OFFICE aka DESIGN FOR LIVING - BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Day Eleven

Here at the blog previously known as MOVIE REVIEWS FOR GREEDY CAPITALIST BASTARDS we greet every new film about our profession with bated breath and are usually disappointed.  MARGIN CALL is the only film that has truly depicted the reality of finance on the eve of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.  Sadly, Johnnie To's new 3D musical about Hong Kong high finance joins the long list of movies which, like that hack mess WALL STREET 2, have pretensions above their station.

This film has been adapted by legendary Hong Kong actress and writer Sylvia Chang from her stage play Design For Living.  But in bringing it to the screen this very much becomes a Johnnie To production. Which isn't to say it's full of bullets and action but that it is played on a scale and with a precision that is really impressive. To begin with, he's constructed a massive set that depicts the head quarters of the trading company at the heart of the film, but also the local bar where the office workers hang out, the apartments of the key players, and even the metro car that they come to work in.  There are no walls but lots of impressive neon structures and staircases complete with a giant clock in the centre.  Everyone can see everything and gossips about everyone, and yet there are secrets deep and dark.

Sadly, Johnnie To's stylish design and fluid camera can't detract from the  twin problems at the heart of this film. First of all, the musical numbers suck. The music is some kind of light rock-n-roll pastiche that you might hear in a hotel elevator and the singing not much better. There are no great melodies and no memorable lyrics, although I'm willing to concede that this might be down to an indifferent translator.  The lyrics merely describe the rather obvious and superficial emotions and plot rather than hinting at something more complex and profound.  And I have to say that this is true of the plot in general.

The basic idea is that Mr Ho (Chow Yun-Fat) owns a trading company that's run by CEO Madame Chang (Sylvia Chang).  She's sleeping with him but also flirting with CFO David, who's cooking the books with some stock market bets using the company balance sheet. Like all gamblers, he thinks he'll be able to sell out in time, but then the Global Financial Crisis happens and he can only sell at a loss. Meanwhile his deputy Sophie is wondering where the 2007 accounts are.  The second major plot is that Madame Chang has discovered that Mr Ho is going to stiff her out of her ownership rights when the company goes public and therefore its trying to broker a secret deal for a US cosmetics brand, despite its declining sales. And caught up in all this at the bottom rung is naive assistant Lee Xiang and the owner's daughter, masquerading as entry-level graduate, Kat. 

All of this plot machination is played entirely on the surface and with zero subtlety.  Mrs Chang and Mr Ho are big fat evil capitalist bastards, CFO David is a simple-minded stock trader, and every relationship is either a sleazy affair or a naive coup de foudre.  The corporate politics is lifted out of Dynasty or Dallas in the 1980s. There's no real interest in the character motivations. Everyone is caught up in consumer fetishism but why not investigate the insecurity that binds everyone to that? 

The resulting film looks great but sounds awful and quickly lost my interest despite its great pedigree. One to avoid.

OFFICE aka DESIGN FOR LIVING has a running time of 117 minutes.  The movie was released in China, Hong Kong and Singapore in September.

BFI FLARE - Opening Night Gala - LILTING

LILTING is a movie that drips with sincerity and authenticity and makes you cry - but not in that emotionally manipulative way that a film like THE BLIND SIDE brings you to a crescendo of weepiness - but in the quiet way that a movie about real loss can. And despite all this - and its profound investigation of grief and the guilt around caring for our ageing parents and the difficulty of coming out - and the way in which we circumscribe our communication to shelter others or shelter ourselves - it's actually a properly laugh-out-loud funny film! That all this comes from a first-time feature writer-director is just astonishing!

The movie is about unpicking the memories and emotions around a dead young man called Kai (Andrew Leung) who lived in  London with his long-time partner Richard (Ben Whishaw) but hadn't come out to his possessive mother Jun (Pei-Pei Cheng).  We begin the movie after his death but in a series of elegantly languidly interlaced flashbacks we get to know and sympathize with Kai over his genuine love for his mother but the way in which he feels trapped by his dependence on her. Meanwhile, in the present, as his boyfriend struggles to grieve for Kai, we see him start to visit her in a nursing home, despite her evident dislike for the rival for her son's attentions, and the ambiguity surrounding how much she really knows about the nature of their relationship.  Much of the humour of the film comes from the incipient relationship between Jun and another resident at the home, Alan (Peter Bowles). Initially, Richard introduces them to a translator (Naomie Christie) to aid their romance, but soon as Naomie becomes more involved in their lives, it's Richard and Jun that she mediates and translates for. 

I want to emphasize just what a beautifully elegant and softly woven film this is.  How authentic and conflicted the relationships feel, and just how good the performances are, so that even in the midst of selfish arguments you can sympathize with each participants.  I left the cinema having laughed out loud but also having quietly cried - feeling that I really knew these people and desperately cared about what was going to happened to them.  I can't tell you how infrequent an experience that is at the cinema and how much these unique voices must be supported.  Moreover, why isn't Ben Whishaw more famous? 

I suppose the final question is, with the movie featuring a gay couple, and centering on the issue of coming out, whether this is exclusively a gay interest film.  I would argue that it deserves a far wider audience that that.  The issue of how we as vital children relate to our ageing parents is universally relatable as is the idea of what we choose to say and with-hold in our relationships.  This is a wise film indeed. 

LILTING played Sundance, where Urszula Ponticus won the cinematography award for World cinema - Dramatic,  and BFI Flare 2014.  It will be released in the UK and Ireland on June 20th.

Wong Kar Wai Retrospective - DAYS OF BEING WILD

Continuing with our sporadic Wong Kar Wai retrospective, we come to his 1991 feature, DAYS OF BEING WILD. A critical success but a commercial failure, the movie has all the hallmarks of Wong Kar Wai's particular brand of cinema: love-lorn urban men; women unable to move on from heart-break; the beautiful, evocative camera-work of Christopher Doyle; kitsch American popular music; and a plot that is less event-driven than an exploration of character and mood.

We are Hong Kong in the 1960s. It's monsoon season and the colour-scape of the film is lush green and brooding blue. Tragic pop-star Leslie Cheung takes on the lead role of Yuddy - an emotionally jaded young man who seems unable to maintain a stable relationship with the many girls who fall in love with him. The first of these is a naive, whimpering girl called Su Lizhen, played by Wong Kar Wai regular, Maggie Cheung in a "typical" role. The second is a ballsy show-girl called Leung Fung-Ying, played brilliantly by Carina Lau. Possibly a third is Yuddy's controlling, intimidating, ex-whore mother (Rebecca Pan). In some ways, she is the most interesting character, given her decision to cruelly reveal to Yuddy that she is actually his adoptive mother, and that his real mother is living in the Philippines.

In contrast to Yuddy, Wong Kar Wai presents one of his classic policeman characters. Andy Lau plays a decent neighbourhood copper, who comes across Su Lizhen stalking Yuddy's apartment. He takes pity on her, and is so emotionally affected by their encounters that he leaves Hong Kong for the Philippines. There he will come across Yuddy, who is now searching for his birth-mother.

DAYS OF BEING WILD is far from a masterpiece and viewers not familiar with Wong Kar Wai's patient mood pieces may be frustrated by its longueurs. However, it's a rewarding film for fans not least because it takes us further on the journey to the most perfect expression of Wong Kar Wai's style - IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE - a movie presaged by the brief, irrelevant and yet lovely little cameo of Tony Leung at the end of the film.

DAYS OF BEING WILD played Berlin and Toronto 1991 and was released that year. It is available on DVD.

Wong Kar Wai retrospective - AS TEARS GO BY/WONG GOK KA MOON

AS TEARS GO BY sees Wong Kar Wai's essentially romantic, fanciful nature shoe-horned into a conventional Hong Kong traid movie, reminiscent of MEAN STREETS. The result is a movie that is occasionally surprising but which has dated badly. Indeed, to modern eyes, it can sometimes feel like a pastiche. Having said all that, the movie opens in classic WKW territory. We're in a cramped flat in Kowloon and a young man (Andy Lau of INFERNAL AFFAIRS fame) is about to fall in love with a woman he has barely met. Instead of the femmes fatales of later flms, AS TEARS GO BY features a young Maggie Cheung as a milk-sop provincial who simpers in a hugely under-powered role. Naturally, this new relationship will force Brother Wah to reconsider his future as a gangster. It doesn't take much: he was already getting tired of bailing out his volatile, useless side-kick, Fly (classic Joe Pesci territory).

The movie oozes eighties stylings. There's a deeply annoying synthesizer sound-track; everyone looks like they trying to be extras in TOP GUN; the plot is pretty conventional and the denouement utterly unsurprising. Jacky Cheung over-acts horribly as Fly and Andy Lay isn't given a chance to display the talent he shows in INFERNAL AFFAIRS. So, pretty much the only reason to watch this film is to trace out the developing style of Wong Kar Wai. We can see it in superficial things like the use of cheesy songs and stroboscopic photography from DP Wai-Keung Lau. But we can see it in the substance of the film and the scenes that sit around the obligatory set-piece action sequences: lovers are thwarted and romantic life is squeezed between the petty obligations of real life.

AS TEARS GO BY was originally released in 1988 and played Toronto 1989. It is available on DVD.

*Thanks to the old lag, Berko, for clueing me in to the correct terminology for this maddening effect that so marred my enjoyment of MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS.

Wong Kar Wai Retrospective - CHUNG KING EXPRESS

CHUNG KING EXPRESS is a wonderful film from Wong Kar Wai. Originally released in 1994 to critical acclaim, it foreshadowed much of the thematic material of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE and 2046 and some of the stylistic mannerisms of the disastrous MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS.

The movie takes the form of two loosely connected stories set in contemporary Hong Kong. As in later films, Wong Kar Wai takes us into cheap diners in dingy, crowded cities. Bus terminals have lockers that are dented and covered in grafitti and the floor is strewn with litter. The protagonists live in cluttered filthy apartments with mould in the shower and subsist on canned food bought in grubby 7-11s. The great thing about this film is, however, that it doesn't judge any of this. Indeed, it rather revels in the accidental beauty of such scenes. The key to these films is to uncover the romantic leanings of the ordinary people who inhabit these locales - the people one might pass on the street and assume, rather patronisingly, were leading drab uninteresting lives. So, in sharp contrast to his later films, the characters in the film look "normal". They aren't dressed to perfection, hovering in a state of delicate beauty: girls wear normal clothes, but even when they dress up, it's in a rather grubby mac and blonde wig.

But there are other elements that form a straight line through to MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS. The use of popular, almost cheesy, Western pop songs on almost continuous loop; the love of neon signs; a femme fatale; a camera that follows its prey with a voyeuristic, intimate glee; and in the first section the use of slow-mo and distorted vision to try and capture the frenetic pace of city life.

My preference is for the scenes where the camera is fluid but not "interefered with" in the style so irritating in the first scenes of MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS. And it's hard to know whether my weaker response to the first story is due to the shooting style. Still, even apart from that, the story is lyrical, compelling and beautiful. A lonely police officer (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is mourning a failed relationship, creating bizarre little rituals involving out-of-date canned food to focus his mind. He runs across a mysterious blonde, who turns out to be a drug smuggler. (Note the fantastically fast-paced, beautifully edited scene in which she suits up and organises the Indian mules.) As we come to expect in a Wong Kar Wai film, when the two finally meet their relationship is fleeting and muted - and is valued mostly for the memories it will generate.

The second story takes similar material. Another lonely cop (a very young Tony Leung) is mourning another failed relationship, in another cramped apartment. He strikes up a bizarre relationship with another quirky girl, who expresses a desire for intimacy by secretly cleaning his flat! It sounds bizarre and it is bizarre but it's never cheap or crudely funny. Rather, it's sweet, strange and wonderfully fresh. This is largely down to Tony Leung's superbly melancholy presence and a rightly award-winning performance by Faye Wong - the stand-out actor in this film. It just goes to show how important it is to cast actors and indeed locations that can make the most surreal and unabashedly romantic material seem real and natural. That is the key difference between a pantheon film like CHUNG KING EXPRESS and a disappointment like MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS.

Wong Kar Wai retrospective - 2046

After the perfection of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE came the sequel, 2046 - a reflexive, rambling film that was ultimately a failure despite its ravishing visuals. Tony Leung reprised his role as Chow, now living in the Hong Kong of the late 1960s. He lives in a seedy hotel, next to room 2046 - a metaphor and focus for all his regrets and sexual yearnings. At the same time, he's writing a sci-fi novel set in 2046 - a place where you can relive your dreams in perpetuity. In this strange world of past, present and future, Chow meets a parade of beautiful, mysterious women, each dressed to perfection and photographed in a state of heightened beauty. If all these themes and striking images had been harnessed to empathetic characters and a proper story, Wong Kar Wai might have given his fans a film to treasure. Instead, the movie feels self-indulgent and unsatisfying. And, to paraphrase an interview with DP Christopher Doyle during a retrospective at the National Film Theatre, somewhat redundant. Wong Kar Wai said everything he needed to in IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

2046 played Cannes and London 2004 and is widely available on DVD.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS/MOU GAAN DOU - untouchably brilliant Hong Kong thriller

I'm writing a review of INFERNAL AFFAIRS to get the movie out of my system before writing up the Martin Scorsese remake, THE DEPARTED. Like most people in Europe, I saw INFERNAL AFFAIRS on DVD rather than at the cinema, and it impressed me as one of the most genuinely mind-bending thrillers I had ever seen. The set-up is simple. The Hong Kong triads plant a young mole, played by the director Andy Lau, in the Hong Kong police department. The police do the same, getting a guy played by the superlative actor Tony Leung (2046 & IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE) to infiltrate the triads. Over time these men achieve success in the new roles, earning the respect and camaraderie of their new "friends". So, when each organisation suspects it has become infiltrated, each man has to ask himself who he really is and to whom his loyalty lies. It's a conventional thriller - will they be uncovered? - but it's also a remarkably thoughtful and emotional movie.

Very emotional. Tony Leung is the absolutely perfect actor for the role of the cop turned thug. He has a screen presence that invites you to empathise with him. His situation is truly hellish - he can see that he is a good crook but he wants to get back to "reality". Only a couple of cops know his true identity and he is reliant on them to bring him back. He becomes increasingly desperate, realising that his boss has little incentive to bring in his best source of information on the enemy. Like all pawns through history - the movie references Rome - Leung is an increasingly unwilling sacrificial lamb. Andy Lau's character is a different kettle of fish. Lau is a big action star in Hong Kong and he plays this role with the cool of Schumacher. He is expert at keeping things hovering just above the surface - an expertise that neuters his ability to have a serious emotional connection with his girlfriend.

What else can I say about this movie? The cinematography has a harsh, unsettling feel - all muted, drained colours and clever inter-cutting. Christopher Doyle - the best cinematographer currently working - was the visual consultant and it shows. But perhaps the real success of the film is down to the fact that Andy Lau also photographed, scripted, directed and starred in the movie. Perhaps what we are benefiting from is the single-minded vision of one man seen through to the end with no compromise?

All in all, for me, INFERNAL AFFAIRS redefined how much you could do with crime thriller genre - it broke the boundaries. It's one of those rare films where you just can't find any fault with it - like Dr STRANGELOVE or IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. If you haven't seen it, you should DEFINITELY check it out, preferably before seeing the Scorsese remake.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS was released in Hong Kong in 2002 and opened in the UK and US in 2004. It is available on DVD.

DUMPLINGS/GAAU JI - abortions are yummy

I think it's fair to say that this film is all about eating aborted foetuses. Because it is. But it's not a gore flick, or a horror flick, or some awful and tasteless B-movie from the vaults of Japan. Rather director Fruit Chan, aided by a powerful and capable cast, has created a movie that challenges our preconceptions and our hypocrisies on several hitherto taboo subjects.

The basic plot follows Mrs Li (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah), an ex-actress and glamourous star, who enlists Mei's (Bei Ling) help in recapturing her youthful looks to regain the (sexual) attention of her philandering husband Mr Li (Tony Leung Ka Fai) - who's fucking everything but the kitchen sink, because, put simply, he likes a fresh piece of ass.

Unfortunately, Aunt Mei's miraculous youth restoring therapy involves eating chinese dumplings made out of chopped up and stewed aborted foetuses. Mei herself was an abortionist in China, before her discovery of the healing properties her patented cannabalistic practice. Bai Ling is stunning as Mei - her performance is as witty as it is serious - she manages to inject comedy and drama where none seemed possible - give the girl an Oscar.

So the plot's a bit grim, and make no mistake about it, there's nothing hidden in this film. That's the wonderful thing about it, it's honest. It graphically depicts a second trimester back-street abortion - it shows the chopping up and preparation of food using first trimester foetuses - the sex scenes are as explicit as they need to be without erring into pornography. This film, cinematographically, is not for the faint hearted. And, just as Argentina's display today against Serbia and Montenegro was a masterclass in fluid, attacking football - DUMPLINGS is a masterclass in film-making. The shots are perfect - it's shocking without being overly graphic - it employs clever tricks like reflections in knives, subverted camera angles, and wonderful wonderful sound effects. The munching of dumplings. The cracking of bones. The plop of a baby into a bowl of water. Marvellous.

But as well as being graphically and thematically captivating and shocking, the film is also genuinely challenging. It passes social comment of the societal pressures on women (and men) to look young, and the lengths we will go to to achieve this goal. It shows us what we are spared by the closed walls of the termination of pregnancy centres - the full horror of a second trimester abortion. It deals with incest, rape, and cannabalism. And it does all these things realistically, without passing too much insulting or obvious editorial comment.

Is this an anti-abortion film? Not in the traditional sense, no. It shows abortion as it is, not as we like to think of it - and it does criticise the horror of the "one child, one family" law in China. But at the same time, it displays the reality of what can happen if we make abortion illegal, following tangentially the drama of a young mother seeking an abortion from Mei. It was a thought provoking experience, one that was moving and uncomfortable all at once. It elevates the debate on abortion above the level of crude, trans-atlantic bickering onto a plain of real intellectual debate. While we cannot deny the homologous nature of the second trimester foetus and the neo-nate and the tragedy of it's death, and the awful sterility of the Chinese abortion clinic - we are confronted with the equally tragic and horrifying notion of the back-street, black-market abortionist, and the tough moral challenges that are faced in some exceptional circumstances.

This really is a great film - one that I can wholeheartedly recommend. While it doesn't stir its audience the the heights of passion and back - or claim frights or adventure - it captivates the viewer in a story that it proves impossible to take ones eyes off. It will provide charming if inappropriate dinner-time conversation for afterward - and will have you chewing over the concepts late into the night, even after Match of the Day has ended. All in all, another fine flick from the far east. Go see!

DUMPLINGS/GAAU opened in South Korea in 2004 and in Germany and Austria in 2005. It went on release in France in April 2006 and is currently on release in the UK. I'd put good money on the proposition that it will never get a cinematic release in the US.

ELECTION/HAK SE WUI - when meaningless violence isn't enough

I never thought I'd say this, but ELECTION is a movie where meaningless violence wasn't enough to sustain my interest. Don't get me wrong. The violence quotient in this Hong Kong Johnnie-To Triad movie is liberal and scarily innovative. There's one scene involving the torture of gang bosses that brings new meaning to the punishment of Sisyphus. The problem is that the plot is pretty thin. Essentially, the movie charts a stand-off between two traid bosses - the ever-so-slightly out-of-control Big D (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and the patient loyal Lok. Apparently, every two years, this particular gang of triads elects their new leader. (A surprisingly civilised injection of democracy!) The wise old "uncles" elect Lok, despite liberal kick-backs from Big D. On hearing the news, Big D throws his toys out of the pram and more importantly, tries to steal the Baton that signifies leadership within the gang. This chasing around fills up most of the film.

Now, the Baton is more than just a MacGuffin - a plot device that gets the action moving but whose content is meaningless. For if Lok does get the Baton, foiling Big D's attempt, he will have cemented his leadership and avoided a gang war that neither the triads nor the police want. And just in case we were in any doubt about the importance of the Baton, we get treated to a nice fifteen minute scene near the end of the movie where the triads pledge allegiance to the eventual winner of the election in an elaborate and historic ceremony. Still, as far as it goes, this is a movie about thugs trying to avoid a turf war, which is hardly anything new. I only wish To had developed the theme of police complicity further. My other minor quibble is that most of the film is photographed in a manner which has the faces of the actors in darkness, silhouetted against the sky/city/whatever. I assume that this is a directorial choice rather than just bad lighting or under-developed film. At any rate, I found it intensely frustrating.

All in all, unless you are an impassioned Hong Kong film fanatic, this is probably one to avoid. It is about a gazillion miles more superficial and dull than something like INFERNAL AFFAIRS.

ELECTION/HAK SE WUI showed at Cannes 2005 and is currently on release in the UK. It hits France in January 2007.

KING OF BEGGARS - kicking it old school

KING OF BEGGARS is a Hong Kong martial arts film that was released back in 1992 but is now available on a shiny new DVD. The movie stars Stephen Chow of SHAOLIN SOCCER and KUNG FU HUSTLE fame and I suspect that this is why a lot of the back catalogue is making it out of the back drawer and into the sunlight. So, will fans of the more recent Stephen Chow movies get a kick out of KING OF BEGGARS? Maybe. The movie is a period movie set in China. Chow plays the spoiled and illiterate son of a local governor. One day, at his local brothel he manages to simulataneously insult the Emperor and fall in love with a beautiful daughter of a beggar posing as a whore in order to avenge her father. (It's THAT kind of movie.) She is a woman of sense and rejects this ramshackle idiot until he can prove that he is a Kung Fu master. He then enters a tournament, the repurcussions of which involve him becoming a beggar, and fighting his way back to love and fortune. The movie is really well-made - money has been spent on costumes and they have taken the effort to get permission to shoot in China. It is also fairly funny but in a more straightforward slapstick way than the post-modern ironies of KUNG FU. Indeed, the whole film has a kind of old-school charm. It's like one of those old, badly dubbed, kung fu movies, where people have fights using ever more obscure varieties of kung fu: from the usual "animal" variants to the awesome Sleeping Fist style. All in all, this movie may not be a work of innovative genius in the manner of KUNG FU, but it is a bunch of fun if you are already a fan of old-school Kung Fu movies. Perfect for Friday night after the pub with a couple of beers and some take-out.

KUNG FU was released on DVD next week.

ONE NIGHT IN MONG KOK - over-rated Hong Kong thriller

2004 was a vintage year for Asian cinema, as one can tell from a brief survey of the runners in the Hong Kong film awards for that year. Wong Kar Wei's flawed masterpiece, 2046, was nominated in practically all the categories and won the Best Actor and Actress awards, as well as for Best Cinematography and Design. That work of cinematic genius, KUNG FU HUSTLE, also won a bunch of awards, including Best Film. One of my all-time favourite movies, OLDBOY, won Best Asian Film, with ZATOICHI also nominated. But neither 2046 nor KFH got the Best Director gong - that went to Yee Kung-Shing for ONE NIGHT IN MONG KOK. So immediately, I need to see this film, and now that it is out on Region 2 DVD, I finally get my chance.

The opening 15 minutes set up the movie in real style. We see two rival triad gangs going, literally, head-on, in a brothel-brawl that spills out into a vicious car accident. Apparently, this is every day stuff in Mong Kok - a district of Hong Kong teeming with mobsters, drug-dealers, whores and people flogging fake Rolexes. (So, sort of like Oxford Street, but without the mobsters and drug-dealers.) The action is shot in black and white with hand-held cameras. The whole thing has real energy and authenticity. You think you are in for the Hong Kong version of CITY OF THE GODS. Flip to the next day and the "middle" of the movie. Daniel Yu plays a provincial dolt who has been shipped in by one of the gang leaders, via the local "fixer", to kill the other gang leader. The key point is that Daniel Yu's character is not a professional assassin but a poor kid who fully realises that he is likely to be caught and serve time for murder. But he is still willing to go through with the assassination, secure in the knowledge that his family will be living off the phat cash he has earned. The police are afraid that a successful assassination will provoke full-scale gang warfare and try to prevent the murder.

There are two things wrong with the middle of the film. First, the attempt at realism in the first segment is undermined by the cartoon-like characters in the second segment. The fixer and his wife and dressed in the kind of mad, country club get-up last seen on a golf course in the 1950s. The fixer has "jingle bells" as his ring-tone, this being Christmas Eve. These characters ARE funny, but completely destroy the tension. The second major error is the introduction of a cliched "hooker with a heart of gold" character. By pure chance/fate, our erstwhile assassin saves the life of an annoyingly flaky prostitute called Dan Dan, played by Cecilia Cheung, who is also earning money by dubious means for her dear family back in Hicksville. Together these two skip through Mong Kok, eating obscenely large meals and buying gold chains with their new cash. The whole thing is rather irritating and dull and goes on for around an hour.

However, the final twenty minutes almost, but not quite, redeem the picture. We are back to gritty, urban, intelligent, ultra-violent thriller. We see how the police are conflicted between doing the right thing, and just keeping their heads down and staying alive: the pressures of making " a big bust" to get promotion versus the need to solve the actual case in hand. These are not the wholly corrupt police of Hollywood movies, nor are they whiter-than-white. Instead, they make wrong choices for the right reasons. Similarly, our assassin gets entangled both with the police and Dan Dan's angry trick. The whole thing is a chapter of accidents and mistakes and no-one comes out of it with much glory.

To sum up: the beginning and end of ONE NIGHT IN MONG KOK are stylish, substantially interesting, and tense. The middle is deeply deeply dull. Whether it is worth your renting the DVD anyways will largely depend on how fond you are of Asian ultra-violence. I have to say that I am pretty addicted to extreme cinema, but, on balance, I probably could have done without this movie.

ONE NIGHT IN MONGKOK was released in Asia in 2004, and had a limited release in UK cinemas in September 2005. It is now available on Region 2 DVD.