the initial wow-factor, a feeling that has any visual sensibility or heck, anyone with a still beating heart ought to share. The images are simply stunning, though I suppose Nathan Lee would argue that this art for art’s sake stuff is still essentially vacuous. I would like to know the locations, spread over 28 countries, where the film was made: there is one place which is MC Escher like in its geometry of strange, angular staircases. When the black-clad bad guys are running up and down the stairs like so many evil ants, it’s just about as good as anything computer-generated in Star Wars (I mean the prequels) or the Matrix. Perhaps it is more stunning knowing that there were supposedly no CGI in the movie at all (just old style special effects).

The film’s style is a mashup of fantasy, historical drama and animation. In the end, you see the characters (in 1915 LA) watching silent films…including the early action and stunt work in films. I suppose I’m a sucker for this meta-cinematic stuff, you know, the Cinema Paradiso-esque love letter to the cinema business, because I do love movies, and of course everyone who loves the movie loves to bask in the glow of kindred spirits. The delight of watching the oh so cute wiggling and squirming faces of children in the hospital ward watching the “flickers” is a mirror with which the narcissistic cinephile gazes at himself.

But, critics will have their criticisms. A bit interesting of a read is the Onion A.V. club’s interview with Tarsem. The stunning locations: he piggybacked them off of commercial ad work.

And then after that, I needed the characters’ backstories, so for those, I went around the globe, saying “I need to go to this location, this location,” places I’d scouted for 17 years. I would only take ads that went to those regions. So I’d shoot an ad, and then bring my actors over to shoot on location.

Anyhow, it’s a great interview, full of interesting things about his filmmaking style and methods, as well as some tidbits about his life. Like this bit about how he got into commercials, videos, and films:

So I told my dad, and he said no way. Every year, we’d go to England, because my dad was in the airlines and he got free tickets, and at that point, he just stopped it. He said, “No, you’re gonna jump ship.” He wouldn’t let me come abroad with him unless I graduated in business. I love science, but business was absolutely something I dreaded. So I barely went to college, I lied and cheated like mad, I had other people sit for my exams, everything possible. And then I got a 99 percentile on the GMAT, which got me—I could pretty much go to Harvard. So we applied out there, and my dad said, “Okay, now it’s done. He’s settled down, calmed down.” And he sent me on my way there. He sent me to visit my cousin in Vancouver, and I called from Canada and said “I’m going to go study film.” And he said, “Get to the other coast and go straight away to Harvard! Ninety-ninth percentile, you should be able to get in wherever you want!” I said “no,” and he said, “Okay, then you don’t exist any more.”

Oh, and as far as Deception and Righteous Kill….well, it’s always a joy watching De Niro and Pacino, but really, this geriatric thriller stuff doesn’t really move me. Plot twists are so common to films of this sort that it makes us jaded, I think, and that’s not good for the cinema in general. Oooh, the good guy was really the bad guy, it was an inside job, he was pulling the strings the whole time, you know how it goes. These are two terrific actors, but really, this and Deception truly belong in the category of Mc Thriller, because that’s what they are, boilerplate thrillers. I know that sounds like a paradox but this, I truly believe, is a new Hollywood genre. They are typically slick productions with your typical repertory of cinematic tricks, the high contrast shots, the moody lighting, the skewed color palettes, etc. Everyone plays their part, which is fine and good, but that’s the problem: you forget these films right after you watch them, because nothing is real and nothing leaves any lasting impression on you.

Tarsem’s film, whatever its faults, is as Roger Ebert said, something that you just have to see because it exists. It’s just an audacious thing and you can’t say that about Deception or Righteous Kill. I know that this might seem like apples and oranges, but its just that these are the last three movies that I happened to watch, so are most recent in my mind.

tarsem, the fall, movies, REM, video, art, photography, life, career

PressThink: National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News

I noticed something in the weeks after I first listened to “The Giant Pool of Money.” I became a customer for ongoing news about the mortgage mess and the credit crisis that developed from it. (How one caused the other was explained in the program’s conclusion.) ‘Twas a successful act of explanation that put me in the market for information. Before that moment I had ignored hundreds of news reports about Americans losing their homes, the housing market crashing, banks in trouble, Wall Street firms on the brink of collapse.

In the normal hierarchy of journalistic achievement the most “basic” acts are reporting today’s news and providing current information, as with prices, weather reports and ball scores. We think of “analysis,” “interpretation,” and also “explanation” as higher order acts. They come after the news has been reported, building upon a base of factual information laid down by prior reports.

In this model, I would receive news about something brewing in the mortgage banking arena, and make note it. (“”Subprime lenders in trouble: check.”) Then I would receive some more news and perhaps keep an even closer eye on the story. After absorbing additional reports of ongoing problems in the mortgage market (their frequency serving as a signal that something is truly up) I might then turn to an “analysis” piece for more on the possible consequences, or perhaps a roundtable with experts on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. I thus graduate from the simpler to the more sophisticated forms of news as I learn more about a potentially far-reaching development. That’s the way it works… right?

Wrong! For there are some stories—and the mortgage crisis is a great example—where until I grasp the whole I am unable to make sense of any part. Not only am I not a customer for news reports prior to that moment, but the very frequency of the updates alienates me from the providers of those updates because the news stream is adding daily to my feeling of being ill-informed, overwhelmed, out of the loop. I respond with indifference, even though I’ve picked up a blinking red light from the news system’s repeated placement of “subprime” items in front of me.

This is a terribly important point that has not been made enough, or if it has has not yet managed to seep into popular consciousness (much less journalism education for undergrads, grads, and cub reporters)—but I think, properly realized, it would really impact the whole industry or, if you’re in the mood for hyperbole, the entire way that we relate to the world, since how we relate to the world is fundamentally mediated through this input/output process that occurs between us and the media, broadly construed.

PressThink: National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News

I noticed something in the weeks after I first listened to “The Giant Pool of Money.” I became a customer for ongoing news about the mortgage mess and the credit crisis that developed from it. (How one caused the other was explained in the program’s conclusion.) ‘Twas a successful act of explanation that put me in the market for information. Before that moment I had ignored hundreds of news reports about Americans losing their homes, the housing market crashing, banks in trouble, Wall Street firms on the brink of collapse.

In the normal hierarchy of journalistic achievement the most “basic” acts are reporting today’s news and providing current information, as with prices, weather reports and ball scores. We think of “analysis,” “interpretation,” and also “explanation” as higher order acts. They come after the news has been reported, building upon a base of factual information laid down by prior reports.

In this model, I would receive news about something brewing in the mortgage banking arena, and make note it. (“”Subprime lenders in trouble: check.”) Then I would receive some more news and perhaps keep an even closer eye on the story. After absorbing additional reports of ongoing problems in the mortgage market (their frequency serving as a signal that something is truly up) I might then turn to an “analysis” piece for more on the possible consequences, or perhaps a roundtable with experts on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. I thus graduate from the simpler to the more sophisticated forms of news as I learn more about a potentially far-reaching development. That’s the way it works… right?

Wrong! For there are some stories—and the mortgage crisis is a great example—where until I grasp the whole I am unable to make sense of any part. Not only am I not a customer for news reports prior to that moment, but the very frequency of the updates alienates me from the providers of those updates because the news stream is adding daily to my feeling of being ill-informed, overwhelmed, out of the loop. I respond with indifference, even though I’ve picked up a blinking red light from the news system’s repeated placement of “subprime” items in front of me.

This is a terribly important point that has not been made enough, or if it has has not yet managed to seep into popular consciousness (much less journalism education for undergrads, grads, and cub reporters)—but I think, properly realized, it would really impact the whole industry or, if you’re in the mood for hyperbole, the entire way that we relate to the world, since how we relate to the world is fundamentally mediated through this input/output process that occurs between us and the media, broadly construed.

Hu Yang (胡杨) is the Shanghai based documentary photographer that takes shots of people living in Shanghai, in their native environments–their homes. He did a series that got a lot of publicity in the last year or so, it was called 《上海人家》 and showed Shanghainese people (or at least people who live here) from all walks of life in their homes, which was quite interesting not only sociologically but because many of the rooms had a personality of their own and showed us personal idiosyncracies that were far more interesting than any broader, social truth that might have (but ultimately was not) gleaned from the picutres. Well, I was leafing thorugh the pages of Shanghai Photography Magazine and saw that he’d done some new pictures, portraits of young people born anytime between 1970 and 1989. The photographs are nothing to write home about, but I guess there is still that minimal portrait of a generation value to it. In the actual exhibit and article in the magazine you read what each subject answered to a questionnaire given to them by the photographer, stuff on what their personal interests and hobbies were, etc. Anodyne but interesting, I suppose.

If you’re a fan of the “gutter-trawling” alienated youths genre of film, you should find this one enjoyable: and I did not intend to be ironic there, because I actually think this was a good film. The story centers around two brothers: the younger one gets relentlessly and heartlessly picked on at school–beaten up, all the time, by boys and girls (the latter, despite their nice skirts and uniforms, are basically triads-in-training–like many mobsters, they like stuffing heads in urinals and toilets). The older brother sees this and does nothing. It gets worse: the younger one is physically abused by his father at home, and again, the older one does nothing. With no one to protect and stand up for him, the younger brother disappears.

He’s not heard from again until the police tell the elder brother that his brother is in the hospital after attempted suicide, and is also the main suspect in the homicide of a girl affiliated with a young triad boss/mobster. The older brother soon finds himself entangled with these triad members, who say his younger brother made off with a huge stash of drugs. He then tries to piece together what exactly his younger brother had been up to during the last few years.

What he finds out is that his brother has become part of the seamy underbelly of New Territories housing development. These are outsiders and misfits, the kids that slip through the cracks of the system. And of course, to make ends meet they resort to stealing and selling drugs.

I always feel conflicted about movies like this: the inherent seriousness of the subject seems somehow at odds with the often stylized camera work and pacing. The highly saturated, bold, and contrasty cinematography reminds me of Infernal Affairs ?????where you see a lot of these cyan-green tinted shots. Of course, it’s more than just eye-candy: what you’re getting is not the objective fly-in-the-wall take on what happens, but some reflection of the subjective reality of the characters. I don’t want to suggest that the style is amateurish or bad, just not necessarily what one might expect of a film that touches on some very serious issues. My proclivity for neo-realism, documentary style movies a la the Dardennes Brothers is what I am getting at, but I suppose it’s not a big deal. I’ve just found this type of style has become idiomatic in Hong Kong and reminds one of those Hollywood films that also deal with people on the wrong side of the tracks or the bad side of town: to a certain extent, you have to deal in cliches. You don’t explore the complexity of parental abuse, or why kids beat up other kids.

I suppose that much of it has to do with the fact that so much of what happens in this film is alien to me. Hong Kong–you’re thinking banks and dim sum, wine bars and electronics shops. The harbor, the peak. You don’t think about father-daughter incest, much less expect to see (dimly), a father humping a daughter and getting her pregnant. Here the heart and mind begin to part ways: your mind is telling you that yes, all these things do exist, but this film is like a potluck roast of all the bad shit that happens in life and cramming all of it together makes the suspension of disbelief a wee bit harder. On the other hand, your heart is trying to feel sympathy for the characters and revulsion for all the cruelty that you see. That’s why realistic, naturalistic performances and style tend to work better for me: they start off by looking more “real” (or verite), and tend to shy away from overdramatizing.

The film has a few plot twists and turns, which I think makes the film much better than it might be were it to rely purely on the “moods” and portrayals of everyday life for teenage dropouts. With regards to the latter: the naturalistic performances by the actors really did make those moments shine–all the times they stole things, and made fun of each other, got high, fought and then made up. These dropouts are a motley bunch and for the most part, they all looked it–none of the made-up pretty-boys and Canto-pop queens that dominate most Hong Kong films. I am guessing that they used many non-actors, and perhaps some of them are even from that area of Hong Kong.

All in all: one of the more interesting films and directors (???) out of Hong Kong these days. I’ve heard that the director’s other films are quite interesting as well and am keen on filling what seems like an inexcusable gap in my Hong Kong film repertoire.

If you’re a fan of the “gutter-trawling” alienated youths genre of film, you should find this one enjoyable: and I did not intend to be ironic there, because I actually think this was a good film. The story centers around two brothers: the younger one gets relentlessly and heartlessly picked on at school–beaten up, all the time, by boys and girls (the latter, despite their nice skirts and uniforms, are basically triads-in-training–like many mobsters, they like stuffing heads in urinals and toilets). The older brother sees this and does nothing. It gets worse: the younger one is physically abused by his father at home, and again, the older one does nothing. With no one to protect and stand up for him, the younger brother disappears.

He’s not heard from again until the police tell the elder brother that his brother is in the hospital after attempted suicide, and is also the main suspect in the homicide of a girl affiliated with a young triad boss/mobster. The older brother soon finds himself entangled with these triad members, who say his younger brother made off with a huge stash of drugs. He then tries to piece together what exactly his younger brother had been up to during the last few years.

What he finds out is that his brother has become part of the seamy underbelly of New Territories housing development. These are outsiders and misfits, the kids that slip through the cracks of the system. And of course, to make ends meet they resort to stealing and selling drugs.

I always feel conflicted about movies like this: the inherent seriousness of the subject seems somehow at odds with the often stylized camera work and pacing. The highly saturated, bold, and contrasty cinematography reminds me of Infernal Affairs ?????where you see a lot of these cyan-green tinted shots. Of course, it’s more than just eye-candy: what you’re getting is not the objective fly-in-the-wall take on what happens, but some reflection of the subjective reality of the characters. I don’t want to suggest that the style is amateurish or bad, just not necessarily what one might expect of a film that touches on some very serious issues. My proclivity for neo-realism, documentary style movies a la the Dardennes Brothers is what I am getting at, but I suppose it’s not a big deal. I’ve just found this type of style has become idiomatic in Hong Kong and reminds one of those Hollywood films that also deal with people on the wrong side of the tracks or the bad side of town: to a certain extent, you have to deal in cliches. You don’t explore the complexity of parental abuse, or why kids beat up other kids.

I suppose that much of it has to do with the fact that so much of what happens in this film is alien to me. Hong Kong–you’re thinking banks and dim sum, wine bars and electronics shops. The harbor, the peak. You don’t think about father-daughter incest, much less expect to see (dimly), a father humping a daughter and getting her pregnant. Here the heart and mind begin to part ways: your mind is telling you that yes, all these things do exist, but this film is like a potluck roast of all the bad shit that happens in life and cramming all of it together makes the suspension of disbelief a wee bit harder. On the other hand, your heart is trying to feel sympathy for the characters and revulsion for all the cruelty that you see. That’s why realistic, naturalistic performances and style tend to work better for me: they start off by looking more “real” (or verite), and tend to shy away from overdramatizing.

The film has a few plot twists and turns, which I think makes the film much better than it might be were it to rely purely on the “moods” and portrayals of everyday life for teenage dropouts. With regards to the latter: the naturalistic performances by the actors really did make those moments shine–all the times they stole things, and made fun of each other, got high, fought and then made up. These dropouts are a motley bunch and for the most part, they all looked it–none of the made-up pretty-boys and Canto-pop queens that dominate most Hong Kong films. I am guessing that they used many non-actors, and perhaps some of them are even from that area of Hong Kong.

All in all: one of the more interesting films and directors (???) out of Hong Kong these days. I’ve heard that the director’s other films are quite interesting as well and am keen on filling what seems like an inexcusable gap in my Hong Kong film repertoire.