Blacky Ko and Casanova Wong play re-united brothers who must execute revenge on the ruling overlord (Phillip Ko) of the town as he killed their father. Generics and baring not just a little resemblance to Snake In The Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, what Master Killer doesn't have in its favour is the amount of annoying comedy-style present for one. Pratfalls, sound effects to accompany them and Chan Lau being aggravating to the max as the slimey assistant to Phillip Ko, not even the intricate comedy routines that echoes mentioned classic vehicles gets any acceptance. Plus, Blacky Ko as our Jacky Chan-esque lead doesn't exactly make himself fit but with the such a physical cast, sometime the film must deliver something you would think. And oh yes it does. After Blacky has been educated by the beggar/sifu in different ways of fighting Empress-style (Drunken Empress-technique is taught for instance), the intricacy in several fighting scenes is very much spot on. The mammoth finale with Blacky, Casanova and Phillip seals the deal perfectly and generics certainly made themselves look great here eventually.

In this solid Shaw Brothers outing, the character of Wong Fei-Hung gets taken to places veteran Ku Feng can and his character's torment about a fatal usage of the famed Invisible Kick handles well. As he is framed by forces from within, his fellow Chinese and forces from outside, the Westerners, we see a dark tale evolving from director Ho Meng-Hua (The Mighty Peking Man). It holds interest in combination with a basher-like nature to the action, where even a three section staff is rife with power thanks to Yuen Woo-Ping and Yuen Cheung-Yan's contributions as action directors. While the final fight extends nicely on this, the story has run its course earlier and we begin to direct annoyance at technical goofs and exaggerated acting from the main Westerner in the cast. Also with Wang Hsieh, Chan Shen and Johnnie To regular Hui Siu-Hung in support.

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10 year old May (May Xu) and her little sister August (Qiu Lier) loses their parents (Cecilia Yip and Lin Quan) to the occupying Japanese forces and are forced to flee Nanjing. They get taken in by their uncle (Zhang Yijun) and his family but scars are now forever etched into the children...

As we enter the initial moments of Raymond To's May & August, one can't help to think of familiarity as it's a story of the ordinary people struggling in a war torn reality. It's been done masterfully before (Hong Kong 1941) as well as not so masterfully (1941 Hong Kong On Fire). But by settling on a children's perspective, To gets more out of this story.

He plants fine, poignant train of thoughts about the role of children during this time, doubting their worth and despite having shelter of some sort, they truly feel alone amongst adults not their own. The uplifting spirit of the film takes its rightful place and the titular characters May and August have to adopt their mindsets to a different, higher form of life learning. Whether or not politics and war will rob them of that, remains to be seen. There's some odd, brushed over so called poignancy planted by To in some quite grisly ways early on but he keeps afloat mostly throughout, dishing out emotions in more subtle manner. It may never be truly affecting but Raymond To deserves a slight pad on the back for a job well done despite. Mark Lee's cinematography is an asset, capturing the Chinese landscapes quite dependently.

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After two animated features and one short for the 1:99 collection, Brian Tse's and Alice Mak's comic book pig SORT OF took a leap into live action. For the Lunar New Year of 2006, Samson Chiu (Golden Chicken, When I Fall In Love... With Both) helmed the blend of the simplistic 2D/extravagant 3D and live segments featuring the Hong Kong movie entertainment elite. The end result again scripted by Brian Tse rings true to the wonderful, honest and intelligent questions hovering in little McDull's head as he tries to conjure up thoughts of how to be a pillar in society (owning no pants but only swim trunks, he sets his sights on being a lifeguard or an office lady). Whenever blending in live action however, the often puzzling, weird, off-beat yet oddly accessible nature to the animation gets muddled in a barrage of attempts at possibly in-jokey, puzzling, weird, off-beat cameo-heavy skits. It's a stream of random consciousness in the eyes of this viewer and perhaps requires a Hong Kong mind but various episodes of Ronald Cheng as a braindead marketing head stuck in the legs of Cheung Siu-Fai's marketing head, Christopher Doyle teaching his new butcher's apprentice the ropes, Anthony Wong (who returns to do voice work again naturally) as a sea captain stranded with hungry passengers, and the centre piece hostage situation led by the members of Alive (Daniel Wu, Terence Yin, Andrew Lin and Convoy Chan) is dumb silliness not transcending that tag. The animated touches are McDull-lite but still fairly top notch stuff that just tells us how good of a puzzling, philosophical time we've had with the two features previously. The long cast list includes the likes of Sandra Ng (also a returning voice cast member), Kelly Chan, Gigi Leung, Eric Tsang, Josie Ho, Shawn Yue, Jaycee Chan, Jan Lam, Francis Ng, Nicholas Tse, Miu Kiu-Wai, Cheung Tat-Ming, Alex Fong, Jim Chim (in a patented oddball performance), Wayne Lai and John Shum.

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No one was bound to be humming "Every sperm is sacred..." or provide the kind of raw humour present in Monty Python's examination of the meaning of life but director Roddy Wong does provide his message, albeit in harmless and lightweight ways. A choice that works for The Meaning Of Life as a product of its cinema as it doesn't take as many sharp turns mood-wise. Joey (Eileen Tung - Over The Rainbow, Under The Skirt) is an obstetrician and of course longs for a baby herself. Her husband Terrence (Lawrence Cheng), a TV-host of human interest stories with a degree of viewer manipulation, does lack the same will and maturity however. One of Joey's regular couple, the enthusiastic duo of Laan (Jay Lau) and Shui (Elvis Tsui) who covers their main source of income, a taxi, with fluffy animals as well as their home, longs perhaps the most but gets the short end of the stick when a pregnancy test turns out to be inaccurate. However the absent-minded Mr. and Mrs. Kan (Kim Yip and May Law) are already up to five and more on the way. Therefore a kidnapping scheme is arranged by Laan and Shui and Joey is eventually aware of the situation while Mr. and Mrs Kan are not. But why report to police when Joey can practice and get the experience as a mother. And the moral of the story is... not forced as it sounds because Roddy Wong deals in the lighter side of drama and wacky situations. In fact, The Meaning Of Life contains a focus that also equals real sincerity. Dayo Wong, Kingdom Yuen, Simon Loui and Ann Hui also appear.

Part of a rich family, Colin Wu (Tien Peng) loses his father and naturally the family business is something he's expected to take responsibility for. But the former playboy wants to leave everything behind for love and together with singer Jenny (Chang Mei-Yao) he moves into a small apartment while starting from the bottom at his father's company. Temptations sees Colin heading back into the life of a player and disapproval of his choice of girl, either from his own family or Jenny's, further derail the picture perfect couple. All while someone consciously is manipulating these very events...

Using the scope frame in quite the elegant way, director Lee Hang stands out in this regard as The Melody Of Love is technically sound. With a busy template emotionally for the characters, there's an intelligence present that isn't very expanded on as above elegance leads to more often than not slow pace. We're asked to take in the plight of two lovers but the effect is more ordinary than well utilized. Someone was a bit preoccupied...

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John Chan returns to directing after no one's really missed him but fans of writing would know he penned such films as Eighteen Springs, Fong Sai Yuk and Mother Of A Different Kind. Produced by Johnnie To and shot with a Mainland Chinese talent pool, Memory Of The Youth is simple in its approach. Chan has a few quirky visuals to go along with the growing love between Lin (Ma Xiao Qian) and Nuo (Zhai Tian Lin) but his greatest tool here is sincerity. With it you get far but as simple-minded the story is, with the elements of nostalgia and a once in a lifetime experienced love, Chan includes quite a few brave character choices. Lin is depicted, whether she knows it or not, as a small bird dying to break free into individuality as that's the only life choice now. It generates elements found in Derek Yee's 2 Young but all these choices would verge on dangerous for any character. However director Chan has decided to let naive characters have that as a building block for their particular fate and this rather uncompromising approach makes Memory of The Youth stand out. There's no cultural boundaries, that's why Chan deserves a larger audience and Johnnie To should lend his producing talents to more projects like this.

ALTHOUGH, one can't help to think John Chan needs to polish some of his storytelling skills as one particular plotpoint concerning Lin running away from home is hard to swallow in the way the adults don't seem to be in a rush to get her back. No prior developments suggests a logic to this and Chan's directing of the younger supporting players is not convincing at times.

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KENNETH'S REVIEW: Ekin Cheng is Chi, a boy who never learned to swim and is now brought in as an adult to substitute at a school, as a PE-teacher. Just like once in his youth, he is once again saved by a mermaid (Christy Chung) but this time she loses a vital pearl so she has to go on land in order to retrieve it. Falling in love with Chi doesn't help matters as of course she wants to stay... and marry? Yes, the English title jumps way ahead of matters and this literally fish out of water story is predictably easy enough sap to sit through. Not sweet sap though as intended by Norman Law (Gun Is Law, A Hearty Response). The various shenanigans around our leads are about feeble teen romance and a tangent about the adult world trying to cash in on the mermaid-find is unbearably dumb. Efforts wasted by Kent Cheng, Yuen King-Tan and Dennis Chan while Takeshi Kaneshiro and Teresa Mak also appear.

Whenever he isn't the victim of pranks at work or trying to prevent his young daughter (Rachel Lee) from becoming a model, Baldy Mak (Karl Maka) tries to win the love of Paula (Paula Tsui). But when a rival (a typically overacting, in the best of ways, Yuen Woo-Ping) threatens to take the woman the entire family has approved of away to America, drastic measures are needed. So let a very elaborate and mean-spirited game of jealousy begin...

Very much a product of its time from the minds of the Karl Maka co-founded Cinema City, Merry Christmas runs along the lines you expect it to. Especially due to the fairly big all star cast so skit-structure simply MUST be employed by director Clifton Ko (it's all set rules... believe me). Doing so very dependently, an energetic Leslie Cheung enters trying to romance Rachel Lee's character all the way into the bedroom but Baldy Mak intercepts only to get viciously drunk with him later. The movie certainly isn't aspiring for INSPIRED gags then and the christmas atmos that is taken to the background a little of course gets an upswing come ending time when director Ko has employed a few fun, likeable reels of the battle between Karl Maka and Yuen Woo-Ping's characters. The constant misunderstandings and the shameless, cheap and quick moviemaking-ways pays off because this is from a way more likeable era in Hong Kong cinema. It simply would have trouble making any kind of mark today. Also with Danny Chan and Cyrus Wong as Junior Baldy.

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