Director – Rei Leung Wan-yi – 2019 – Hong Kong – Cert. N/C 15+ –25m
*****
The progress of a former nightclub employee following his fortuitous encounter with a girl in a panda suit – FREE TO VIEW online in the UK in the Fresh Wave short films strand of Focus Hong Kong 2021 Easter from Wednesday, March 31st to Tuesday, April 6th
At age six, Yin (Matt Jiu Kai Laam) was brought by his mother (Gaga Tse Ka Wai) to the Golden Rose nightclub where she worked as a live-in cleaner and odd job person as the grown up Yin describes in voiceover narration. He doesn’t mention her suavely suited manager (Tony Ho Wah Chiu – Our Time Will Come, Ann Hui, 2017; Infernal Affairs, Andrew Lau, Alan Mak, 2002; Dead Or Alive: Final, Takashi Miike, 2002) is a permanent fixture propping up the enquiries desk window counter. At age 26, Yin (Shaopin Tsui) is told by the manager that today is his last day. In fact it’s also the manager’s last day because the Golden Rose is closing down. Enquiring about his missing back pay, Yin is given the company’s very expensive car to sell for profit which turns out to be an old van covered in dust.
Once he’s cleaned up the van, it looks pretty good though. He meets former nightclub hostess Hana (Hilary Lau Pui Hang) as she’s dressed in a panda costume handing out fliers and she asks him, in another of the film’s few moments of spoken lip-sync dialogue (as opposed to voice-over reportage), if he can take her in He’s concerned about his lack of finance to support himself let a lone her, but she transforms the van interior into a brand new nightclub and attracts her former clientele and soon has a booming business to support them both.
Following complaints from enthusiastic citizens, they encounter police clearing the flat atop Tai Mo Shan mountain in the middle of a national park. But never mind. The pair of them can take the van elsewhere and sit atop it to watch the sunset that Yin’s mother promised to show him as a child but to which she never got around.
Art directed in vibrant, non-naturalistic colours and narratively propelled by Yin’s voiceover, this doe-eyed, fairytale short suggests the arrival of a highly unique and idiosyncratic voice in cinema. Yin’s relationship with his mother is defined by her putting a cheap wall poster of a sunset of a sea on the wall of his bedroom in the club, proclaiming it a window. Later, Hana’s income generational progress is depicted by speeded up film van journeys courtesy of pixilation and serial banknotes inserted into a piggy bank.
High on invention throughout, the whole vibrant affair exudes joy and life.If this is what Leung can achieve in a short, just imagine what she might make as a feature. Fabulous, unmissable and hopefully a promise of greater things to come.
GoGo Club is FREE TO VIEW online online in the UK as part of Focus Hong Kong 2021 Easter from Wednesday, March 31st to Tuesday, April 6th.