SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Michael Ledo The movie starts out interesting as a look into Chinese investment banking industry. Brokers are pressured to sell investments. They are pushing BRIC, a portfolio of 20 stocks that invests in firms in Brazil, India, and China...something I personally wouldn't mind owning. It is "high risk." The bank charges 2%. People on low fixed incomes are allowed to invest their life savings in the deal. Teresa (Denise Ho) is one such broker who is torn between ripping people off and doing her job.Yuen (Hoi-Pang Lo) hates the banking system and keeps his money in liquid savings. When the EU economy crashes, its ripple effect hits Chinese investors. Yuen is now rich as he has money to loan at 30% interest rates. Given a window of opportunity, Teresa manages to obtain a bag of money belonging to Yuen, a man who seems to disgust her. The film's idea of humor is to make puns of BRIC and brick. And:Who ordered noodles before the banquet? The fat guy over there.Later it does engage in more sophisticated humor, even a bit of mild irony.I was more fascinated when they made an arrest. They said something similar to the Miranda rights and offered the criminal a hood to wear to shield himself from the public, unlike in the US where the cops parade criminals around the police station doing "the walk of shame." Inspector Cheung (Richie Ren) is a straight laced detective/ police officer. His wife Connie (Myolie Wu) wants to lease an apartment out of their price range.The crime syndicate is a brotherhood, so everyone is confusingly called "brother" or "sister" or "older sister" or "Fourth brother." It is difficult to tell who is blood related and who is not, possibly a translation issue. The gangsters, banking, gambling, and investment industries are all related in this film. There is also a plethora of US name brand products in the background.The film shifts from the banking industry plot to the crime subplot. I initially thought they were chronological, but as it was they were concurrent and it takes you up to the point when they both come together. We then run the cop subplot through. At this point the film picks up.The story was mildly interesting, but what was more interesting was watching the Chinese operating Hong Kong like real capitalists. Most of the signs were still in English. I am giving the film 4 stars mostly due to the modern cultural insight into China and the promise it shows in Chinese film production. It was refreshing to see a Chinese film where the actors don't spend a lot of time fighting horizontally in the air, defying gravity.No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Pretty Chinese women in short business skirts.

Paul Magne Haakonsen "Life Without Principle" ("Dyut Meng Gam") was nothing at all what I had expected it to be. Was it better than I had anticipated? No, hardly so.As much as I enjoy Hong Kong cinema, then this movie failed to utterly embrace and capture my liking. Why? Well, I guess it was because the movie tried to tell different tales that were spinning around the same axis - an axis that was a bag with 5 million Hong Kong dollars - but ultimately failed to wrap all stories up in a satisfying way.Ching Wan Lau (playing Panther) really carried the movie most of the time and did a good job with his portrayal of a rather twitchy and edgy guy in the Hong Kong gangster milieu. But also Denise Ho (playing Teresa) put on a memorable performance in the movie. Richie Ren (playing inspector Cheung) was also doing a good job. Terence Yin (playing Mr. Sung) could have use a lot more screen-time, because his role was too small and had potential to bring something greater to the movie had he been given the chance.There were aspects of the movie that were great, but in overall the movie didn't fully deliver. And of course, it is not all Hong Kong movies that bring the goods to the table, and for me, then "Life Without Principle" failed to do so miserably on some levels.I doubt that I will ever put this movie on again for a second watching, as it just doesn't have that much leverage or that much to offer. Director Johnnie To has far better movies to his directing career.

lasttimeisaw Johnnie To, the Godfather of Hong Kong, is the doughtiest and arguably the only Hong Kong film auteur still safeguards the pedigree of the untainted spirit from its halcyon days, after the detrimental ramifications of the censorship battlefield with mainland Chinese policy, which put Hong Kong film industry into a retrograde quagmire, only from Johnnie To's prolific output one (especially for those who has witnessed or influenced by Hong Kong films' golden era, e.g. 1980-1997) can retrieve some salve from the bleak situation (underpins by the poignant slogan "Hong Kong Film is Dead!). LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE has its clear-sighted objective dispassionateness, adopts 3 discrete narratives from a cop, a bank clerk and a Triad member (with tentative overlays) all converge with a parking lot homicide case, and intriguingly delineates the current situation in Hong Kong society under the background of Greece's ecumenic catastrophe, which reflects the anxiety and levity in normal citizens' mind set. A dowdy retired housewife falls prey to the callous investment chicanery, a vivid mirror image of millions of ourselves, bank system embezzles people's hard-earned savings, benefits from the (almost inclusive) profit while shunts all the risky liabilities to each account holder, a deep-rooted capitalism scourge on the modern society. Veteran actress Hang Shuen So conducts a visceral impersonation using her meager appearance as the cipher victim. Denise Ho (an out-of-the-closet lesbian singer and new actress) garnishes the office-confined monotony with her restrained tolerance and discontentment as the conscientious clerk, a subdued archetypal in the white-collar hierarchy. Versatile actor Ching Wan Lau is the Triad minion, pious to his boss and brothers, although time changes, the Triad business are at the low ebb now, but his foolhardiness resists with a perverse tenderness, in a time when brotherhood can be easily teased as homo-erotic metonymy, his loyalty is far-fetched but resonates with the gangster nostalgia which permeates the genre's best moments (To's ELECTION 2005, 8/10 and TRIAD ELECTION 2006, 8/10 are among the swan songs), Ching Wan Lau experiments a methodological mimicry with blinking-laden vivacity in his character's naive and befuddled persistence. The third thread germinates from Richie Ran's cop, which ruefully is the weakest link and casts a shadow to the development of the character's below-the-surface tension, the elevator incident with explosive serves the only chilly thrill of the film which feels insatiable for To's generic followers. The ending mercifully caters for a interim reprieve to the 3 protagonists, but To seems to be as unconvincing as the audiences, the fluke (gamble) is not an elixir, the stopgap is rickety, everyone is still caught in the spiderweb and the exit sign seems too far to reach.

dumsumdumfai His film always leave s smirk or a smile on my face. And that is enough and that is what I expected. If I wanted a big laugh I would go for campy movie or a Japanese over the top serial, like Unburo Deka (sp). But Johnny's film are intricate character studies. And all of it's character that is. Here I especially enjoy Lau, and his current of ex-triad associates. They are hilarious!!! The Big-Eye character, the recycle guy, the others you see at the banquet. Sure, you get all the different message of luck vs planning, honesty vs white lies, the power(or evil need) of money ..etc. But it's not didactic, in your face. It is woven in a storey. Yeah,it's emphasized in the banking sequence with the old lady. But it worked in a dramatic way. Denise Ho is a surprise to me. Sure I'm not in HK and don't know the scene. But she's natural and understated not to overact here at all. While Lau's character brings some energy to the whole subtle mood. Wathched the deleted scene also. There's another storey there. Not sure if it is too extraneous but explained something. And I would say this one is more attractive a storey than the housing one. Although albeit the housing issue is more easily related to the common folks.But overall, very enjoyable. Tightly weaved, correctly casted, handled with care.