Tag: Teresa Mo

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Over My Dead Body
(Seisi Seisi Seisapsei,
死屍死時四十四)

Director – Ho Cheuk Tin – 2022 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 119m

**

Confronted with a naked corpse, the residents of three separate flats in a tower block try to get shot of it before its discovery can reduce their apartments’ selling prices – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 21st

One of two films about living in a high rise released this week.

Hong Kong movies have a long tradition of knockabout and very silly comedy which are something of an acquired taste. Many of them are enjoyable enough. This particular entry, however, doesn’t travel outside the Hong Kong Chinese culture very well. To an English, non-Cantonese speaker, it doesn’t really work, coming over largely as irritating. (I suspect that, for Cantonese speakers, it may well play far more successfully.)

Half watching a TV show on his dashboard phone about the problems Hong Kongers face around ever-escalating real estate prices, Ming To (Wong You Nam from Ip Man, Wilson Yip, 2008) makes the journey in his VW van through gridlocked traffic, past the building’s SG (security guard) Lee (Sheung-ching Lee) of the tower block Seaside Heights to Flat 14A and the bedroom of sexy air stewardess Yana Chung (Jennifer Yu Heung-Ying from Shadows, Glenn Chan, Bure Li, 2020; Tracey, Jun Li, 2018) for some horizontal refreshment under the sheets.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Mama’s Affair
(A Ma You Zuo
Di Er Ge,
阿媽有咗第二個)

Director – Kearen Pang – 2022 – Hong Kong – Cert. PG – 127m

**

A former music business exec tries to get back into the game managing a boy singer while her jealous teenage son takes his exams – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 19th

Essentially a three-hander, this centres around middle-aged mother Mei-fung (Teresa Mo Shun-kwan from Hard Boiled, John Woo, 1992; Over My Dead Body, Ho Cheuk Tin, 2022), her son, Jonathan (Jer Lau) who is doing exams and hopes to study at the UK’s Cambridge and similarly aged youth Fang Ching (Keung To). The two teenagers are played by members of phenomenally successful Cantopop boy band Mirror, arguably the production’s main selling point. It also has an unashamed music industry focus. Mei-fung, whose marriage is on the rocks, is a former record label executive who has decided to go back to the workplace now that her son is on the verge of going abroad.

She originally got out of the business at the insistence of her husband following a miscarriage. She was something of a workaholic, necessitated by her job of looking after talent, babysitting stars to the extent that juggling career and potential motherhood was well nigh impossible.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Hard Boiled
(Lat Sau San Taam,
辣手神探)

Director – John Woo –1992 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 128m

*****

Woo’s directorial valediction to Hong Kong, at least for a time as he attempted to break Hollywood, rehashes his now familiar territory of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal, etched in trademark bullets and blood with grander and greater operatic flourish than his earlier efforts. On-screen alter-ego Chow Yun-fat (The Killer, John Woo, 1989; An Autumn‘s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987) is cast for the first time in Woo not as gangster but cop, bonding with a ruthless triad hit man Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai from Bullet In The Head, John Woo, 1990, In The Mood For Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2000; Lust Caution, Ang Lee, 2007; Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021). For good measure, Woo throws in therising, young gangster killing the old leader to take over the mob from A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986) (here played by Anthony Wong and Kwan Hui-sang respectively).

Hard Boiled opens with a spectacular tea house shoot out where Insp. ‘Tequila’ Yuen (Chow) accidentally shoots his partner (just as Leung, who turns out to be an undercover cop, mistakenly shoots a fellow officer during the later hospital shoot out).… Read the rest