Now entering its 13th year, the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival does not always attract the best of Asian and Asian-themed cinema. (The opening night gala in 2007 was Finishing the Game? Really?) However, it usually does provide a good chance to see some hidden independent gems, as well as Asian-produced box office hits unlikely to land a North American studio distribution deal. This year’s line-up is looking exciting, particularly because of the centrepiece presentation: Red Heroine (1929), the only surviving martial arts film of its period, will be screening Friday at the Royal with live musical accompaniment. In addition to the vintage kung foolery, here are three more major screenings.
OVERHEARD
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The last decade has been a disastrous one for the Hong Kong film industry. Once among the most vibrant and prolific film producers in the world, an annual output of 400-plus theatrical features has dwindled to around 50 thanks to a combination of rampant piracy and a shortage of new talent. Overheard, the festival’s opening night gala, comes from Alex Mak and Felix Chong, two of the makers of Infernal Affairs (2002), one of the few really worthwhile and globally successful Hong Kong films this decade. Overheard is one of the region’s most successful local productions this year, and it is indeed above average for contemporary Hong Kong commercial filmmaking. Ostensibly about three cops (Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, and Daniel Wu) tasked to spy on a business firm suspected of insider trading and price fixing, Overheard isn’t so much a suspense thriller as a slick soap opera, with Koo tempted into corruption to support his dying son and Lau holding a secret affair with another cop’s estranged wife. The story walks the line of believability in its later scenes, and I’m not sure I’ll remember much of this a few months from now. Overheard is, however, serviceable entertainment. And as anyone who’s been following Hong Kong cinema over the last 10 years can tell you, there’s something to be said for serviceable.
FISH STORY
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A Japanese punk band primarily famous for having broken up “one year before the forming of The Sex Pistols” (as on-screen text tells us twice) record their last single, a Dadaist oddity called “Fish Story” based on a bit of bad translation from a paperback published just after the Second World War. A meteor races towards Earth 37 years later, and two men in a Tokyo record store spend their last hours attempting to decipher the meaning of the one-minute silence within the song. Amid these book-ending plot threads, director Yoshihiro Nakamura’s very deadpan comedy (based on a novel by Kotaro Isaka) shifts to several different subplots spanning four decades, the connection between them ambiguous until the final scene. Compulsively watchable for its dry tone and enigmatic plot, Fish Story is an entertaining testament to the importance of chance—until the ending explains how everything fits together, and the effect becomes somewhat anticlimactic. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the revelation, but I wish Nakamura had taken a cue from the film’s band and left a little more to the imagination.
YANG YANG
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Yang Yang is the second feature-length film from director Cheng Yu-Chieh, whose Do Over received some acclaim on the festival circuit in 2006. The film follows its title character, a Eurasian teenager (Sadrine Pinna), as her mother marries Yang Yang’s track and field coach and her best friend Xiao-Ru becomes her stepsister. Shawn (Bryant Chang), Xiao-Ru’s boyfriend, takes an increasing interest in Yang Yang, and tensions rise between the two friends. Shot in claustrophobic close-ups with a handheld camera—a technique easier to take in small doses, admittedly—Yang Yang is still a strikingly intimate drama with naturalistic performances from its three leads. Director Cheng shows considerable skill with mood: he knows how to evoke his characters’ restlessness in visual terms.
The Reel Asian Film Festival runs from Nov. 11 to 15. Locations include Innis Town Hall and Bloor Cinema. For more information, visit reelasian.com.
