Will the silver screen shine?

The advertisements and trailers of upcoming movie releases are often more eye-catching and imaginative than the movies themselves. This is especially true of the end-of-year season, when fantastic plots, big budgets, hi-tech jinks and big stars tantalize moviegoers for months. Robust box office returns are par for the course.

However, movies such as Hong Kong action drama Storm Riders II, adventure thriller The Treasure Hunter and even Zhang Yimou's long-anticipated comedy thriller A Simple Noodle Story have not excited viewers to the extent expected and comments posted online from both critics and the public have been anything but enthusiastic.

This weekend, another star-studded blockbuster, Bodyguards and Assassins, opens at cinemas citywide. Directed by Teddy Chen Tak-sun and produced by Peter Chen Ho-sun, the movie set in 1905 Hong Kong is about revolutionary Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen and a group of people assigned to protect him from possible assassination attempts.