Showing posts with label SHAWN YUE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SHAWN YUE. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015
Sunday, December 29, 2013
MOVIE REVIEW: AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT 救火英雄
“AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT” PRESS REVIEW
救火英雄
“AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT” is one amazing movie that attempts a lot.
It tries very hard, to cramp fiery action, high drama, family angst and buddy obligations, all within a single day’s occurrence. You bet it leaves little chance for character development.
You will find an irksome sprinkle of wise sayings extolling the doctrines of life-and-death, goodness gracious. For spouting this much, you know this dude is doomed to die. And he did vanquish as a hero, swallowed by roaring flames.
It’s kind of a story retelling culled from the popular Hong Kong TVB high dramas or competitive films such as the recent lack luster ” Out of Inferno”.
This theme is not new, is formulaic actually, but it reigns supreme on the Director Derek Kwok’s visual and storytelling treatment board.
The Director does an admirable job to pull vital bits of scenarios together and assemble them neatly on a single stylized platter.
So the sum of it all is either you get impressed or you don’t.
I follow Derek Kwok’s body of work.
This one ain’t going to be his best.
”AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT” has all the ingredients of a blockbuster.
Derek Kwok (“Gallants” in 2010) carefully picked his ensemble comprising of Hong Kong cinematic greats like Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue, Simon Yam and Hu Jun.
The story occurs on a single night during Christmas Eve when a team of chummy firefighters – chief Sam (Nicholas Tse), Chill (Shawn Yue), Tao (Simon Yam), Ocean (Hu Jun) from Hong Kong’s Pillar Point Division are assigned to diminish a threatening fiery blaze at a local winery.
It looks like a great job accomplished, until the blaze reignites from the alcohol warehouse to a nearby power plant.
What follows?
The entire Hong Kong is plunged into abject darkness as the fire rages.
“AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT” is a poignant and powerful film in terms of fiery action and stupendous visual effects.
Kudos to convincing performances by the leads.
The film is both riveting and suspenseful and keeps you guessing who’s going to be the next victim to be claimed by the raging flames.
Or who’s going to be rescued in the nick of time.
For fans of disaster movies, this one’s for you.
This film could have been rendered so much better.
But then, what’s sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.
For sure I ain’t going to be any firefighter.
Right?
Thursday, June 10, 2010
LOVE IN A PUFF 志明與春嬌 Film Preview. Can LOVE blossom in an Alleyway?
PRESS PREVIEW
Excuse me, this reviewer does not smoke.
Maybe he puffs, ever once in a while.
So what’s the big deal?
Let’s say when you smoke, you inhale deep whiffs of nicotine.
The poison goes deep into your lungs and stays, until that rainy day comes when you are feeling queasy for want of fresh air, and medical help, of course.
What if you just take a puff?
Did someone say that puffing is a lighter form of inhaling where the deadly nicotine is not totally “sucked” in?
Is this is a senseless dig at safer smoking?
Or is it just a stupid rationale aim to justify smoking logic?
All over the world, we are reprimanded not to smoke in air conditioned places.
So for a quick puff, you gather in the open alleyway with your regular smoking partners to light a cigarette, relieve temporary stress
and to exchange bits and pieces of sultry news.
This is LOVE IN A PUFF, a film made for SMOKERS, about SMOKING.
Directed by PANG HO-CHEUNG, it has been classified as a Category 3 film in Hong Kong, thanks to a profusion of disturbing smoking scenes and the vulgar Cantonese euphemisms.
Miriam Yeung and Shawn Yue star in this exceptional vehicle which tries to be “different”, dwelling on TOBACCO, a taboo subject.
Miriam is this cosmetic salesgirl called Cherie. She is falling out of love with her live-in boyfriend.
She meets this cute advertising boy called Jimmy (Shawn Yue) in the alley who later becomes a smoking partner over the communal ashtray. Now, Jimmy has just broken up with her flighty girlfriend and is seeking companionship.
Love entwines, in an unlikely environment, amid puffs of office gossip.
This is when “sentiments are stirred”, where the gal eventually moves away from the madding crowd to her own secluded alley with this boy, to banter on delicate matters of the heart.
They SMS each other, go on night sprees, light a lot of cigarettes and then fall in love.
All these, depicted in a crash course of 7 days.
Ask any smoker ….. all the savory gossip, jokes and dirty stories are best shared during cigarette breaks, since the smoking law prohibits smoking in indoor areas, public places, restaurants, even karaoke lounges.
Is this an arresting movie?
Well, yes …..the Director has injected interesting docu-style “first person” interviews where the leads and others opine about love and relationships.
And no, Miriam Yeung and Shawn Yue do seem to be an odd pairing.
The chemistry ain’t there, they just don’t seem to “match”.
There’s a respite at the end of the movie.
Giving up smoking?
Yeah, with true love, you need no nicotine.
You may seek the camaraderie of other smokers,
and all the other psychological cravings develop later to take away the pain of sadness, boredom and depression and so on.
Love maketh the world go round.
And SMOKING is not amongst them,
not one of the golden rules.
You have seen better days,
So quit smoking, chum!
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