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Nominations
at the Hong Kong Film Awards 2000:
Best Picture
Best Screenplay (Fruit Chan)
Best New Artist (Yiu Yuet-Ming)
Best Supporting Actor (Robin Lau)
Best Editing (Tin Sup-Bat)
Best Original Film Score (Lam Wah-Chuen & Chu Hing-Cheung)
Best Original Song: Po Moot Tung Jun (Farewell Innocence)
Music & Lyrics: Lam Wah-Chuen
Performed by: Jo Kuk
Award at the Hong Film Critics Society Awards 2000:
Film Of Merit
Awards at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards 1999:
Best Screenplay Originally Written For The Screen (Fruit Chan)
Best New Performer (Yiu Yuet-Ming)
Coming to a close now with his theme of the 1997 Handover
with Little Cheung, writer/director Fruit Chan has
examined characters in different stages of development during
the times leading up to July 1st 1997. Made In Hong Kong
presented teenagers in aimless state of being, The Longest
Summer adults who were abandoned in the change and now
in Little Cheung, the very last rays of innocence gets
the spotlight, the children. As expected by now, Chan provides
a somber portrayal of Hong Kong but nonetheless an entry that
complements the former two and stands on its own, splendidly
so.
Spring
1997. 9 year old Little Cheung (Yiu Yuet-Ming) and his family
runs a restaurant, frequently hassled by triad David (Robin
Lau, billed here as Robby). One day Cheung spots Fan (Mak
Wai-Fan) while she's applying for a delivery job. He follows
her to find out where she and her family lives, which turns
out to be in the back alleys of Hong Kong, as illegal immigrants
from China. Cheung has learned that money is important, and
together with Fan he starts delivering dishes, putting money
into his and her own pocket without his family's knowledge.
That is soon about to be disrupted, in a time where the Hong
Kong people are especially on the edge...
Little
Cheung does contain a number of tangents, some incidental,
some featuring stronger thematics such as the importance of
obtaining money during this time, but Chan settles on focusing
on one very other crucial aspect; the importance and value
of uniting, both from a larger perspective and within the
individual families. Using real life Peking Opera actor Tang
Wing Cheung's (or Brother Cheung as he's commonly referred
to throughout) sickness and eventual demise during Spring
1997 as a backdrop of hope, Chan gives us more or
less a rollercoaster ride of emotions in what really is a
drama-comedy. It's both a sweet, simple movie about friendship
between locals and ethnic minorities, comes with a Farrelly
Brothers gag that is executed with aplomb probably 10 times
but set against the serious and touching backdrop of the forthcoming
July 1st. Chan was never afraid before to let happy emotions
crumble into heartbreaking ones but despite a stuffed 2 hours,
Little Cheung is a superb culmination of a Fruit Chan
pouring much of his heart onto the screen about the world
around him and a honing of filmmaking skills.
While
much of the opening 30-40 minutes feels incidental, his focus
on characters come through despite that. Leading the pack
is of course the friendship between Little Cheung and Fan.
They're really Chan's perfect images of innocence still brewing
even though they, Cheung especially, have had imprinted the
idea of money gets you somewhere already at the age of nine.
As his narration goes, "me and Fan met because of money",
but Chan gives us a simple, touching portrait of these innocent,
mischievous, and nonjudgmental children. What they can achieve
in the face of the Handover is not clear but one thing's for
certain if you know what Chan has given you prior, in particular
in The Longest Summer, there are no comfortable answers
here. Even Cheung's quest to unite with his outcast brother
Hang (Tsui Tin-Yau in his feature debut) fits in well with
the entire picture. Chan's handling of melodrama is in reality
rather forced, especially with the choosen music cues by Lam
Wah Chuen and Chu Hing-Cheung but the fact is that this comes
well-deserved as we've come to familiarize ourselves with
the themes, the trials and tribulations of the characters.
Especially the rarely outspoken and subtle relationship between
the Filipino maid Armi (Armi Andres) and Little Cheung.
Little
Cheung was lensed independently and on a small budget
which allows Chan to, as also is expected, to take his time
to hook us either 1 hour in or after the 2 hours are over.
Which probably means the masses of general fans of Hong Kong
cinema probably need not to take a look as Little Cheung
lives by its own rules of pacing, which is absolutely fine
by me as long as there's something to pick up on during or
by the end. Both those truths accompanies Chan's film.
Working
with Lam Wah Chuen (who provides both photography and music),
the style is suitably gritty and free for all due to a few
circumstances. Chan went with an amateur cast and as with
a similar effort in that vein, Lawrence Lau's Gimme Gimme,
you must give the performers less restrictions in terms of
specifically hitting marks and conducting yourself as a trained
professional. The feel is therefore hands-off, laid back and
even allows for mistakes. But it's obviously not a choice
due to necessity. To produce real results, you have to be
real, and the team of Chan and Lam achieves nigh on spot on
results in terms of that. Camera is often distanced, given
the people a large frame to work in and visual style is used
sparsely, an indulgement that comes deserved as well.
Obviously
you can't brush over the casting of Little Cheung himself,
the little lead Yiu Yuet-Ming, who deservedly received a Golden
Horse Award for his performance here. Another discovery of
Fruit Chan's, who most likely spends all his downtime between
movies on the Hong Kong streets, searching for potential talent,
Yiu not only proves capable of anchoring the film, but is
such a wonderful natural talent. Not necessarily a wonderful
natural actor, but a natural re-actor. Yiu brings both the
needed playfulness and innocence to Cheung but excels equally
with his funny and emotional sides.
His
co-star Mak Wai-Fan is by writing more held back but she shares
excellent chemistry with Yiu by being a simple thing; a kid.
The scene when they're eating cake is probably the grandest
example of this as they seem to have shut out all notions
of being filmed, having already received a large space by
Lam Wah Chuen to work with. Gary Lai (who also appeared in
The Longest Summer) does well also as the strict father,
a behavior having much to do with the timeline, and Robin
Lau surprises as David the hoodlum who takes a lot of punishment
throughout as the recipient of the Farrelly Brother's joke
I told you about. Let me just say that Little Cheung
will do with lemonade tea what The Untold Story did
with dumplings (which ties in nicely with Fruit Chan's latest,
his contribution to the horror anthology Three...Extremes
called Dumplings). Jo Kuk briefly appears and the surprise
cameos towards the end will prove to be rewarding for those
of who have followed the 1997 trilogy.
Little
Cheung will do nothing for the large masses who were hoping
Fruit Chan would try on something more conventional. He closes
his views and stories of Hong Kong facing great change via
the 1997 Handover in a splendid way in this sweet, touching,
heartbreaking and naturally acted tale, taking place right
smack in the middle of Chan's reality, urban Hong Kong. It's
a farewell to innocence in a rather downbeat manner but it's
still truly compelling filmmaking by a visionary still active
in the best of ways in Hong Kong cinema, despite living in
the aftermath of July 1st.
The
DVD:
Little
Cheung has not had an easy time on dvd. Korea put out
an English subtitled edition but that, as well as the French
disc sans English subtitles, reportedly only provides a full
screen presentation. The dvd up for review is the Japanese
one by Columbia Music Entertainment that presents the film
in a 1.78:1 framed anamorphically enhanced aspect ratio.
The
print sourced has damage at a few points but remains clean
otherwise. The gritty look obviously won't produce sparkling
results on dvd but the apparent choosen washed out, greenish
colour scheme is well presented. Negatives comes in the form
of slight grain, long shots register a bit soft and artifacts
crop up around edges during a few moments. By comparison,
Asia Video Publishing's Hong Kong vcd leans more towards natural
tones but seems too red. It is also slightly cropped all round
(mainly left and right) compared to Columbia's dvd.
(Columbia
Japan dvd top, AVP Hong Kong vcd bottom)
The
original language track, containing mainly Cantonese but with
slight English dialogue from time to time, is presented in
Dolby Digital 2.0. Staying centered all the time, the sync
sound recording is obviously rough originally but sounds as
clear as you can expect. A Japanese 2.0 dub is also included.
Now,
here's where I want you to listen up. Columbia's dvd comes
with optional Japanese subtitles only but working off the
existing English subtitles available online, I was able to,
through the purchase of a dvd-burner AND the original disc,
re-author the dvd with optional English subtitles. The timing
was often catastrophic in the original fan subtitles, plus
a chunk of dialogue was missing for the opening moments of
the film (Thanks to Matt for providing the missing dialogue
and the vcd grab above). I have made sure these subtitles
now are timed to this particular dvd (save for 3-4 moments
where they're still slightly off) and done a spell check to
the best of my abilities. So
what I highly encourage you to do, despite the high price
tag on the Japanese dvd, acquire the original, a dvd-burner
and re-author the disc for your own personal use.
The
translation is otherwise very good, with little grammar and
structure error and is probably transcribed from the original
subtitles created for the Hong Kong cinema release. There
is some dialogue missing compared to the Hong Kong vcd however.
At the 70 minute mark approximately, during the dinner scene
with Fan's family, we hear Mr. Gin knocking on the door to
ask the whereabouts of Little Cheung. The following three
lines are cut out but retained on the Hong Kong vcd:
-
I was told that my son and your daughter are friends. I would
like to talk to her.
- Come in
- Thank you, sorry to bother you.
Extras
include a 12 minute Fruit Chan interview but comes
with permanent Japanese subtitles only plus Japanese cinema
trailers for Made In Hong Kong, The Longest Summer
and 2 different trailers for Little Cheung (the latter
featuring deleted footage and outtakes with Yiu Yuet-Ming).
reviewed
by Kenneth
Brorsson
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Movie Reviews
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