As with his Lunar New Year movie of 1995 The Chinese Feast, Tsui Hark enlists the leading duo of Leslie Cheung and Anita Yuen again for some silly shenanigans that barely qualifies as a movie. But it's due to a willingness to please an audience in need of to be pleased at this very time of the year that makes Tri-Star work. Leslie Cheung is Zhong, a popular priest (he even signs autographs for screaming girls after services) getting more and more involved in the life of prostitute Bai Ban (Yuen). With a triad debt over her head, Zhong decides to follow God's words and help out fellow woman (and her prostitute friends). Securing loans at a bank, employment at a photo processing lab and getting the girls into a band, Zhong is very resourceful if not a little out of touch. As he moves to live close to Bai Ban, he's convinced by a fellow priest to dress as Elvis. Snicker ensues. Lau Ching-Wan and Sunny Chan are two mostly incompetent police officers trying to sniff out the crimes surrounding all these characters. Random zaniness, cartoon humour, misunderstandings and romance follows. Tsui Hark makes his mark more when going cartoony to a surreal point but otherwise he's just there to steer the fun in a somewhat acceptable direction. It's a recipe he knows and while the Leslie Cheung/Anita Yuen romance barely holds together (the stars do run on autopilot in this one), the show undoubtedly IS held together by Lau Ching-Wan as a mostly barefoot, bearded cop. Timing is an issue and a willingness to be properly silly during this time of the year. Lau has and does that in spades. Also with Moses Chan, Hung Yan-Yan, Shing Fui-On and Raymond Wong.

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Yesasia.com

Venturing into the horror anthology, cheapo franchise Troublesome Night for the third time, Herman Yau (who would direct up till the 6th installment), rather than separate stories he centers his threesome around a group of friends all working at a funeral home. Starting very silly with the boss played by Louis Koo stopped by Vincent Kok cop in a pre-credits skit, things fortunately turn a little bit more fun as Yau explores the cynical side of this particular funeral home business. Death is money. Yau has often had a pretty decent knack for satire and this quite obvious one does provide amusement. Less so when the ghost angle enters that is about a diseased female singer Beauty Chan (Oliveiro Lana) whose biggest fan is one of the employees Shishedo (Allen Ting). So much so that he seems to be consumed physically when preparing for her funeral. The theme of obsession in combination with chills created on the cheap doesn't work particularly well nor does the second story that we flow smoothly into.

Basically an even more cheaper version of The Exorcist but with the Hong Kong horror-comedy angle to it, it's rather embarrassing watching Simon Loui, Emotion Cheung and Frankie Ng ham it up. Desperately trying to scare with no effects added, what was meant as a fun little take on paranoia ends up playing incredibly flat. Helena Law Lan is her trademark, creepy self here as the ghost haunting the trio but can't impact the production despite.

Things improve quite a bit during the last segment that sees the character of Hung (Fennie Yuen) being abandoned by her fiancee due to his disgust of her working with corpses for a living. Herman Yau showcases the warmth a close knit of friends can achieve as Hung celebrates a memorable birthday with her friends but it's ended with her suicide. Emotions come to the surface subsequently. In particular Louis Koo's character Cheng Lik's true feelings for Hung are well played in combination with Fennie Yuen's emotional performance. An avenging ghost angle is inevitable though and shows the moods throughout Troublesome Night 3 have trouble clicking. It is the strongest of the stories though that ends on a good shocker. Also with Chin Kar-Lok and Shing Fui-On.

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.

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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.

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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.

Set in the 1920s, former court official and eunuch Loi Hei (Max Mok) is making his living selling food in the streets and doing his best not to be involved in the tumultuous times of pending war. Living a pseudo marriage with Chiu Ti (Irene Wan) and her son, soon Loi Hei IS drawn into the notion of revolution as he befriends a married rebels Chiu Fung (Carrie Ng) and Hu Zeng Zhong (Felix Wong). Jealousy ensues in the trio but also Loi Hei is caught in the eye line of the current palace eunuch (played by singer Roman Tam). This sets the stage for possible revolution but also a dark spiral downwards for Loi Hei...

Expensive and well shot by veteran Mark Lee, director Manfred Wong does not have the chops to make something meaningful out of this story. Max Mok tries admirably but ultimately isn't affecting in the shoes of this doomed character. Initially merely the basic beats are used as setup for this character and no growth is achieved along the way or afterwards. Roman Tam is at times suitably evil but it brings up the point that The Twilight Of The Forbidden City is only watchable during those short streaks of grim violence and sadism often directed towards our main character. Kent Cheng's general actually MARRIES Lo Hei just so he can have sex with the eunuch that he is. This doesn't represent an affecting, tragic part of the arc. It's merely watchable, shameless exploitation for a few minutes. Have a feeling Manfred Wong wanted more. Also with Manfred Wong himself and Shing Fui-On.

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Yesasia.com

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.

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HK Flix.com
Yesasia.com

Lung-Kuo (Chan Sing) seeks revenge on Miss Flower (Gwok Siu-Chung - Fury Of King Boxer) who ordered the killing of his family. Getting beaten up and scalded before he can even reach her, into the mix comes mysterious and seemingly rich boy Lung-Fei (Jimmy Wang Yu) who starts to meddle in this affair. He approaches Miss Flower, flirts and engages in a romance with her but to what purpose and which side will he be on? Interesting stuff of the basher kind that doesn't provide narrative and drama of the revolutionary kind but director Yueh Feng possesses some fine skills in this department despite. It keeps matters from being generic and it's all definitely an engaging mix of basic bashing (that the leads add volumes to via their contributions) with a fun choreography concept involving ropes thrown in during the finale as well as an unexpectedly somber ending. Eddy Ko co-stars.

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!