Silk

Silk (2006) Directed by Chao-Bin Su
Starring Chen Chang, Yosuke Eguchi, Karena Lam, Bo-lin Chen, Chun-Ning Chang, Barbie Hsu

Combining science-fiction and horror Chao-Bin Su offers an often intriguing but unfortunately imbalanced movie with Silk. The premise is so preposterous that by taking itself seriously the film becomes its own caricature, failing where something like Ghostbusters or even The Frighteners succeed. It’s a good effort in some respects and easy enough to watch with beer and pizza, but so frustrating you’ll be tempted to throw leftover crust at the screen.

An international team of scientists have assembled in Taiwan led by the perfectly coiffured Hashimoto (Yosuke Eguchi) and his cold-blooded reptilian assistant Su (Barbie Hsu) searching for ghosts. After their sleaze-ball token white guy winds up dead in an apartment they quarantine the building (by having the Taiwanese government, under pressure from the Japanese government, declare a radiation hazard) and erect a high-tech office. Inside a glassed encased room sits a little boy, his eyes too milky-white and his skin too pale to be alive.

It turns out Hashimoto has discovered a way to levitate, utilizing the energy of the dead by means of a scientific substance you can spray in your eyes or on the doorknob. The Japanese want millions of floating cubes to revolutionize their industry but unfortunately there’s a real lack of ghosts in the world so a lot is riding on this one little boy. All attempts to understand the ghost and why he exists have failed, forcing Hashimoto to call in Taiwanese supercop Tung (Chen Chang) who can read lips and has a photographic memory. This newcomer to the team is met with great contempt and petty office jealousies threaten to derail the project, but not nearly as much as the fact that Tung’s mother is comatose and requires constant monitoring at the hospital.

After driving around the block to cool off Tung convinces his non-girlfriend Wei (Karena Lam) to babysit mother and joins the ghost squad, only to find a revolt taking place. Someone’s trying to walk off with the dead little boy, and suddenly we see just how dangerous he can be. After everyones shock and grief subsides the movie shifts gears and becomes something of an investigation. Tung is to use his supercop skills to track down everything about this boy and eventually he is to follow him outside of the house; every afternoon at four the ghost tries to leave but is repelled by the ghost cage. The ultimate goal is to discover who the little boy was and where his body has been buried so they can understand the true nature of his undead persistence.

Unfortunately many liberties are taken by Hashimoto in the course of his work and the Japanese minister in charge of secret levitation decides to close up shop. Hashimoto goes rogue, Tung tries to sort out his feelings on unplugging his mother (and should really work on busting a move on Wei) and the other members of the team who never seemed to do much of anything go about their business unaffected by developments. Of course, dead little boys and their secrets don’t handle the stress so well and all hell breaks loose.

 

July Rhapsody

July Rhapsody (2002) Directed by Ann Hui
Written by Ivy Ho
Starring Jacky Cheung, Anita Mui, Kar Yan (Karena) Lam

A delicate and sympathetic examination of the fragility of relationships as they endure time, reflection and the unexpected. Oddly I grabbed this from a bin when I caught Ivy Ho’s name, scribe behind the accursed Anna Magdalena, and was caught off-guard by the this genuine and touching portrayal of a middle-aged man confronting where his life has taken him, torn between struggling to preserve what he has and the impulse to cast everything aside.

We meet Yiu Kwok Lam (Jacky Cheung) as he sits on the beach, nose buried in a book of classic Chinese poetry. His son, on the verge of leaving for university, tries to open his father to the brilliant sunshine that surrounds them, and instead finds himself listening to a story still being written. Lam teaches classics to an unruly Hong Kong highschool class who could care less, with the sole exception of Choy Lam Wu (Karena Lam), a precocious yet distracted girl who sketches Lam as she gazes adoringly at him. Her peers know about the crush, the other teachers know about the crush, Lam is more concerned that Wu focuses on her school work.

At home Lam has a loving and supportive relationship with his wife, Man Ching (Anita Mui in her last role before succumbing to cervical cancer), and tries to be a good father to his two teenaged sons. They’re a close-knit family sharing a cramped apartment, all that Lam’s salary is able to afford. That money is tight is never made an issue but his old friends from school have all found great success since college. Although no one ever mocks him for becoming a public school teacher Lam’s pride is hurt every time someone picks up the check, or hires him to tutor their son.

The disconnection from his past is mirrored by his own inability to stay up on current trends and consequently with his younger son. For solace he turns to his wife who is too practical to feel much pity, his friend who works as a bartender (and who is the lowest rung on their alma mater totem pole) and his beloved poetry. Life is, despite the routine and daily struggles, still worth living.

Until the bottom drops out. Man Ching reunites with a man from the past, presumably an old lover and quite definitely Lam’s mentor from his own highschool days. Their former teacher has returned, near death and alone, and Lam angrily refuses to discuss his wife’s visits to the hospital to see him to the end. Then the news comes that his friend’s bar will be closing and that he’ll be moving to Shenzhen (the overly industrialized boom-town on the mainland directly across from Hong Kong) for work. Lam’s poetry is now polluted by memories of the past, both of yearning and hurt, and he begins to reflect on his youthful ambitions before settling down with a family.

After enduring relentless advances from the persistent Choy Lam he begins a friendship. It’s almost accidental, except that she has been following him around town on buses, making every effort to find time to be alone. She’s mature for her age but still hopelessly young, filled with the spirit of adventure that had drawn Lam to classic poetry twenty years prior. Feeling a growing attraction but knowing that it jeopardizes his marriage, he’s forced to confront the divide between what was, is and could be. It’s not a very easy thing to do.