Director: Johnnie To
Starring: Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Nick Cheung, Richie Ren, Josie Ho
Scheduled Release: October 19

Director Johnnie To (Election, Running Out Of Time) has never been one to stage a simple gangster movie when he can throw in some political allegory for good measure. In Exiled, To’s latest crime thriller, set in Macau, his characters all share the city’s own sense of trepidation in the days leading up to the 1999 handover. Assembling the same cast as his much-loved offering The Mission, To has created a film that is part old school Hong Kong actioner and part deconstructionist Western. It’s a film filled with as much dramatic pathos as it is brimming with handguns that never run out of bullets. In short, Exiled is the kind of film Hong Kong was once famous for.

Boss Fay (Simon Yam) sends two hit men, Anthony Wong and Lam Suet, to assassinate Wo (Nick Cheung), a renegade gang member who tried to kill him. Wo fled into hiding with his wife (Josie Ho) and newborn child, but Fay has tracked him down, and is determined to see him dead. However, fellow gang members Tai (Francis Ng) and Cat (Roy Cheung) arrive in time to intervene, and in getting the boys to sit down and just talk for a minute, the five hit men momentarily recapture the camaraderie of the good old days – and Wo’s imminent death now seems slightly less so.

The guys agree to take on one final, high-paying job that will set them all up for life: to knock off local Macanese kingpin, Boss Keung (Gordon Lam). Little do they know, Boss Fay put out the assignment in an attempt to seize control of Macau’s gangland businesses before the city is handed back to the Mainland. However, when Fay discovers his men have not only failed to kill Wo but are also now in cahoots again, tables are turned, loyalties are tested and the skies are filled with flying bullets.

The real reason for all of these nefarious doings, however, is to get a bunch of cool guys to all point guns at each other in a variety of pretty locations. To’s stoic heroes wax philosophical, smoke cigars, chew on toothpicks and brandish their firearms in ways not seen in HK movies since the ’80s heyday of John Woo and Chow Yun Fat. Exiled glides from beautifully composed shoot-out to tightly choreographed ambush with an ease and confidence sorely missed in most of today’s local offerings – or, in fact, in most modern action movies anywhere.

As well as successfully recreating this much-missed genre, Exiled also alludes to the Westerns of, in particular, Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. There are frequent overt references made to For A Few Dollars More, Once Upon A Time In The West and The Wild Bunch, to name a few. Macau’s dilapidated colonial architecture helps the mood hark back to the border towns of US frontier land, with the wooden-floored bars and hotels easily evoking the saloons and brothels of the Old West.
The protagonists in all these films share a common concern that, as the world around them dusts itself off and enters a new economic era, the days of the vigilante gunslinger are numbered. In a society that no longer needs them, these anti-heroes are faced with the unappealing choice of settling down to live a ‘normal life,’ as Wo has tried to do, or going out guns blazing in the only way they know how. This newfound lack of direction is made explicit when the gang, finding itself without a mission or a leader to command it, resorts to tossing a coin to determine its next move.

As with many of To’s ‘serious’ films, this is ostensibly a man’s world where female characters are represented as either dutiful wives or thieving, opportunistic hookers. Save for Wo, who has quit the game, none of these haunted hard men seem to have any kind of personal life or family to speak of, and have instead found solace in the kill-or-be-killed comfort of each other’s company.

But as much as anything else, Exiled comments on the current state of Hong Kong Cinema. In the same way that Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven was seen by many as the swan song for the Western as we knew it, To has produced a film bursting with style, energy and effortless cool that also carries with it an elegiac sense that these glory days have been lost forever, and that the future, for this way of life at least, is far from certain. James Marsh

Words Elle Kwan

If the makers of Nothing Is Impossible have their way, Hong Kong crowds will soon be swept up in a finger-pointing craze.

“At the moment it’s a trend with Hong Kong teens, because the karaoke business is too old,” says Producer Michael Mak, about
finger games. With many young people opening bars, and hardworking souls looking for a place to hang out after hours, finger games are becoming big business. He reasons they are prime bar-side entertainment.

The fast action game 5-10-15 is a common example. Players sit with clenched fingers predicting how many digits will be displayed. The losing party drinks, and rosy cheeks and loud laughter prove it’s all finger flicking fun.

Mak should know. Much bar-crawling research went into his latest movie Nothing is Impossible (now showing), which deals with just that subject, and it’s information he’s keen to share.

Starring one-time comedian Dayo Wong and rising star Cherrie Ying, the film chronicles four youngsters caught in a love quadrangle, played out in the city’s bars. Booze and finger games open a world
of discovery for Cherrie’s character, an uptight tutor struggling to enjoy life.

Mak called on old friend Lam Wah Chuen to fill the director’s
seat. Though, in an abrupt turn from Lam’s debut feature, 2002’s dark brooding Runaway Pistol, Nothing is Impossible looks
implausibly sunny.

Glossy TV ads with jaunty music, bright posters of the movie’s smiling starlets and a touring troupe of finger-gaming experts show where Mak’s sizeable publicity budget has been spent. The hype hints at a fun, frolicking movie. But Lam cut his filmmaking teeth as cinematographer for realist auteur Fruit Chan, and Runaway Pistol was criticised by some as being too dark. So has he deliberately aimed more at the mainstream?

“I’m not interested in my own subject or theme, I think you have to direct many different movies, just like Johnnie To – I’d like to follow that.” Maybe, he muses, it’s just a part of his make up. “My blood type is A/B,” he says smiling widely. “One side is dark, one side is light – maybe that’s me,” and he laughs. Both he and Mak are keen to point out that Nothing is Impossible is far from flaky. “It’s a light comedy,” he says. “Smart, interesting and entertaining.”

And Mak hopes strong performances and involving storylines will target the commercial side of art house, as in films like Good Will Hunting. “We wanted to give Hong Kong audiences a different style,” he says, and so they veered away from horror and gangsters.

By far the hardest parts to film were those fast flicking fingers, often captured through stop-action. And Lam factored in extra rehearsals to pull out strong performances, with impressive results. “Dayo can turn his hand to anything, and Cherrie’s acting is really good,” he says. “I think the key theme is people, it’s not just about games, it’s really about two people.”

Sitting side by side, director and producer could fairly represent light and dark. Lam, slightly plump in a simple T-shirt, thick-rimmed specs and bleached blonde crop, looks like a preschooler’s doodle. In that fairytale world, Mak would play Lam’s arch-enemy, his thin frame draped in a black suit, his serious air intent with ready answers.

But Mak insists that in Lam he has found someone with a shared vision. Lam agrees. Their films will always contain the same elements, he says. “Romance – we two are so romantic. Beauty and music.” Mak adds that he’d like audiences to go away feeling hopeful – as though nothing is impossible. Because that’s something he more than believes.

Starring: Chalee Trairat, Siranath Jianthavorn, Jintara Sugapat
Director: Songyos Sugmakanan
Scheduled Release: October 19

Posters for Dorm may mislead you into thinking the film is some kind of ghoulish spine-chilling horror. In fact, the film by Thai director Songyos Sugmakanan, delves far deeper into the realms of The Otherside, producing an unnerving movie with a sensitive underbelly.
Chatree (Chalee Trairat) is sent to boarding school, a grim looking white shell of murky classrooms and huge crammed dorms, but has trouble fitting in. A gang of bullyboys sets his nerves on edge with whispered ghost tales that immediately begin coming true. Things take a twist for the unexpected when his one true friend Vichien (Siraneth Jianthavorn), turns out to be an apparition himself, though it doesn’t stop them sticking together. What follows is a story of companionship and understanding as Chatree begins seeking reasons for his friend’s wandering soul.
In a tale far gentler than desperate clinging ghosties who bump in the night, Dorm contains very few white-knuckle moments. Sukmakanan’ s story focuses instead on tracing Chatree’s difficulties with leaving home and growing up, in parallel with Vichien’s regret at not being able to follow that path. Vichien, stuck in one place for eternity, longs for freedom, while Chatree is content to throw his away, but as the two grow, each is able to confront their own realities. Close relationships form, even among the gang, and action never veers into violence or exploitation, preferring to stick to a more innocent examination of the boyhood experience. A strained relationship between Chadree and his father works well, although the added involvement of melancholy dorm mistress Ms Pranee adds a rather convoluted twist.
The cast of mostly teenage boys is fantastic – from Chatree’s furrowed intensity and his ghostly companion’s ethereal calm, down to the gang’s camaraderie. A burly pockmarked leader, his chattering sidekick and their slow-talking oddball mate’s mischievous exploits provide refreshing comedic touches in a tale that twists from spooky to touching to tragic. Performances are spot on, sparked by a sparse script that rings true on all counts.
Extremes of bright light and heavy shadow underlie the grim existences of both the alive and the dead. Colours, when they appear, are muted, lending a whimsical quality to the sleepy mystery that slowly becomes more and more involving.
As ends are tied succinctly, old ghosts are laid to rest, leaving us feeling as though we too have happened upon a glimpse of another world, which, far from being grisly, is sometimes uncomfortable, often misunderstood, and somehow quite pleasing to watch. Unless all you want is a good scare. EK

Tales From Earthsea
Starring: Aoi Teshima, Junichi Okada, Bunta Sugawara
Director: Goya Miyazaki
Scheduled Release: October 26

Like many Studio Ghibli animations, Tales From Earthsea features sorcery, mysticism and overlapping mythology in a coming of age story. Rather more unusually, the main protagonist is a boy.
Spirited Away remains Studio Ghibli’s biggest export, and is the movie that mounted the studio as a ready competitor to Disney and Pixar. But other releases, Nausicaa of the Valley, Howl’s Moving Castle and Grave of the Fireflies, shied away from such uplifting fairytales in favour of darker, denser, and in the case of fireflies, heartbreaking subjects. Tales From Earthsea drops in much closer to those works.
Based on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, opening scenes feature cloaked governors warning of troubles in the land. Sheep are dying, dragons are returning and the world is out of balance. We are introduced to Arren, a 17-year-old on the run after killing his father, the king. It isn’t long before he meets aged wizard Shadowhawk, who takes him to a town filled with crooks, drug pushers and slave dealers. When Arren steps in to save Therru, a young girl accused of being a witch, he never guesses their lives will entwine, as it becomes clear it’s not only land that’s off kilter. Meanwhile, evil sorcerer Lord Cob, disguised as a wretched blue-tinged queen, watches over those growing friendships, waiting to strike.
Drawn in the familiar Ghibli style, the studio plays its animation trump card in Earthsea. Medieval European towns are huge, intricate, and meticulously reproduced with fort walls decaying and moss strewn. Star-shimmering skies are just dreamy.
Character faces have evolved too, now containing new depth of expression, extending into confusion, fear and loneliness. In one scene, Shadowhawk says of Arren, “Sometimes he has wild eyes,” and in a fight with Therru’s captors, they are ablaze. Two squishy village gossips, pout, tut and chatter, clinging to each other like padded pantomime dames.
Gaelic pipes underscore many scenes, while Therru’s simple melody, sung by Aoi Teshima, who voices the character throughout, is pure and striking. For some it’d be a risky move to halt action with a full-length song, but Ghibli are unbound from formulaic storytelling and such is the haunting beauty that they just about pull it off.
Arren at 17 is older than many of the Ghibli classics – Spirited Away’s Sen and Delivery Service’s Kiki were just entering teenhood. Their worlds were about fresh experiences and discovery. Arren is running from sins committed, and lives tormented, by shadows. Dream sequences are troubling, and characters degenerating into shocked hollow-eyed monsters make this movie far from childsplay.
Jabbering witty one-liners may be missing and getting from start to finish takes its own sweet time, but Tales From Earthsea carries enough magic to keep Disney and Pixar on their toes. EK

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello
Director: Oliver Stone
Scheduled Release: October 19

Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center is a victim of bad timing and a blockbuster mindset. The heroism of September 11, 2001 is still fresh in the minds of millions of Americans, but so is the terror and unease of that day. Stone’s movie doesn’t reflect those feelings. He hasn’t made a movie for a 2006 audience; he’s made one for 2036.
Stone’s account of that day sticks to the two Port Authority cops, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (Nicolas Cage and Crash’s Michael Pena, respectively), who were pinned for hours under the rubble of the World Trade Center. As the men talk to each other and endure cave-ins and unspeakable pain, the movie drifts to how their wives (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello) handle the news of the terrorist attacks and of their husbands’ uncertain fates.
World Trade Center is meant to showcase America’s heroism during a truly heinous time, but why does it feel so empty? The reason lies in this year’s other notable 9/11 movie, the memorable United 93. That movie focused on one aspect of that terrible day — the crew and passengers who gave up their lives to prevent a commuter flight from crashing into the White House — but it gave you the experience without any chaser. There were no big name actors, no storylines featuring cute kids. It was a reminder of the country’s capabilities, and it was desperately needed given the United States’ wobbly war on terror. The best compliment I can give director Paul Greengrass is that his film felt necessary.
Stone’s picture doesn’t. His film boils down to being about two tough cops trapped. The reminders that we bonded as a nation that day are thrown in bits and pieces: the former Marine who suits up; the cops from Wisconsin who serve bratwurst; the EMT who tells the cop to say goodbye to his wife for him; the 9/11 news accounts and sound bites. It’s almost as if the studio execs said, “Hey, those two cops stuck underneath make for a great story, but how can we make it about 9/11 and not
about 9/11?” World Trade Center feels like a rescue drama capitalising on the day’s frenzy, paying little heed to that day’s incomprehensible heroism. And the frenzy
from the home front isn’t credible. Bello and Gyllenhaal look too well-preserved to suffer, too toned to be working class housewives. The latter especially applies to Bello’s character. How many mothers of four look like they can run a mile in under
six minutes?
The focus on Jimeno and McLoughlin further takes away from the day’s togetherness. What about everyone else who was pinned underneath the rubble, or the cops, firefighters, and office workers who died leading people to safety? (For more on that, read Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn’s brilliant 102 Minutes.) What about the families who waited in hospitals or by silent phones for good news that never came? September 11 was about a city and a country mourning and pulling together. It wasn’t about two people, no matter how brave they were.
World Trade Center feels too much like it was made for nostalgia purposes: Hey, do you remember that? How you felt? Well, yeah, all too vividly, actually. The television accounts and newspapers told us plenty about those brave men and women on the ground working all hours, ignoring fatigue. We still have those images swimming in our heads and our hearts, and such a compressed, slick vehicle doesn’t serve as a fitting tribute; at least not yet. Pete Croatto