Posts tagged ‘hong kong films’
How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away? Edison Chen Sex Scandal
Edison and Ah Gil, cropped, 2008
After several months of quiescence, the Edison Chen sex photo scandal has reared its salacious head again. I’ve resisted writing about it because God knows you can get plenty of information about it elsewhere, but recently this blog has been slammed with hits from people searching “edison chen sex photos” and related terms, even though a previous post only briefly mentioned our boy Edison. It’s probably not significant traffic but it shows that the the subject is still one of the hottest ones on the internets even a year after the whole scandal broke in January 2008. Last year in China Edison Chen was most-searched subject on google and yahoo, ahead of the Beijing Olympics, facebook and iphone. Suffice to say that the Hong Kong public and the media were pretty overexcited by the whole event since it involved pop stars, nudity, adultery, and sex.
Now that Edison’s in a Vancouver court starting to spill the beans about the incident, his fellow erstwhile naked Hong Kong celebrities Gillian Chung and Cecilia Cheung have also started to surface and blab about the whole thing again. Full details as well as hundreds of images from the scandal can be easily found elsewhere but needless to say that last winter the Hong Kong media had a field day when naked sex pictures of several of their beloved idols flooded the internet, all from the misappropriated laptop of rising pretty-boy actor Edison Chen. After about a monthlong firestorm during which a seemingly endless number of the amateur-porny pictures popped up on the web, the whole incident climaxed (sorry) with a grim-faced Chen announcing his retirement from Hong Kong entertainment in order to devote time to “charity work” in Canada. Not to mention fleeing the pissed-off Hong Kong triad members who wanted to chop off one of his hands for killing the careers of several of golden-egg layers like Gillian and Cecilia.
Gillian, aka Ah Gil, aka one half of the phenomenally popular Cantopop girl group The Twins, is now testing the waters for a comeback after last year’s sleazy & unflattering pictures of her and little Edison in flagrante delicto annihilated her image as a squeaky clean Jade Girl. At a recent fashion shoot several smart-ass Hong Kong truck drivers heckled her as she left the photo studio, calling her “naïve Gil.” Maybe she needs to wait a bit longer until things die down some more.
Cecilia talks Edison, February 2009
Meanwhile, Cecilia Cheung, aka 2003 Hong Kong Film Awards Best Actress, aka wife of fellow superstar Nic Tse, has come out of hiding with a high-profile interview on Hong Kong television in which she calls Edison a fake, a hypocrite and a liar. Hey, Cece, what do you really think about him?
For his part, Edison has claimed that he would do “anything” to protect “the ladies” involved, though exactly what that might entail is sketchy. In the meantime he’s publically named five of his partners in the pictures for the first time and claimed that several of the photos were actually taken by the women in question. Way to blame the victim, dude.
Edison cleans up his image, Singapore, February 2009
He’s also been quietly trying to revive his acting career–his 2008 movie The Sniper, which was delayed after last year’s naughty pictures surfaced, is playing at the Hong Kong International Film Festival next month and he recently made an appearance at a Singapore Carl’s Jr., though of course he’ll be donating all proceeds “to charity.” Edison’s mom has also spoken up in support of her boy, saying that Edison would rather go to jail to protect “the girls.” Huh, no kidding.
Anyways, I doubt that a media ho like Edison will be able to resist the spotlight for long. We’ll see how the Hong Kong public responds and if fans forgive and forget, or if they continue to excoriate poor Edison and his compatriots. Either way I guarantee the Hong Kong media will be all over this story until we’re all heartily sick of it.
More on this as it develops, or not, depending on how intense and tedious the media hype becomes.
UPDATE: A quick shout-out to the venerable Hong Kong Movie Database Daily News forum, which provided most of the links and images in this posting. Thanks for being you.
Anthony Wong says, "Keep clear of Hong Kong, Edison"
UPDATE 2: Okay, a quick update after a flurry of useless overreporting. Some killjoy has sent Edison Chen a bullet via the US Mail accompanied by a death threat stating, “We hope Edison Chen will take this warning seriously, otherwise his personal safety will be threatened,” and goes on to make more unfriendly remarks about Edison and his well-being. The ever-sensible Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, who is Edison’s godfather, commented, “This time they send a bullet, next time they send a bomb?… When I meet Edison for a meal he will have to wear a bullet-proof vest and helmet!” Anthony had previously warned Edison to stay out of Hong Kong or he’d kick his ass. Tough love from the Bunman.
Quickie fangirl post: teaser trailer for new Francis Ng 吳鎮宇wuxia movie Tracing Shadow 追影
Francis Ng & deadly chopsticks, Tracing Shadow 追影, 2009
Just wanted to fire off a fast post about the appearance of a new, very brief teaser trailer (see below) for the upcoming Francis Ng wuxia pic Chasing Shadows. Looks like the movie will be full of the old-school 1990s style wire-fu & special effects that I cut my teeth on back in the day.
The very first Hong Kong movie that I saw long ago at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco was A Chinese Ghost Story, with its amazing action choreography by the great Ching Siu-Tung. His trademark style includes lots of beautiful night photography, swirling fog, gravity-defying synchronized stunt performers, flowing robes, and flying people bounding over rooftops and through forests. He’s the action director for classics including Swordsman 2, New Dragon Inn, and House of Flying Daggers, among many more.
Chasing Shadows, in which Francis Ng not only stars but codirects, with Marco Mak, looks like a throwback to those glorious movies. According to news sources,
“As a form of tribute to past wuxia films, not only does the film contain various well-worn wuxia elements, but it also has the protagonist, his nemesis, and the four exponents named directly, onomatopoeically, metaphorically, in part or combination after the famed wuxia directors: Chang Cheh, Li Han Hsiang, Tsui Hark, Chor Yuen, Sammo Hung, Liu Chia Liang, Tong Gai and King Hu, possibly with some of them doing cameos.”
The movie also stars Jackie Chan’s son Jaycee Chan and Pace Wu. Ching Siu-Tung’s protege, Ma Yuk Sing, is the action choreographer for Chasing Shadows and Ching’s influence is pretty clear in the trailer.
The lady in red, Tracing Shadow 追影, 2009
Needless to say, my anticipation meter is off the charts with this one.
UPDATE: According to Twitch, as of late March the film’s title has been altered to “Tracing Shadow 追影,” which I’m not sure I like more than the original. “Chasing” seems a bit more active and dynamic than “tracing,” but I’m not the marketing expert so who am I to say? Looking forward to it at any rate & hoping it rocks.
Here’s the teaser trailer for your viewing pleasure. There’s a very short subliminal of Francis at the very end of the clip fyi.
UPDATE 2: New trailer for Tracing Shadow 追影 below, which lists a July 2009 release date. It’s mostly in Mandarin, except for one cryptic English intertitle that states “kung fu all star,” and seems to be living up to previous reports that the film will be a martial arts comedy. Francis Ng appears briefly about halfway through, getting water thrown in his face, striding across the screen, and later comically twitching his eyebrow. The rest of the trailer heavily features clips of Jaycee Chan, backed by a raucous electric guitar riff, no doubt aiming straight for the lucrative youth market. I’m sure I’m missing lots of other significant information due to my lack of Chinese-language skills–if anyone else wants to fill in the blanks it would be much appreciated.
Director Ng & cast at Tracing Shadow 追影 press conference, June 16, 2009
There’s also a lot of information in the Chinese press this week about the launching of the film’s website but the translation I got through google translate gives me a headache so I can offer little insight. But here’s a picture from the press conference. Francis has his hair in the little topknot he seems to have adopted for his role in Laughing Gor, which he’s shooting at the moment.
UPDATE 3: English translation about the press conference here, plus another view of Francis’ topknot.
Happy Francis with topknot, Tracing Shadow 追影 press conference, June 2009
UPDATE 4: Go here for The Making Of Tracing Shadow 追影. Caveat: it’s on youku.com, the Chinese streaming site, which sometimes loads awfully slow, and the video is all in Mandarin. But it’s got nice behind-the-scenes footage of the movie shoot, with interviews with all of the stars including Francis, Jaycee Chan, and Pace Wu. With the movie being released in just a couple weeks the hype is becoming deafening. Huayi Brothers are obviously banking on this to be a big summer hit and every other day there are more movie stills, interviews, and other fluff about the movie all over the Chinese press. It will be interesting to see the actual box office once the movie’s out.
Tracing Shadow 追影 movie poster, July 2009
UPDATE 5: Here’s the latest Tracing Shadow 追影 poster, and here’s the official website. Navigation is in English, though the movie clips, synopsis and other info are in Chinese. The gallery has tons of stills that showcase the movie’s fancy costumes and art direction, featuring lots of animal furs, elaborate upswept hairdos, and saturated blacks and reds.
twitchfilm.net also has the first English-language review of the film and it’s pretty favorable.
And here’s the cool little music video from the movie—it takes several scenes from the film and incorporates them into a comic-book style layout. The song is Zhui Ying 追影 and the singer is Cong Haonan 丛浩楠.
Francis Ng drowns his sorrows at Laughing Gor: Turning Point premiere
UPDATE 6: Alas, despite the massive hype, it looks like Tracing Shadow has tanked at the box office in mainland China. Apparently it went head-to-head with Wong Jing’s latest inane comedy, On His Majesty’s Secret Service, and lost big time–according to NetEase Enterntainment, OHMSS earned over $100 million yuan at the box office, while Tracing Shadow took in a measly $13 million. Not only that, but Wong Jing apparently claimed in an interview that he wasn’t afraid of duking it out with Tracing Shadow because Francis Ng’s earlier directorial efforts (9413; What Is A Good Teacher; and Dancing Lion) also tanked at the box office. Way to rub salt in the wound, dude! It’s especially painful because earlier Francis had predicted that Tracing Shadow would easily take in at least $100 million. No wonder Francis Ng looked so tweaky at the Laughing Gor: Turning Point premiere. He had probably just heard the bad news about ticket sales for Tracing Shadow.
The film opened today (Sept. 2) in Hong Kong to much less fanfare. Wonder if HK audiences will give their homeboy some support or if the movie will die a slow death in the Special Administrative Region as well.
UPDATE 7: Tracing Shadow just hit the torrent streams so that probably spells an end to any theatrical box office. Some commentators on twitter were less than charitable about the film.
tracing shadow is a very indiscriminate mess
tracing shadow is a lousy movie. i’m sad that I spent more than half an hour to get to this conclusion.
watched the film tracing shadow online, download a waste of time, a waste of computer hard-disk space
You know it’s bad when people who watch the movie for free are dissing it.
But Francis might take some comfort in the fact that On His Majesty’s Secret Service also got reamed by the tweeters:
this is really a rare year of lousy movies—tracing shadow and OHMSS are tied.
Strangely enough, Huayi Brothers might not be too fussed about Tracing Shadows less-than-stellar performance. The film presold to several Asian territories, so chances are that HB got its investment back even before it was released.
The end of the world as we know it: crunchyroll deletes user-uploaded files.
The new year brought an unwelcome surprise to the 4.8 million people who belong to the on-line video streaming site crunchyroll.com, sometimes referred to as the Asian youtube (though it was founded by UC Berkeley undergrads and it’s based in San Francisco). Since its launch in 2006 until Jan. 1, 2009 the site had hosted music and games as well as literally thousands of films, anime, and Asian dramas. Almost all of its content was illegally uploaded by members, meaning that anyone could stream from a huge selection of material at absolutely no cost. As expected from such a massive, unrestricted site, depending on the source material and the skill of the uploader, image quality ranged from good to crappy.
For example, due to the ineptitude of the member who posted it, the site’s version of Exiled had Mandarin and Cantonese audio tracks running
Gratuitous Francis Ng pic, Exiled, 2006
simultaneously, which led to a surreal viewing experience to say the least. Other movies had serious sync problems or were uploaded from vcds, but almost all of the material had English subs and the streaming was fast and reliable, so it was a great place to indulge in a lot of no-cost Asian movie watching. (In contrast, watching a non-subbed movie on youku.com, the Chinese-language streaming site, is slow torture. Aside from the language barrier, the site streams like cold molasses and a ninety-minute movie can take twice that to get through.)
Free is always a good price and I can attest to crunchyroll’s addictive quality–it enabled my Francis Ng binge from last month and I was able to watch at least a dozen of his movies, including a couple not yet available in the US on dvd such as Shamo and One Last Dance. I was also able to wallow in all 35 episodes of one of Francis’s turgid HK melodramas, The Great Adventurer, wasting a week of my life wending through its labyrinthine storyline.
Crunchyroll’s dilemma began when the site started offering higher quality streams for members who “donated” six dollars per month. Because of its legal murkiness, this opened the site to potential licensing lawsuits, as it began profiting from copyrighted materials it didn’t own. Suddenly it wasn’t one big happy filesharing family—with nearly 5 million members someone was making some coin, and the site recently made moves to correct this possible legal sinkhole. No doubt realizing the thin ice such flagrant copyright violations implied, at the start of 2009 crunchyroll purged its entire stock of non-licensed programming and began to host only legally licensed shows. Gone were all of the Korean, Hong Kong, and Japanese soap operas, the extensive library of films and anime, and everything else that made the site imperative for obsessive Asian media-watchers. As expected, most of the membership let out a collective shriek, but in order to further cover its ass legally, the site will likely not add back those titles. It’s instead instituted a subscription system that, in cooperation with anime distributors, will allow paying customers to selectively view whatever shows the site can license.
As for those of us who gorged on free movies and dramas, the ride is over. Of course it was too good to last—I’m glad I was able to enjoy it while I could. Here’s hoping another similar site crops up soon.
UPDATE: Oops, busted! Looks like Huayi Bros, the big-time Chinese film producer and distributor, is going after several Chinese-language sites for illegally hosting the brand new Mainland China film, If You Are The One, which was released on Dec. 18 and has already hit the intertubes. Named in the lawsuit are Sina.com, Sohu.com, Youku.com, Tudou.com and VOC. Maybe crunchyroll pulled out of the illegal filesharing game just in time.
UPDATE 2: Interesting analysis here about how China’s latest crackdown on Internet smut may be a harbinger of larger things to come. Good discussion of the issue in relation to the recession, politics and the social compact of China’s economic boom.
Takeshi then and now: The Warlords, Red Cliff and the aesthetics of dirt
His role in The House of Flying Daggers (2004, dir. Zhang Yimou) notwithstanding, Takeshi Kaneshiro has almost always appeared in modern-day movies. But in 2007 he was cast in two prominent historical dramas, The Warlords (dir. Peter Chan) and Red Cliff (dir. John Woo). How did Takeshi’s decidedly modern visage affect these two Hong Kong costume dramas? The results in each film are somewhat different and are a telling indication of perceptions of Chinese films in Asia and in the West.
Movie kings dress down, The Warlords, 2007
In The Warlords, Peter Chan’s gritty, realistic flick about a 19th century Qing Dynasty power struggle, Takeshi and his equally famous and glamorous co-stars Jet Li and Andy Lau are called upon to play their parts clad in animal skins and splattered with blood, sweat and mud. Jet Li reportedly gained weight and dirtied up to play his part (and was rewarded with his very first Best Actor statue at the 2008 Hong Kong Film Awards); he and the usually dapper Andy Lau also shaved their heads and grew scruffy beards for the film. At the start of the film Li vomits convincingly and Andy Lau has sex still dressed in his war togs.
Takeshi in furs, The Warlords, 2007
Takeshi, however, did not shave his head, though he did sport a tidy beard. Still, it was hard to spot Takeshi-the-movie-star in this flick, due to the strength of the film’s mise-en-scene. The film’s blood-caked impalings, stabbings and general fisticuffs, and its evocative smoky-toned cinematography overcame Takeshi’s good looks and he managed to fit into the overall rough-hewn look of the movie despite being one of the most beautiful people on the planet.
In Red Cliff, however, the film’s art direction is much less down-and-dirty and much more stylized and this somehow makes Takeshi’s perfect nose and expensive haircut more anachronistic than in Peter Chan’s film. John Woo’s film aims for the heroic, not the realistic, and here Takeshi’s Prada-model gorgeousness shines a bit too brightly for a period piece. Although co-star Tony Leung Chi-Wai cuts no less a handsome figure, he’s a bit stronger actor and is a little more convincing as a third-century Chinese warrior. Tony also gets to wear armour and swing a sword in a big fighting scene, whereas Takeshi watches on the sidelines in pristine, flowing white robes without a hair out of place.
Pristine Takeshi, Red Cliff, 2008
Somehow Takeshi’s overt modernity works against him much more in Red Cliff than in The Warlords and this is underscored by each films’ respective directorial vision. Peter Chan’s film feels much more in step with current Chinese cinematic trends, moving away from superficial heroic images towards a deeper, more serious critique (in the same way that Johnnie To’s Election 1 & 2 completely deglamorized the Triad film, in contrast to the gauzy romantic fantasies of gangster brotherhood from Andrew Lau’s Young & Dangerous series). In comparison, John Woo’s film seems like a nostalgic, old-fashioned look backwards at classic Shaw Brothers and 1990s wuxia productions. Interestingly, a truncated version of Red Cliff is slated to open in the U.S. and Europe in 2009 while The Warlords has not received distribution outside of Asia. This perhaps reflects outdated perceptions of Hong Kong films in the West, where the most recognizable HK actor is the long-dead Bruce Lee and most viewers relate Chinese films to out-of-sync dubbing and chop-socky action pieces. Since precious few Western viewers keep abreast of current trends in Chinese cinema it stands to reason that John Woo’s conventionally retro, faintly Orientalist vision of history is more marketable outside of Asia than Peter Chan’s more contemporary presentation.
The Warlords was a big box office hit in Asia and, Red Cliff, Part 1 similarly broke box office records across Asia. Release of Red Cliff, Part 2 was moved up to capitalize on the success of Part 1 and it premiered in Beijing on Jan. 4. The Warlords cleaned up at both the 2007 Hong Kong Film Awards (eight awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor) and the 2008 Golden Horse Awards (Best Picture, Best Director). Red Cliff, however, was shut out of the major awards at this year’s Golden Horse presentation, with only four nominations and no wins. Perhaps as with the Academy Awards and the last installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Red Cliff, Part 2 will fare better at awards time than its predecessor. For now it remains to be seen whether it will duplicate the The Warlords’ hometown awards success.
One Last Dance revisted
Just rewatched One Last Dance (2005, dir. Max Makowski) last night and liked it much more upon another viewing. It starts a bit slowly but once Francis Ng shows up, playing a world-weary contract killer in nocturnal Singapore, the film’s focus snaps into place and he carries the movie after that. The film’s non-linear narrative is much easier to follow the second time around and, although there are some rough patches in the movie, there are also several pretty interesting moments. Notable among these are a scene in which Francis’s hitman character evades several security cameras at a Singapore train station and an amusing exchange with a prepubescent girl in which she and Francis discuss the meaning of life. Francis also gets into a staring contest (guess who wins?) and, as mentioned in a previous post, has a classic scene in which he extracts information with the help of plastic wrap, scotch tape and a fork.
Francis as a hitman, One Last Dance, 2005
The film wraps up its unconventional structure fairly well by the end of the movie and Francis delivers another subtle and nuanced performance that occasionally explodes into swift and efficient violence. There are a few moments of slapstick humor that some Western viewers might find jarring but anyone familiar with the rapid-fire genre-switching found in many Asian films should be able to deal with it. Definitely worth a look.
Francis helps Vivian Hsu with her aim, One Last Dance, 2005
Interestingly enough, Brazilian-born director Makowski has been attached to direct a couple Hollywood films on the strength of this picture, though it never received stateside distribution. Makowski’s slated to direct the live-action version of Voltron as well as a big-screen version of the lamentable 1970s television series Kung Fu. Also attached, though his role is yet to be clarified, is none other than Francis Ng. Surely he’s too old play Caine–hopefully they’ll find him a better part than the old blind guy with the pebbles in his hand.
three more francis ng movies
Best to worst
The White Dragon, dir. Wilson Yip, 2004
Francis plays a blind swordsman opposite spoiled and vain rich girl Cecilia Cheung in this 21st century martial arts redux. Full of jokey anachronisms and mo le tau humor, the film is nonetheless affecting due to the charisma and chemistry of the two leads. Francis channels Zatoichi with a twist–he’s a sensitive and noble, lovelorn guy.
Francis with bangs, The White Dragon, 2005
He also battles a very bad haircut but miraculously manages to become more and more attractive, even though he spends half the film with his eyes rolled up in his head. The scene where he discovers that Cecilia thinks he’s handsome is classic–charming, funny and convincing. Kudos to Cecilia Cheung (who won Best Actress at the HK Film Awards) for keeping her bratty character light and appealing. Wilson Yip continues his schizophrenic directing career, combining wuxia, comedy, romance and satire in classic HK style.
Dancing Lion, dir. Marco Mak & Francis Ng, 2007
Kinda dumb, unfortunately. Sitcom-style humor about a dysfunctional family that starts a lion dancing business and becomes a HK phenomenom. Francis co-directs and stars as a forty-year-old hip hop wannabe dope.
Francis and bling, Dancing Lion, 2007
Anthony Wong is amazing as a 72-year-old lion dance master–he’s very fun to watch in an otherwise dippy film.
Francis & Anthony in furry pants, Dancing Lion, 2007
Himalaya Singh, dir. Wai Kar-Fei, 2005
“Hey, you ever been to India?” “No, why?” “Wanna make a movie there?” “Well, what’s there?” “I dunno, elephants, cobras, yoga.” “Okay, sounds great. Think Francis & Lau Ching Wan will want to go?” “Yeah, and maybe Cecilia.” “Okay, let’s do it.” “And we need to find some Indian guys who can speak Cantonese.”
Cultural insensitivity, HK style, Himalaya Singh, 2005
The Gory Details: 26 Francis Ng 吳鎮宇 Movies in 4 Weeks
Francis Ng as a naughty triad boss, Infernal Affairs II
In response to some of you who have asked me to elaborate on the 26 Francis Ng movies I watched in four weeks, here are some bullet reviews of them. As a bit of background, many of you know that I’ve got a thing for Hong Kong films and that in 1997 I made an experimental documentary called Beyond Asiaphilia that outlined my love for Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li and other HK movie kings. At that time I was seeing about 3-4 HK movies a week, almost all in Bay Area movie theaters such as the Great Star, the World, the 4-Star and the UC Theater. All of those but the 4-Star have since shut down and, since the 1997 handover and economic crisis, the HK movie industry is a shadow of its former self. Hong Kong used to produce upwards of 300 films per year–today its output is around 50-100 films.
Francis Ng swaggers into the Golden Horse Awards, 2006
Because of this, and because my first daughter was born in 2000, my HK movie viewing declined steeply. I still managed to keep up with the latest Johnny To and Wong Kar-Wai films but most of the HK film scene passed me by.
Hence I was unaware of the rise of Francis Ng as a leading man, which started to take place around 1999 when he won several Best Actor awards for films such as The Mission, Bullets Over Summer, and 2000 AD.
When I was watching HK movies in the mid-nineties, I knew Francis Ng mostly for his quirky character work in movies like Young & Dangerous. Seeing his body of work this month, from films made after 2000, made me realize that he has grown far beyond those roles as an actor and as a movie star.
But apparently what pushed Francis into HK idol stardom was his role in the hit HK television drama Triumph In The Skies, where he played an upstanding, straitlaced airline pilot.
I’m not sure exactly what spurred this past month’s obsessive viewing of so many Francis Ng movies but he’s so good and watchable in almost everything he’s in, and he’s made so many movies, that it wasn’t hard to find several of them to watch.
Wacky Francis and bra, Crazy ‘n’ the City, 2005
He’s also grown into his face in the past 10 years and, depending on the movie and the hairstyle, can be ridiculously good-looking or insanely strange.
He’s blessed with a fine, photogenic bone structure, and has a mobile, expressive face and an agile grace that makes him a perfect screen performer.
Cross-eyed Francis, Juliet In Love, 1999
His eyes are also just slightly crossed, which adds an odd, somewhat feline quality to his looks.
Number of times Francis plays a cop: 2
Number of movies in which Francis dies: 14
Number of times Francis gets the girl: 10
- The Mission–Francis in feral, intense mode. Great movie which also stars Anthony Wong, Roy Cheung, & Lam Suet as hard-guy bodyguards to a timid mob boss.
- Exiled–Francis as one of a group of cool hired guns. Reunites most of the cast from The Mission with brilliant director Johnny To.
- Infernal Affairs 2–Prequel to Infernal Affairs. One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time, especially Francis’s amazing, low-key performance as a reluctant Triad boss. Compare this to The Mission and some of Francis’s other OTT performances and you’ll see his fantastic range & versatility.
- Juliet In Love–my favorite. A wonderful, emotional, sad and beautiful story. Francis plays a none-too-bright, aimless hoodlum who finds love and redemption from an unlikely source.
- Full Alert–Francis as a complex bad guy in a cat & mouse game with Lau Ching Wan. Intense and haunting Ringo Lam movie.
Good:
- Too Many Ways To Be #1–weird but fun alternative timeline triad movie.
- Shiver–great, naturalistic Francis performance but he’s got terrible orange hair and a pathetic mustache
- Bullets Over Summer–Francis as a lonely cop in a subtle and emotional performance. Same director, Wilson Yip, as Juliet In Love.
- On The Edge–Francis in a supporting role as a sympathetic triad boss. He could’ve sleepwalked through it but actually puts in a worthy effort
- Wo Hu–another Triad boss supporting role–funny & complex
- Colour of the Truth–Francis is only in the first ten minutes or so, yet again as Triad boss, but makes a great impression. His scene with Anthony Wong & Lau Ching Wan is a textbook example of incredible ensemble acting.
- Love Trilogy–Charming romantic comedy with Francis and Anita Yuen as a bickering married couple. One of the few movies where he doesn’t die horribly.
- Fantasia–hilarious HK comedy, with Lau Ching Wan, Jordan Chan, Louis Koo, the Twins, Cecilia Chung & many others. Ridiculous and funny.
- Crazy ‘n’ The City–Francis shows his range again as a mentally ill man who falls in love. Bad hair day for him, though.
- Young and Dangerous–Ugly Kwan! So funny, especially the growly voice, the bangs, the goatee, and the orange clothes. And so much more fun to watch than the wooden Ekin Cheng. No wonder Kwan got his own spinoff series (Once Upon A Time In Triad Society 1 & 2).
Bad:
- Curse of Lola–Francis channels Tony Leung Chi-Wai, but even he can’t save the dreadful & pretentious script.
- The Closet–WTF? Wannabe Ring & Ju-On clone. Francis does some neat magic tricks & bonds with a cute kid.
- Shamo–another supporting part, this time in an ultraviolent manga adaptation. Francis is cool but the movie is pretty unwatchable. Thank god for fast forward.
- Karmic Mah Jong–the only movie I couldn’t finish it was so bad. Pointless & obtuse, and Francis has an especially unflattering haircut in it.
Indifferent:
- One Last Dance–A cool Francis performance in a muddled movie. Might be better the second time around. Classic scene with hostages, plastic wrap, scotch tape and a fork.
- Bullet & Brain–very dumb Wong Jing movie with funny & cool performances by Francis & Anthony Wong. Watching Francis strut and pose is of course lots of fun (bonus points for also looking very hot doing it). Just fast forward over anything without him or Anthony in it.
- Legal Innocence–really really creepy & disturbing Category 3 movie about a gruesome true-crime HK murder involving a love triangle and a body decomposed in acid. Francis is great but unsettling. Cecilia Yip & Anthony Wong also turn in good performances.
- Beauty and the Breast–actually a pretty funny and entertaining movie, if you’re not too demanding. Francis is hilarious as the office lothario who gets his commuppance (hint: it involves prosthetic mammaries). Just try to imagine Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt taking a part like this & you’ll understand what makes HK films special.
- Gen-X Cops–Ridiculous film starring popstar prettyboys as undercover cops. Francis lights up the screen as yet another Triad–unfortunately he buys the farm (again) by the middle of the movie, but not before delivering a profane and hilarious final speech, in English, though he obviously didn’t speak the language well at the time. Despite this, he makes it one of the highlights of an otherwise predictable and idiotic movie.
- A Man Called Hero–Francis plays a Japanese swordmaster bent on world domination. He has a CGI duel Anthony Wong as a Chinese martial arts sage and as well as a climactic battle with wooden man Ekin Cheng atop the Statue of Liberty (don’t ask).
- Deadly Delicious–Francis plays a philandering husband who suffers a horrible revenge from his pissed-off wife. Involves lethal doses of shrimp and other Chinese delicacies.
Yet to see:
A War Named Desire
Bakery Amour
Once Upon A Time in Triad Society 1 & 2
HK Triad
The White Dragon
Dancing Lion
beyondasiaphilia 
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