by ·Comments Off on A Chinese Ghost Story II (1990, Ching Siu-Tung)

The second half of my Joey Wong ghostly double-feature. This picks up Leslie’s adventures from the first film, even opening with a previously-on, but there’s no important continuity. Part one kicked off my Tsui Hark craze last October, and I’ve watched at least ten of his movies since then – he produced this while working on the troubled Swordsman. And this is really good, thanks in part to magician Jackie Cheung taking over the story. A pretty silly movie, it looks like it was made in a week, but by geniuses.

Wrongly-imprisoned Leslie escapes and lets people mistake him for his celebrity writer cellmate. He quickly antagonizes Jackie, meets the doppelganger of his late ghost-girl Joey and her little sister (Michelle Reis, hot alien of Wicked City), and the team fights various monsters trying to rescue her dad. They’re able to convince the elite swordsman Waisee Lee (star of The Big Heat) that dad (who played the evil tree in part one) isn’t a traitor, but when the swordsman explains this to the golden high monk (Wong Fei-hung’s dad) it doesn’t go over well, and the monk reveals himself as a massive demon. Fortunately the swordsman from part one is nearby (Wu Ma, also appropriately of Encounters of the Spooky Kind). He and Jackie get swallowed by the monster and explode it from within, Leslie and Joey run off together, and Jackie gets lost in the spirit world like Agent Cooper, but he’ll be in part three so I’m trying not to fret about it.

Temporarily bearded Leslie learns that life is unfair:

by ·Comments Off on A Chinese Ghost Story (1987, Ching Siu-Tung)

Bad move to watch an awesome HK movie near the start of Shocktober, because now I’m off-mission listing HK movies I need to see, considering a TsuiHarkTober rebrand. Leslie Cheung, incompetent in his job as a tax collector, is told he can sleep for free in the spooky old temple infested by stop-motion skeletal zombies. Meanwhile White Snake herself, Joey Wong, is a hot ghost girl doomed by a giant tree called Old Evil to lure men into becoming new stop-motion skeletal zombies.

Joey with her evil stepmom:

“The bearded guy killed your sister. Let’s report him.” Wu Ma is in every kung fu movie but gets a rare big role here as the bearded guy. After Leslie meets the hot girl (Hsiao-tsing, aka Siu Sin, which sounds just like “Susan”) he gets the bearded guy invested in rescuing her soul and defeating the spirit so she can be reincarnated. They spend a long time fighting a gigantic tongue in the woods… cool movie.

by ·Comments Off on The Bride With White Hair (1993, Ronny Yu)

Opens with the story of a flower on a snowy peak that can cure illness and restore youth – I’ve heard this one before… Green Snake? The Spine of Night?

A hazy, gauzy, unexpectedly hot movie with some Ashes of Time slo-blur-mo in the action. I don’t usually know what is happening but I had a good time. Sensitive Leslie Cheung is told that he has to be fierce and brutal. His main girl Brigitte Lin doesn’t even get white hair until the last ten minutes, after which she immediately kills every other woman in the movie.

by ·Comments Off on Rouge (1987, Stanley Kwan)

So many Chinese traditions I didn’t know, like virgin boob-sweat tea.

Blunt ghost movie, no tiptoeing around – very good, sharp and funny with some wicked dialogue.

by ·Comments Off on Happy Together (1997, Wong Kar-Wai)

Responsible Lai Yiu-Fai (Wong fave Tony Leung) and impulsive, promiscuous Ho Po-Wing (Ashes of Time star Leslie Cheung) took a trip to Argentina, ran out of money and got stuck there. Now they’re trying to make money to get home, while the pressure of being together so long has destroyed their relationship. Ho disappears for long periods, returning dramatically without warning, while Lai persistently works menial jobs at a nightclub, a kitchen and a slaughterhouse. Lai meets Chang (young Chen Chang, lately The Razor in The Grandmaster) in the kitchen, but Chang isn’t sticking around Buenos Aires long, is on his way around the world (with ITMFL-like mention of a remote place people go to leave their troubles behind). Lai finally gets the money to leave, can’t find Ho so he returns to Hong Kong, where he can’t find Chang either (only finds his family’s restaurant).

Mostly great, eclectic music choices, including my favorite Caetano Veloso song from Talk To Her. But, well, my love for Frank Zappa is eternal, and I complain that his music isn’t played enough, and I appreciate the connection between him and the Turtles song of the film’s ironic title, but “I Have Been In You” did not fit the wistful mood of the city montage after Chang left.

Lai at the waterfall:

Chang at the end of the world:

A sustained mood piece, where nothing really happens and Christopher Doyle’s brilliant cinematography heighten the emotions of everyday life – just like In The Mood For Love. But ITMFL was about the possibility of an ultimately doomed romance, and this one’s about the lingering feelings after romance has ended. It’s a much more bitter movie, and though I enjoyed seeing it in HD for the first time, it doesn’t seem like one to revisit regularly.

M. D’Angelo:

Happy Together features all of the elements that have consistently impressed me in his other pictures: elegantly moody characters; stunning cinematography (courtesy Christopher Doyle, as ever); a loose-limbed narrative that careens from shot to shot without deliberation; a general air of cinema as possibility. All that’s missing is the powerful romantic yearning that suffused Chungking Express, Fallen Angels … and even parts of Ashes of Time and Days of Being Wild. In its place, to my irritation, is endless squabbling.