Cantonese Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Stephen Chow Sing Chi – 2004 – China – Cert. 15 – 99m

*****

Set in the 1940s, this is at once a comedy, a romance, an effects fest, an action movie, a violent gangster thriller and a treatise on Buddhist values – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 24th, 2005

An hilarious treat from start to finish, Kung Fu Hustle foregrounds Hong Kong’s ability to bend genres. At once a comedy, a romance, an effects fest, an action movie, a violent gangster thriller and a treatise on Buddhist values, it also manages to throw in a hugely enjoyable, first reel dance sequence and a speeded up chase sequence reminiscent of Warner Bros. classic Roadrunner cartoon shorts (Chuck Jones, 1949-1962) and The Wizard Of Speed And Time (Mike Jittlov, 1988). Which summary doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

Columbia gave director/star Stephen Chow Sing Chi a mega-budget for Kung Fu Hustle but have commendably neither pruned nor dubbed as Miramax (Disney) did on his previous outing Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow, 2001). Chow’s extraordinary vision is thus allowed full rein in his native Cantonese tongue to side-splitting effect.

The 1940’s plot involves landlord, landlady and tenants of down and out Pig Sty Alley confronted by the fearsome Axe Gang after low life hustler and loose cannon Sing (Chow) turns up there and throws his weight around pretending to be a Gang member.… Read the rest

Street Wanderers
(Los Caminantes
de la Calle)

Director – Juan Martin Hsu – 2025 – Argentina, Peru – 90m

*****

Argentinian cops and robbers procedural is set largely in the world of Mendoza’s immigrant Chinese community – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

2010. Mendoza, Argentina. The family-run, Chinese restaurant of Dageng (Kon Yam Pin) receives telephone threats for protection money. When they don’t pay up within 24 hours, a motorbike with two riders pulls up on at their door which opens onto the main street and fires four shots. So Dageng’s son (Willy Kon Chin Yi) delivers a rucksack containing $50 000 to the gang. But later, the riders complain there was only $30 000 and demand another $20 000.

Lots of similarly threatening phone calls overlap on the soundtrack as we see numerous yellow cables plugged into a telecoms hub, recalling similar motifs in movies as diverse as Three Colours Red (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994) and Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953).

The prosecutor’s office is monitoring phone calls, but faces challenges. One such is that the calls are in Cantonese so require an interpreter to turn them into intelligible Spanish. Another is illustrated when the current interpreter quits, terrified what might happen to her family if word about the nature of her work gets out.… Read the rest