Recently selected by the Hong Kong Film Awards as the Best Chinese movie ever, this Mainland China drama shot in 1948 didn't gain much of a recognition at the time of release and director Fei Mu received such a critical backlash, based on the politics apparently woven into this story that he left for Hong Kong and never made a film again. Subsequently, during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the film was banned but it sprung to life many, many years later when a print was made available in the 80s. But in the new millennium, despite beaten up print elements, Fei Mu's Spring In A Small Town has finally gained its due recognition.

Set in a post-war small Chinese village, director Fei slowly but assuredly sets up the small character gallery. Yuwen (Wei Wei) is a devoted wife to Liyan (Shi Yu) who has been struck with heart disease ever since their initial steps into marriage. It's not a foundation built on love or happiness but out of duty. A sister (Dai Xiou) and a servant (Cui Chaoming) also has a place in their daily lives. Into their routine bound lives comes a childhood friend of both Yuwen and Liyan's. He is Wei (Zhang Zhicheng), now a doctor and the first meeting in 10 years sparks a quiet rivalry between the two men over the woman...

Spring In A Small Town is a tale where there exist secondary characters that therefore receive less attention but the structure calls for that and does not hinder any intentions of Li Nianji's screenplay. Possibly written very sparsely as Li clearly wants to favor subtlety, Fei Mu comes through strikingly well when it comes to this task. It's an intense story despite the measured pace where Fei brings fine, subtle nuances to all the stages characters goes through. Jealously, rejection, shame, self-realization, it's all here and each one naturally and in a compelling, even haunting way flows into one another. The spring setting feels highly ironic also as the movie contains inner turmoils that threatens to escalate into unheard of darkness for the characters.

When all's said and done, Spring in A Small Town is probably is too stagy for all viewers to actually pick up on the powerful characteristics that is injected via Fei Mu into the performers. Also, while it's clearly greatly executed, its selection by the Hong Kong Film Awards may mean that it's always struck a chord with Chinese and Hong Kong audiences more than it does with outside eyes. It may also very well mean that I'm too thick to get the entire picture. Nevertheless, Spring In A Small Town is an old gem that proves to have staying power even in 2005. If that's not worth a high grade, I don't know what is. A remake was shot in the Mainland during 2003, bearing the title Springtime In A Small Town.

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By the time director Alan Mak and writer Felix Chong reveals their high concept for Silent Love, you firmly realize what a missed opportunity this romance was. An entire different cast & crew of note should attempt this love story again, preferably one headed by Derek Yee and not do what Mak does here, which is a whole bucket of wrongs. First is the problematic casting of young faces Rain Lee and Raymond Lam who strike up zero chemistry and are unable to chime in any weight to the characters. Mak instead attempts compensate for that by populating the film with surreal comedy, an overload of Canto-pop to stir up emotions and a surprise twist that again has opportunities but not in Alan and Felix's hands. It's definitely 10 steps back for Mak since he had A War Named Desire done by this point but Stolen Love thankfully has become buried under the success of the Infernal Affairs series that Mak co-wrote together with Felix and directed with Andrew Lau.

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After working as action director for a number of years, Stanley Tong got the chance to helm his own feature in 1991. The result was this jungle adventure starring Elaine Lui (Angel) and Nina Li (Tiger On The Beat) that, judging by the outtakes, was not an easy going and glamorous shoot for anyone (Lui and Li has several very real encounters with the wild and its animals here).

Aside from some lagging pace initially, The Stone Age Warriors settles in nicely after a while, giving us equal amount of low brow humour, slight detours into sleaze and competent action directing. The latter being the standout and is supposed to be a standout in a movie such as this. Tong doesn't create overly complex set pieces but plus points goes to the fair brutality of it and the fact that stars Lui and Li are most of the time performing themselves. If any style is evident in Tong's early work as a narrative director, it's that of giving us a piece not only set outside of Hong Kong but amongst several exotic locations. Something that would be very true for his subsequent collaborations with Jackie Chan on Police Story III and First Strike. Fan Siu-Wong co-stars (and gets a fine fighting showcase) and Dick Wei appears in a cameo during the intro.

A comment on the lows television goes to to satisfy its audience, it's not a finely tuned view on our times but in this second James Wong/Tommy Wong romp (first being Stooges In Tokyo), the combination of hit/miss silliness equals an entertaining, silly time. James is the host of a dirty jokes show that is a smash but when he threatens to exclude Tommy as credited writer for their upcoming book, the buddies go their separate ways. No longer repressed, Tommy achieves great success utilizing a dirty singer while James is left to his own devices that drains the life out of his audience. Verbal vulgarity, a lot of lame parody and skit-theft (Airplane! and Monty Python being victims although the makers of the former seemingly gets an end credit acknowledgement!), director Chan (Devil's Woman) begins rebounding in the second half thanks to excessive silly behaviour that means a lot actually sticks to the wall. See one of the television bosses scratch his always growing testicles, multiple jokes about Amy Yip's breasts, her choice of vibrators and even when she's sporting a beard, there is something amusing and successful about Otto Chan's straightforward directing. James Wong mostly grates but Tommy Wong is funny and part of a surreal sense Stooges In Hong Kong has as the character for some reason enter different eras wherever he goes at times. Among others appearing are Mimi Chu, writer Vincent Kok and producer Clifton Ko.

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KENNETH'S REVIEW: Also known as Super Man Chu, in the realm of yet another the flick definitely fits but the standard proceedings remains totally watchable despite. We're actually not seeing our heroes during the opening credits but the the vile bad guys that goes on a murder/rape rampage at a local inn. Thankfully an actual hero turns up, the son (Chang Yi) of the murdered family and off he goes on the revenge path. He can make proceedings stormy alright and possessing good eye/hand co-ordination (like so many others in the film, be it when they're using knives or clogging guns by throwing coins from a distance) equals created cinema of the crude but admirably intense kind at times. What's lacking in invention is made by some brief flashes of that intensity and while darkness in this straight effort never registers as truly effective, lead Chang Yi has the chops to carry standards. Some neat, fast paced choreography towards the end involves a samurai and turns out to be the true standout in this department. Also starring Pai Ying.

For Story Of Kennedy Town, parallels can be drawn to the core story of the three friends in Bullet In The Head and perhaps it's no coincidence either as Wu Ma's film premiered just a few months after, with Waise Lee again in a large role. Despite an unnecessary character fate reveal at the beginning, Wu Ma gets respectable mileage and poignancy out of such an expected story covering friendship, honor and law. Performances from Waise Lee and Aaron Kwok suitably match this fair competence but it's Mark Cheng who does some of his best work ever here. Cinematography is very attractive as well, enhancing the respectable nature the production. It ultimately doesn't mean a lot but Wu Ma the director usually didn't either in this capacity so it's nice to be able to proclaim this as one of his best films despite. He appears in a supporting role as well the late Bill Tung, Sharla Cheung, May Lo, Tai Bo, Billy Ching and Chu Tau.

Although not featuring the structure of Pulp Fiction to any large degree, director Shut Mei-Yee clearly channels esthetics of Quentin Tarantino's film (and places a poster of it in one scene to make the inspiration ultra-clear). More specifically via the use surf-esque music for the soundtrack accompanying two slightly interconnected stories. Chun (Ken Lo) is a former boxer turned truck driver that happens upon waitress Lorna (Alice Lau). A connection is made through various interactions but it's a love brewing. Brewing to a frustrating degree and coming up are crossroads where choices has to be made. Meanwhile close by, or not, we find Man (Moses Chan), a low-life triad and pimp for Cat (Amanda Lee). Betting on horse races while she does the do as Miss Frenchkiss, these two spend so much time together only a wall apart that it's inevitable that they start to get to know each other.

Taking its sweet time and being rather flimsy, some character reveals and dialogue is quite on the off-beat side and director Shut doesn't seems to want to place crucial events in a reality. Doubtful if any of what we see therefore means anything but the title The Story Of Movie all of a sudden turns accurate. Little by little, his cast begin to gel at key points and slight charm grows out of this very different Hong Kong production. Also with Lee Fung, Peter Chan Lung and Lam Suet. See if you can spot Wu Ma too.

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Future Milkyway founders Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai collaborated for the first time on this melodrama in the wake of To's success working on All About Ah Long (starring Chow Yun-Fat). Running a mere 80 minutes, it's no wonder he thrusts us into the life of Damian Lau's Li whose wife has just died. Not telling his young children Chien (Wong Kwan-Yuen) and Kang (Jeng Paak-Lam), they trio try to cope but broken promises, hospital bills, triad debts and in general a hellish hand continues to be dealt to the family. While the elder son Chien does try to act as a role model, all is crushed the more Li gets pushed around by the triads. It's all cinema distressing to almost the max from beginning to end, giving us no light and more importantly, no distinct belief from the director's chair. Considering To's debut The Enigmatic Case was quite the tour de force of subtle behaviour, it's definitely clear Johnnie was playing the commercial game while trying to find a footing (which he did eventually after forming Milkyway). Occasionally effective in his punishing ways, The Story Of My Son is merely extreme melodrama put out there in the hope that the masses will accept it because they're easily fooled. We aren't. Ng Man-Tat, Sunny Fang and Lau Siu-Ming (in the film's only subtle performance) also appear.

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With the Young And Dangerous-effect spreading its wings over Hong Kong cinema in 1996 thanks to Andrew Lau, it's no wonder it sprung to life outside of the series too. Billy Tang had been tapped to provide some satire and fun of the genre with Sexy And Dangerous the same year and although Street Angels is packed, it's not distinguishable for many reasons, especially not for fans of Hong Kong's king of Category III CINEMA (Red To Kill, Run And Kill). Chingmy Yau is Tung Yen, woman of rising triad mad dog Walkie Pi (Simon Yam) and while he flees to Holland after a kill, she takes a prison sentence for him. Out of jail, Yen starts associating herself with the hostess world and even becomes a great figure. When Pi returns to Hong Kong however, there's no love in the air anymore as the rising triad is now a full blown mad dog...

Straightforward and light for long stretches, Tang doesn't provide a terrific amount of inspired material despite dealing with issues of the 1997 handover but does have some benefits in the acting department to take Street Angels to fun, depraved places (which is all it can and should do). Elvis Tsui is hilarious as the bodyguard Moro who's constantly horny and has no problem swallowing condom if the situation dictates it. The subtitles do wonders for his scenes and even though we're not dealing with a III-rating here, Tsui makes sure to be pushed as far as he can. A little romance and extreme tragedy passes the time but the re-appearance of Simon Yam signals the time for director Tang to have fun. True to form, Yam throws himself 568% into the über-evil persona of Pi and Tang even plays around a LITTLE bit visually to strengthen these extremes. The otherwise straight cast can't compete. They do include a naked and abused Shu Qi, Michael Tao, Valerie Chow, Lee Kin-Yan (nose picking transvestite in Stephen Chow movies), Lee Siu-Kei and Liu Fan.

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