Reviews
Movies
Mr. Cinema
Directed by Samson Chiu, starring Wong Chau Sang, Ronald Cheng, Karen Mok
Following the model of Forrest Gump, the film reflects on Hong Kong's past 40 years through the eyes of a common projectionist.
If a film could be considered successful only if it touches viewers, Mr. Cinema should have been an excellent piece of work. The deep feeling of the all-Hong Kong cast and crew for the city they live in is shown in every detail. However, the film could have been better if the structure had been improved.
The drama revolves around the projectionist's experience of almost all significant historic events. Before every event, the time and location it happened appears on the screen, followed by minutes of old TV footage. For those without enough background knowledge, the subtitles and footage do help them understand the plot, but their frequent appearance actually separates the film into many segments, which prevents the audience from becoming fully absorbed in the story. Liu Wei
Nanking
Directed by Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman, produced by Ted Leonsis
Through interviews with survivors, historic footage and a staged reading of journals and letters by some Western witnesses, the documentary sheds light on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed by Japanese troops and tens of thousands raped.
What sets the film apart from others on the same topic is the limited use of voiceover. What is used instead is the narration of survivors and excerpts from the journals and letters. One survivor talks for five minutes without any interruption about how he witnessed the Japanese soldiers kill his mother and little brother. The details about how his mother struggled to breast feed his brother for the last time is immensely affecting.
The film successfully illuminates how twisted human can become in war and what we should do to prevent the same mistakes. LW
DVD
Fun With Dick and Jane
Directed by Dean Parisot, starring Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni
Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni were the right people for the job here; it's just that other elements of Fun With Dick and Jane fail to deliver. Carrey blends together his two comic personas - the manic guy and the caring kick-around family guy - while Leoni refuses to be upstaged by her superstar colleague. They are, as the title suggests, fun to watch at times; it's just that the story feels as though it was compiled by a committee, which is probably true when you see how many names are credited with producing the screenplay.
When we meet the middle-class couple, everything is rosy. Dick has landed a big promotion in a mega-corporation, and that means Jane can quit her travel agency job to spend more time with their kid. But when Dick's company goes belly-up because of bad management, the couple begins to lose their privileges one by one. Even worse, Dick can't land another job, and so they turn into a modern day Bonnie and Clyde trying to restock their depleted coffers. Attention then swings to a revenge plot against Dick's former boss, Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin), who was the architect and chief beneficiary of the company's crash.
This is a remake of a 1977 film, made prescient by its references to the Enron crash that left most of its employees penniless. There is a quality comedy waiting to be made about that particularly abhorrent chapter in US corporate history, but Fun With Dick and Jane indulges in too many weak scenes of screwball stick-ups to count as a blockbuster with a true social conscience.
Ben Davey
(China Daily 07/11/2007 page20)
