When one thinks of Hong Kong cinema these days, one tends to imagine martial epics or huge, VFX-driven spectacles. The industry there seems to have changed drastically over the last couple of decades, with production being geared towards much larger markets, like the Mainland Chinese audience. Standing against that trend is Pang Ho-Cheung, whose 2012 film Vulgaria featured content that would never pass the decency standards of the Chinese government, and at times displayed outright disdain for the Mainland Chinese as a whole.
Pang is the producer of one of the films in the Asian Future section of this festival, Lazy Hazy Crazy, which is the directorial debut of Luk Yee-sum, writer of Vulgaria. It tells the story of three high school girls in Hong Kong. Two of them make money on the side as prostitutes, while the other is slowly being drawn into that world by merit of friendship. This sounds like a story that’s been told a thousand times before, but the film approaches this whole enterprise from a really refreshing angle.
Because this isn’t a simple tale of morality gone wrong, of girls being led down tragic paths. The film just begins from the idea that some high school girls in Hong Kong are selling sex for money. With that fact out of the way, the film delves into a depiction of teenage life in Hong Kong that feels altogether natural. Buoyed by amazing dialogue and honest, uncluttered filmmaking, the film ends up feeling like quite the achievement. I’m not sold on a subplot that involves the three main girls all falling for the same guy, but it does fit within this teenage world that the film is building. This is a really promising debut from Luk Yee-sum. Hopefully, Hong Kong cinema affords her more opportunities to express her unique voice.
Ghost Theater is the new film from Hideo Nakata, who is best known for The Ring. Fans of his earlier work, however, will probably be baffled by his latest. It begins years in the past, in what feels like the end of a whole other movie. A life size doll has murdered two girls, and their father breaks it into pieces. In present day, a struggling young actress is cast in a play that dramatizes the legend of Elizabeth Bathory. And there, she and the production encounter the same deadly doll.
What made The Ring and other films like so revolutionary at the time was that they approached horror from a more low-key place. They worked off by first establishing very normal circumstances, creating the horror off of the intrusion of supernatural events. Ghost Theater, on the other hand, starts from a heightened place right away. Nakata abandons his usual aesthetic seemingly to pay tribute to the horror of earlier decades.
Desensitized modern audiences will probably laugh off the film’s attempt at scares. And even given the context of what the director is trying to do, the movie still doesn’t really work all that well. It spends too much time investigating the origins of the doll. The answers aren’t really all that important, and the film would probably have been better off just having fun with the goofy aesthetic. Elements of camp emerge through the film’s commitment to the elements of this particular style of horror, and that stuff is actually pretty fun to watch. But the film gets caught up in an unnecessary search for answers, and it slows things down considerably.
Japanese director SIon Sono isn’t exactly known for making family-friendly films. This is partly what makes Love & Peace such a treat. Sono made his name on a film that was basically about the acceptance of perversion in a romantic context, and continued to build a reputation through films that never showed any trepidation in the depiction of sex and violence. With Love & Peace, the director still employs the same wacky energy, but he applies it to a genuinely heartwarming story about the importance of remembering the past.
The film tells the story of a failed musician now stuck in a dead end job. Depressed and lonely, he buys a turtle. He spends all of his time with this turtle that he names “Pikadon,” and shares his dream of becoming a musician with the tiny amphibian. But when his co-workers find out about the turtle, he flushes Pikadon down a toilet in shame. Through machinations that are better left seen later on, Pikadon gains the power to grant wishes. And as our protagonist’s dreams come true, Pikadon grows larger in the sewers, his body responding to the grandness of his master’s dreams.
If that sounds bizarre, that’s because it is. This is a very strange film that never hides its madness. It can actually be a little off-putting, its opening minutes so openly deranged that some people might not make it through. But then the film starts revealing its ridiculous, open heart, and its sincere plea to never betray who we are and where we came from. This is Sion Sono’s most accessible film by far, and if anyone wants to get into his work, this might be a good gateway into his particular brand of insanity.
