I'll hand it to Julie Lee. She does try to tell a story in this first of second Category III movies she also supervised heavily. She plays a Mainland girl with harrowing memories from the Cultural revolution, has a sexual awakening after marriage and then tries to elope with a young fisherman. But Lee or for that matter co-director Mou Tun-Fei (Men Behind The Sun) aren't drama storytellers of the elite league kind but at least the attempt is made to make this more than just a wild bonk-a-thon. The latter does dominate indeed and Lee engages in what must be at least 8 sex scenes during the 80 minute running time, many quite wild. The Category III rating lives up to its name.

Trilogy Of Lust was in fact heavily censored upon release in Hong Kong due to it actually being shot as a hardcore porn film. An uncut version was released on dvd in Germany by Laser Paradise, carrying only a dub in German.

Joe Cheung (Return Engagement) takes the story of a former triad turned teacher (Simon Yam) that inspires his rascal students (one in particular who's headed on the same path, played by John Tang) in a way you easily can predict. Neither bad, neither very good, director Cheung ends up in the middle ground, even though Yam or Anita Yuen don't put in the greatest of efforts. The finale also sports some fine gunplay courtesy of Tung Wai, Benz Kong and Tony Poon. Also with Lawrence Cheng (as the stereotypical flamboyant gay character of the piece) and Derek Yee.

Buy the DVD at:
HK Flix.com

Derek Yee writes and directs this winning 1999 romance revolving naturally around Jane (Fann Wong - Shanghai Knights) and Sam (Peter Ho) engaging in a turbulent relationship that has to go through heaven hell in order for the truth about themselves to become clear.

With a very welcome mature touch that involves everything between sugar sweetness to depression, Yee crafts a drama with your good ol' heavy handed sentiments and lessons. However Yee usually can rise above tried formulas and clichés. No different here and the tale proves constantly involving and laid back on a directorial level. True to form, another star is born in the hands of Yee, namely Fann Wong who is a true discovery and up to performing the critical journey of Jane. Peter Ho is suitably dorky as the nice guy who doesn't finish last while Chin Ka-lok logs a fine supporting act as Jane's triad brother. Cheng Pei-Pei and Simon Lui also appear.

Expected sentiments and genre conventions aside, The Truth About Jane & Sam hits all the right notes in a much more classy way than these vehicles usually come with.

Buy the DVD at:
Yesasia.com

KENNETH'S REVIEW: Muddled and episodic mostly, with focus on a stern garage boss (Ray Lui), his relationship with his working class brother and rather people-friendly cop Elephant (Kent Cheng). A little love rivalry is haphazardly inserted and brutality from Wong Ching who doesn't smile once (otherwise a trademark). Lam Yee-Hung stages better cinema when turning his points towards a revenge plot and a fair few of the gritty violence excursions are effective. The score seems to emulate Das Boot but it's seemingly not lifted. Also known as The Cop.

Sold on vcd as Devil And Master, on-screen title for this Taiwanese cheap-o-rama is The Twilight Siren. Concerning a ghost that breaks with her master The Devil King when given a chance to re-incarnate, she uses the human world to help her achieve her goal. Humans have a tendency to fall in love with pretty ghosts too...

Not as annoying as the camp, young Taoist Priest character would have you believe, hands on director Ma Siu-Wai (also writer and co-action director) will try and convince you that a lot of movement equals energy that in turn equals creativity. His spirit battles do move but are rendered practically incoherent not only due to the dark nature of the vcd print. Amusing flubtitles doesn't help this unbearable mess either. The Mandarin and Cantonese language tracks utilizes quite strikingly different choices of score (both probably stolen elsewhere) but they are still showcases of someone not possessing the skill to conjure up any excitement via choices of sound and music. Out of all movies that offers up behind the scenes footage, The Twilight Siren all of a sudden breaks into that during its end crawl. Alex Fong, Ku Feng and Wu Ma appear.

Buy the VCD at:
HK Flix.com
Yesasia.com

Just because you happen to know where to point the camera, persuade anyone to give you the key to art, costume and action departments plus set your narrative in ancient times with Wuxia like tendencies amongst the constant sex, doesn't mean your end product is going to be anything. Lo Kin-Ming's Two Girl's Faced attempts class, favouring "moody", tender sex combined with one such story attempt with roots in hatred for men. From an almost unrelated movie comes some horny soldiers belonging to an evil witch played by Alvina Kong whose main nemesis happen to be Category III sleazeball William Ho. Extremely short but dragged out to infinity it seems, the sole lively behaviour comes from cheap wire assisted action but the slightly haunting tone during the gory climax has signs of a film that should've been all that throughout. Then you might've had something low-fi but fun!