REVIEWS HKIFF IN BRIEF
SCREENINGS, PAGE 18 Reviews edited byMark Adams
mark.adams@
screendaily.com
Love In The Buff Reviewed by Edmund Lee
Woman In A Septic Tank Young Cinema Competition. Dir: Marlon Rivera. Phil. 2011. 90mins Filipino director Marlon Rivera’s freewheel- ing mockumentary about film-making in his country is a engagingly oddball jaunt through the slums of Manila and the homes of mega-rich performers. While at times it is scattershot in terms of the targets, there is a lot of fun to be had along the way — espe- cially the wonderful performance by comedi- enne Eugene Domingo. The film blends outlandish comedy with musical numbers and has a little drama on the side. Initially a touch confusing, it finds its feet as the story draws on and ends on a real high.
Mark Adams
CONTACT QUANTUM FILMS jvalonso@
yahoo.com
About The Pink Sky Young Cinema Competition. Dir/scr: Keiichi Kobayashi. Jap. 2011. 113mins That old favourite the ‘coming-of-age’ story is dusted off to impressive effect in the enter- tainingly raw About The Pink Sky (Momoiro Sora O), charting the efforts of quirky high schooler Izumi (Ai Ikeda) to reunite a wallet she finds containing ¥300,000 (in the region of $4,000) to its rightful owner. Presented in black and white — but with a smart burst of colour at the closing credits — it is a thor- oughly watchable and engaging indie Japa- nese film, driven by a confident and charismatic lead performance.
Mark Adams
CONTACTMICHAELGION PRODUCTIONS
harada@michaelgion.jp
The Look Gala Premiere. Dir: Angelina Maccarone. Fr. 2011. 94mins Part biographical documentary and part a series of musings on life and art, this watch- able film about actress Charlotte Rampling is a fascinating set of discussions between her and a series of photographers, writers and film-makers. It will intrigue those who are fans of her work and should appeal to festi- vals and niche arts broadcasters. For those, however, out for a look at her life and career, The Look might be rather unsatisfying given it features a series of head-to-head chats (or musings) rather than a plethora of film clips and gushing praise.
Mark Adams CONTACTMK2
www.mk2-catalogue.film n 10 Screen International at Filmart March 19, 2012
With 2010’s Love In A Puff, writer-director Pang Ho-cheung scored an unlikely triumph with a chain-smoking and chatty rom-com, almost through audience word-of-mouth alone. Latching on to its rapport with the audience, Love In The Buff is a Hong Kong-China co-production that partly forgoes its prequel’s quintessentially Hong Kong setting but makes up for this with its callous yet laugh-out-loud humour. The profanities also remain. The film opens the Hong Kong International
Film Festival with its world premiere on March 21, before going on general release concurrently in late-March in Hong Kong, mainland China and various cities worldwide. Starting off with an absurdly funny short story
included presumably just to parallel the original’s narrative structure, Love In The Buff quickly delves back into the relationship between cosmetic sales- girl Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and advertising execu- tive Jimmy (Shawn Yue), which began at the end of Puff with a mutual vow to quit smoking. Jimmy turns out to be an immature workaholic
who has an eye for beauties — all beauties — and Cherie a fed-up girlfriend who decides to move back to her mother. He jumps at his first job offer from China and the two’s affair fizzles out. The action then shifts to Beijing, where Jimmy hits it off with a gorgeous air hostess (Mimi Yang)
WORLD PREMIERE OPENINGNIGHTFILM
HK-Chi. 2012. 112mins DirectorPang Ho-cheung Production company Making Film International sales Media Asia Distribution, www.
mediaasia.com ProducersPang Ho-cheung, Subi Liang Executive producer John Chong, Shi Dongming ScreenplayPang Ho-cheung, Luk Yee Sum, based on characters created byPang Cinematography Jason Kwan Editor Wenders Li Production designer Lok-Lam Ho Music Alan Wong, Janet Yung Main cast Miriam Yeung, Shawn Yue, Mimi Yang, Xu Zheng
and moves in with her. Cherie will also move north — and finds a new admirer (Xu Zheng) — when her employer closes its Hong Kong business six months later. Their story settles into a pattern in which they repeatedly exchange text messages and meet up for romantic rendezvous behind the back of each oth- er’s partner — a cycle the film dares its protagonists to break out from to find their happy ending. Though there are, as in the first film, naughty
usages of Chinese slang that prove impossible to translate for English subtitles, and the movie’s three memorable cameos — of pop culture mainstays Ekin Cheng, Linda Wong and Huang Xiaoming — may not come across as funny for a foreign audi- ence, Love In The Buff is still a relentlessly entertaining romance that should please more than a few viewers from any culture. The video that runs alongside this worthy sequel’s end credits, which documents Jimmy’s efforts to win back Cherie, has to be seen to be believed.
Ace Attorney Reviewed by Mark Adams
Manga meets video-gaming in the colourful, funny and thoroughly entertaining Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban), a fantasy courtroom romp that sees always-busy Japanese director Takashi Miike show-off his appreciation for broad movie entertainment, and makes a nice contrast to his more recent heavyweight festival outings such as 13 Assassins and Hara-Kiri: Death Of A Samurai. Miike has never been one to rest on his laurels
— his speedy follow-up to Hara-Kiri was Ninja Kids!!! — and his career has been based on variety rather sticking to one genre. A filmography that includes films as varied as Audition, Ichi The Killer, Zebraman and Sukiyaki Western Django speaks volumes about his interest in keeping things fresh and flexible. Ace Attorney is based on the popular Nintendo
game (known as Gyakuten Saiban in Japan) set in 2016, in which players take on the role of defence attorney in a futuristic courtroom setting. Clumsy young lawyer Phoenix Wright (Hiroki
Narimiya) finds himself caught up in a complex series of court cases which all seem to be linked to a 15-year-old mystery known as the DL-6 case. When his boss Mia Fey (Rei Dan) is killed, Phoenix is called up to defend Mia’s young sister Maya (Mirei Kiritani), and finds himself up against
MARKET
Jap. 2012. 135mins DirectorTakashi Miike Production company/ sales company Nippon Television Network Corporation,
www.ntv.co.jp Producer Okuda Seiji ScreenplayTakeshi Iida, Sachiko Oguchi, based on the Nintendo game Cinematography Masakazu Oka EditorKenji Yamashita MusicKojiEndo Main cast Hiroki Narimiya, Takumi Saitoh, Mirei Kiritani, Akiyoshi Nakao, Shunsuke Daito,Kimiko Yo, Ryo Ishibashi, Rei Dan, FumiyoKohinata
super-cool prosecutor Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saitoh), who had been a friend at school. Amazingly Phoenix wins the case, but things
become even more complicated when Miles is accused of murder, and Phoenix is the only one who will defend him. He is assisted by Maya, along with schoolfriend Larry Butz (Akiyoshi Nakao) and plod- ding detective Dick Gumshoe (Shunsuke Daito). Together they tackle a complex case that also involves a white parrot called Polly and a giant inflatable Silver Samurai superhero character. Phoe- nix also has to face legendary prosecutor von Karma (Ryo Ishibashi), undefeated in court in 40 years. The actual courtroom battles are punctuated
with the counsel’s ability to drag-down vast com- puter-generated screens to make their legal — or otherwise — points, and Takashi Miike has a lot of fun with his larger-than-life characters as they bat- tle for truth and justice.
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