Not so long ago, it was fairly common for local filmmakers to have more than one movie to their name in a year. Except if your name is Johnnie To though, those days are largely gone. Consequently, that this movie’s writer-director and co-producer, Pang Ho-Cheung has now come out with a second film in 2007, after the at times uneasy mix of black comedy and crime drama that was Exodus, is something worth remarking on; and, considering how thoroughly entertaining the often very playful Trivial Matters is, a cause for celebration as well.

Based on Pang’s short story collection of the same name, Trivial Matters the movie is made up of seven short tales. Or, really, more like six since the small section of the work that has Edison Chen and Stephanie Cheng in an English language discussion plays out more like a mere scene in a regular movie. And, although it’s not the shortest of all the segments, the story that follows, which purportedly takes place in the future and on a planet named Tak Nga, also has a throwaway quality, especially compared to the rest of the chapters of this work.

Rather than overly dwell on the weaker portions of the film, though, what I’d like to draw the attention of readers to is how chapters so different in tone and subject matter all get handled adeptly in this one movie. For example, the very first story in this anthology, Vis Major (which has Chan Fai-Hung and Kristal Tin portraying a married couple who have hilariously divergent opinions about their love-making woes), and the fourth, It’s a Festival Day (in which Eason Chan essays a man who manages to get his girlfriend to give him blowjobs, but only on festive occasions!), are obviously and successfully played for laughs.

In contrast, the could-have-been-better named Ah Wai the ‘Big Head’ (in which Gillian Chung and Stephy Tang turn in winning performances as a pair of schoolgirls who go on to become mothers) and Recharge (which has Trivial Matters’ co-producer, Chapman To, playing a film producer who avails himself of the services of a high-class prostitute) have some highly affecting moments indeed. And even while I welcomed the many opportunities to come close to laughing my head off, I still consider this pair of more serious tales to be the best of all the stories in this star-studded movie. In conclusion, on the face of this work, the younger generation of Hong Kong filmmakers and thespians – with or without a little help from Mainland Chinese friends like auteur Feng Xiaogang (who appears along with Shawn Yue, veteran composer Peter Kam, and Conroy Chan in Junior, Trivial Matters’ final story) – are neither without talent nor the ability to make a very enjoyable movie.

Yvonne Teh