• Dance of a Dream
• Dark Sun, Bright Shade
• Darkness and Light
• Days of being Wild
• Days, The
• Deadend of Besiegers
• Deadful Melody
• Deadliest Art, The
• Deadly Dream Woman
• Dodes Ka-Den
• Don't Give a Damn
• Downtown Torpedoes
• Dragon Lord
• Dragon Town Story
• Dragons Forever
• Dream Factory
• Drifting Life, A
• Drunken Master II
• Drunken Master III
• Duel, The
• Duel to the Death
• Dust in the Wind
• Dust of Angels

Dance of a Dream

Anyone who enjoyed Simply Ballroom or Shall We Dance? ought to find a lot to like in Dance Of A Dream, a sweet romance filled with plenty of amazing dance scenes. Andy Lau has his best role since the original Running Out Of Time, as the brilliant and ambitious dance instructor who's not above using scheming and deception to further his career goals. As the waitress who entrolls in Lau's class after falling in love with him while watching him perform, Sandra Ng gives a touching performance, and Anita Mui is also very good as a socialite with her own personal reasons for becoming Lau's student. Don't form any firm judgments about the characters too soon, though, because though everyone is what they seem to be at first, this is a movie where the characters are always capable of change. Also featured are a couple of song-and-dance numbers that give the movie a touch of Moulin Rouge. The spirit of Astaire and Rogers, after making its presence felt in recent years in films from Australia and Japan, comes to Hong Kong in a movie that's practically the definition of "charming".

Director: Andrew Lau Wai-Keung (2001)

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Dark Sun, Bright Shade

This one-hour drama is set in Canada and deals with the reaction of a number of members of the Chinese immigrant community there to the events of Tienanmen Square in 1989. Pei is an actual immigrant from China who worries about the fates of friends she's left behind, and Paul is of Chinese ancestry but born and raised in Canada. He looks at Pei's concerns a bit skeptically and wonders how he (Pei) can have so much faith that his nation will "see the light". Their debate gives the movie a strong semi-documentary feel, as if we're not watching a movie but peeking in on two actual friends and their conversations... as does Paul's frustrations with his father, who firmly believes in conservative confucian values and says he might have done the same thing as the government if he'd been in their place. But the moments of realism are often interrupted by scenes in which the characters are shown in stylized, Chinese Opera-type scenarios, carrying on the debates in a manner out of stories thousands of years old. And the fact that Pei and Paul are gay and lovers (and would never have been able to be together in China) adds another dimension to the tale. Dark Sun, Bright Shade takes a look at often-discussed problems in rarely-discussed ways, for an hour of thought-provoking drama.

Starring Joe Yuen as Paul and Alex Pak as Pei. Written and directed by "Kwoi." (Review written: 6/11/02)

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Darkness and Light

Kang-yi is a young girl who returns to her family in Taiwan after living away from home for some time. Not really familiar any more with the culture or customs of her former home, she begins adjusting to them rather awkwardly, something made a little easier when she meets Ah-Ping, the son of a neighboring family also returning home after an even longer absence... he barely even speaks any Taiwanese. In their similar predicaments they help each other feel less isolated in a very low-key, realistic drama about homecoming and life as you can believe it actualkly is lived. (Review written: 6/12/02)

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Days of being Wild

There are few names in Hong Kong cinema that can assure you a film that will will be worth your time. Wong Kar-Wai is certainly among that handful, and this film, a kind of early take on the themes and ideas of Chung King Express and Fallen Angels, is among his more intriguing. So Lai-Chan and Didi are a young couple whose relationship falls apart when Lai-Chan begins to feel that too much of her identity is wrapped up in Didi. As in Chung King Express and Fallen Angels we hear their story narrated in a voice-over from each of their points of view, and follow them as they move on to other relationships in which they continue to face the same problems of figuring out who they are and maintaining their individuality while dealing with the loneliness of the typical Wong Kar-Wai city dweller. Wong plays games with audiences' expectations, as well... such as a fight scene in a restaurant that CUTS AWAY FROM the action just as it's building, then shows us a character leaping from the second story to a passing truck below, then cuts away AGAIN before we see the landing! (Just in case anyone thinks Wong Kar-Wai is in the business of fulfilling the expectations of action junkies.) In fact, he's in the business of constantly surprising his audiences with real stories of modern urbanites with real emotions, and he does it again in Days Of Being Wild.

Featuring Maggie Cheung and Andy Lau. (Review written: 6/14/02)

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The Days

Xia Dong and Xia Chun are a young married couple living in Beijing. The passion has definitely gone out of their relationship, and "romance" is just a category of cheap novels as far as they're concerned. Yet they never argue or fight (that would require passion about SOMETHING) and the subject of divorce or separation is never mentioned. When the two of them take a brief vacation to his home village and she meets his family for the first time, a certain spark seems to bring her to life... but will it be enough? The Days is a very low-key, naturalistic movie (except for the fact that it's shot in black & white), and the performances are deliberately flat... not just low-key (which would imply restrained emotion), but drained of emotion completely. While this does fit the characters and the daily lives they find themselves living, it's a little too effective for its own good... the lives of two people who no longer feel much of anything, played in an emotionless style, doesn't make the VIEWER feel much of anything, either. As Xia Chun's interest in her huaband's past begins to spark her curiosity you very briefly get the idea that this will mean that the (up until now) totally hidden reservoirs of deep feeling will now burst forth... but no such luck. The dissolution of a formerly close, caring marriage ought to be an emotionally devastating subject... even to, say, a 50-year-old movie critic who's never been married... but this film just doesn't grab you (perhaps if we had actually SEEN what the relationship had been like before, but we me only meet the two after all the damage has been done). The movie is filmed wonderfully, and the use of black & white is so inventive that you might actually forget after a while that it's not in color... but the technical qualities of a film, however excellent, are not enough to make up for a movie's lack of heart and soul. Of course, it's entirely possible that the person reading this might watch the film and find it emotionally overwhelming, but, hey... you've got to call them as you see them.

Starring Yu Hong and Liu Xiadong (it's virtually a two-character movie). Written and directed by Whang Xiaoshuai. (Review written: 1/13/03)

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Deadend of Besiegers

If you enjoy historical kung fu epics... if you enjoy stories of pirates raiding villages of innocent peasants... if you enjoy really, REALLY bad dubbing... this is the movie for you. A group of Japanese pirates is about to loot and pillage a seaside village, but they don't count on the one member of their group who is not an actual pirate at all, but was kidnapped and forced into their world. He's on the side of the villagers, and once he escapes and befriends a local girl, the villagers have a new weapon against the pirates... the secrets of Japanese martial arts that their new ally teaches them in exchange for learning Chinese kung fu. Some very impressive demonstrations of the martial arts of both China and Japan, alongside plenty of light-hearted comedic moments, and the kind of dubbing where characters continue talking for quite some time after their lips stop moving. This is the kind of movie where that sort of thing adds to the enjoyment.

Starring Yang Li Ding and Yu Rong Guang. Produced by Chen Yin Hua and directed by Zhang Siu Wai. (Review written: 6/11/02)

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Deadful Melody

There's a grand tradition in classic period kung fu and swordplay movies of stories about some particular mystical object that's sought by warring factions because it can make the possessor the ruler of the world of martial arts (some people might find it odd that these objects rarely if ever seem to have any direct CONNECTION to actual martial arts, but let's not get into that now...). Deadful Melody falls squarely into that tradition. One of the strongest, most mysterious women in Hong Kong films, Bridget Lin, plays a woman who, as a small child, watched her parents killed by enemies who were after the magic lyre they possessed. She managed to escape, and has been safe all these years because the enemies thought her dead and the lyre destroyed. But now it's time for revenge, and Lin concocts a scheme to gather all the villains together to get their comeuppance. Little does she know that her brother, whom SHE didn't realize was still living, has been ADOPTED by one of the villains and is accompanying him, to fight by and on his side. As many spectacular swordfights and magic-filled fight scenes as any of the Swordsman films, with Bridget Lin at her fiercest and most powerful, plus just the right amount of humor in the right places make this a must for fans of fantasy, action, swordplay... in fact, most of the various genres you can think of. (Review written: 6/12/02)

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The Deadliest Art

This feature-length documentary is not the HISTORY of the martial arts films that you might think it is at first, but more of a broad general survey of some of the more popular performers and styles in that genre over the past thirty or so years. So a total stranger to martial arts cinema would probably be well advised to read one or more of the books available on the subject first. But with a little of the background absorbed, this film will unquestionably make the novice want to rush out and see as many of these incredible movies as they can. And even though the martial arts geeks will know virtually every film presented here, it's still astonishing to see so many classic moments together like this, not to mention the exclusive-to-this-film on-screen interviews with people like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Cynthia Rothrock. The film contains not only segments on the careers of each of these stars as well as others like Yuen Biao and Bruce Lee, but also brief explorations of such topics as how martial arts films have often blended kung fu and the supernatural, and the active, not-at-all-passive roles women have often played in them (in addition to Rothrock, Angela Mao is well respresented here, for instance). The film is narrated by American actor John Saxon (Bruce Lee's co-star in Enter The Dragon) and is produced by Fred Weintraub, the producer of that film (it's directed by his wife, Sandra, and features notable commentary from Dragon director Robert Clouse). While there's little in here that the long-time fan won't already know, The Deadliest Art is still fascinating, very highly entertaining viewing for anyone with even the remotest interest in martial arts films, and except for one terrifying segment, actually lives up to its sub-title, The Best Of The Martial Arts Films. That one segment? A brief reference to Jean-Claude Van Damme and a clip from one of his earliest films, No Retreat, No Surrender. Van Damme in the BEST Of The Martial Arts Films? But let's give the film-makers the benefit of the doubt here. After all, this could just be an example of their sense of humor. Maybe they meant it as a joke. (Review written: 1/03/03).

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Deadly Dream Woman

Huang Po is the daughter of a powerful Triad leader, and also serves as his most trusted and feared "enforcer"... most often clad in a costume and mask that make her look like one of the members of the Heroic Trio. But when that old movie standby, amnesia, strikes, she forgets all of that and winds up living with a group of women who work for an "escort service" run by a friendly, motherly type (who may be more than she seems) who dubs her "Chanelle." Of course, characters from "Chanelle*quot;'s past inevitably turn up at the most awkward of times, and much kicking, shooting and mayhem ensues. The film starts out looking like it's going to give Heroic Trio a run for its money in a story about a strong, take-no-prisoners woman of action, but as soon as that amnesia hits, we get a VERY long stretch of rather uninspired comedy as our heroine becomes a giggly, naive innocent for about half of the film (albiet a giggly, naive innocent who at times demonstrates surprising kung fu skills). Things pick up considerably in the movie's last half hour as we get some of what the first fifteen minutes promised, but still... is it really worth sitting through 15 minutes of set-up, then 45 minutes of filler, to get to the 30 minutes of pay-off? Undoubtedly, many will think so. Those final fifteen minutes ARE pretty spectacular, after all. But ultimately this film merits a kind of "thumbs sideways." (Review written: 6/12/02)

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Dodes Ka-Den

Akira Kurasowa's story of life in a Tokyo slum in which the populace seems to be plagued with more than their share of worries. A young unmarried woman is pregnant and refuses to name the father (but some suspect her own uncle) and THEN winds up in trouble with the law when she stabs a delivery boy. A homeless single father has to deal with both his seriously ill young son, who may be dying, and the hallucinations he himself is suffering from. A woman is gradually losing her husband to an Alzheimer's-like mental condition. And there's more... Kurasowa had a tremendous sympathy for the sufferings of his fellow creatures, and this film, much quieter and lower-key than the epics he's known for, shows his concern both in the depiction of that suffering, and in the character of the old man who both offers comfort to the single father and refuses to press charges against a burglar who breaks into his house, even offering him money. He's one of two characters in the film who might be looked at as being representatives of Kurasowa himself... the other being the mentally challenged young man who believes himself to be a train conductor, and runs about the village every day doing his "job" while muttering "Dodes Ka-Den" (the sound of a chugging train). How is this Kurasowa? Well, he's one of the few citizens of the village with a genuinely happy life, and he achieves it through the creative power of his imagination. Those who appreciate the quieter, more reflective side of Kurasowa as shown in films like Ikiru and Madadayo will certainly enjoy this gem.

Starring Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, Yoshiyuki Tonomura, Shinsuki Min, Yuko Kusunoki and Junzaburo Ban (Review written: 6/14/02)

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Don't Give a Damn

Directed by and starring Sammo Hung. Sammo plays a Hong Kong cop who captures some drug dealers early in the film, spends the middle third engaging in romantic comedy antics with one of his police colleagues, then swings into action again in the final third when the drug dealer's colleagues come to break them out.

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Downtown Torpedoes

A kind of Mission: Impossible with a more comprehensible story and more interesting characters (like Black Panther Warriors promised to be but wasn't). Jordan Chan and his gang are a bunch of high-tech mercenaries known as ATM (Available Technical Mercenaries) who get roped into a scheme on part of a secret government agency to steal some "plates" (for printing money) from Britain's MI5 (this story is set in the closing days before the handover... coincidence?), who supposedly have them illegally and have evil plans for them. But the man who's hire ATM isn't what he seems and is ready to double cross them... and some other sinister group is about to double cross HIM. As complicated as the story gets, it never gets confusing, and the daring capers and robberies the gang pulls off are genuinely breathtaking. This is a film that starts out moving fast and never slows down. It's the kind of film that could give big, high-tech action movies a good name. (Review written: 6/18/02)

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Dragon Lord

Early Jackie Chan, circa 1980, and both written and directed by Jackie himself. It's not a bad film at all, but coming after his breakout films Snake In Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, it's still curiously lacking. The story, such as it is, involves Jackie as the student at a martial arts school who runs afoul of a set of villains who plan to steal valuable art treasures. The story takes a mystifying amount of time to really get underway, much of the early part of the film being taken up by athletic competitions among the students that do nothing to further the plot, aren't particularly action-packed, and can be rather tedious for viewers who aren't sports fans. Once the plot really does kick in, though, the kung fu and comedy are Jackie at his best, and hold up nicely against what he would be doing a few years down the line. Watch Dragon Lord together with, say, Dragons Forever or Drunken Master II and you'll get an interesting lesson in how much he grew over just a few years. And after all, even the greats still have to start SOMEWHERE. (Review written: 6/18/02)

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Dragon Town Story

There can't be anyone who's seen a substanital number of action films (from Hong Kong or anywhere else in the world) who hasn't seen their share of stories about someone trying to get revenge for the killing of their family. For the most part these films feature a lot of grimacing, grim & angry characters, and rivers of blood being spilled. But when a film has as its executive producer none other than Zhang Yimou of Raise The Red Lantern, Ju Dou, and many others, you might figure you can expect something quite a bit more... and you'd be right. Zao Chun Lu is a young woman whose family was wiped out by a ruthless warlord years ago when she was a child. Now, as an adult, she hires a notorious paid killer, Li Ding Yan, to take on the man responsible... a man who now rules the town with the proverbial iron fist. The film has practically no violence whatsoever, and anyone coming to it hoping for non-stop action will be disappointed. But the depth of the characterization in the film is truly amazing, getting us into the hearts and minds of characters who want vengeance and examining what it means to them to get... or not get... it. The hired killer turns out to be a fascinating character of great honor and principle, much like a Kurosawa samurai. Indeed, even given the lack of violence in the film, it still has a great deal of Kurosawa's approach toward examining the lives of violent men and what makes them that way. This is especially so in the character of the warlord, Xong Ji Biao (played wonderfully by Huang Zhongou, who even bears a certain resemblance to Kurasowa's greatest star, Toshiro Mifune). He OUGHT to, by all the usual standards, be purely despicable, but he turns out to be almost noble and admirable... not the man you thought he was. The film also turns out to be not the movie you thought it was, with a surprising number of plot twists you won't see coming but that make perfect sense in hindsight. Approached with no false expectations, Dragon Town Story provides an hour and 40 minutes of unexpected pleasure.

Also starring Wu Chen Lien and You Yong. Directed by Yang Fenliang. (Review written: 6/20/02)

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Dragons Forever

Now, THIS is an example of three of Hong Kong's greatest at THEIR greatest. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao together in a film directed by Sammo Hung in which Jackie plays a kind of unusual role for him... a suit-and-tie lawyer who often represents clients who are a bit on the shady side (though he personally is unaware of this) and is more than a bit of a womanizer. He winds up taking the side of a corporation whose factory is polluting the local environment (and happens to be manufacturing drugs on the side). When he finds out what they're really up to and realizes they have to be stopped, he teams up with his friends Sammo (as a cop) and Yuen Biao as an expert on bugging and electrical devices who happens to be, shall we say, dancing on the edge of sanity. There may perhaps be more non-stop funny gags in this film than any of this team's others, and Yuen Biao is especially hysterical as a character far more "eccentric" than he usually plays. At the same time, the action scenes are among the most realistically staged that Jackie and company have done, and the finaly half hour or so would have to be a very strong contender for the title of "Single best fight sequence in a Jackie Chan film", most of all when Chan takes on American kick-boxing champion Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, a genuine powerhouse of a fighter, who reportedly held back only very slightly during filming. If you're relatively new to Hong Kong action films and are looking to figure out which ones you should see, this is definitely one you should not miss. (Review written: 6/18/02)

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Dream Factory

This is definitely a film with a premise that hasn't been worked to death. An engaged couple and a couple of associates have formed a company that, for a small fee, will make anyone's dream come true. If you've dreamed of being a brave soldier and winning a battle... if you've wanted to live in another time... whatever it is, within reason of course, they will do it. It's simply a money-making proposition at first, but when the "dream" one client has requested turns sour and they want their old life back... something that isn't so easy for the group to do... and when another "customer" has a tragic situation that just can't be fixed... they begin to reassess the reasons they're doing what they do, and realize that making dreams come true can have repercussions they never considered. An unusual concept well fleshed-out, with memorable cast of characters. If you've ever wished someone would make YOUR dreams come true... maybe you'll think twice!

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A Drifting Life

A film that takes you through the typical daily lives of the people who work on a rural communal farm, and those who live in the small village nearby. Big events, small ones, they're all here.

Produced by Lin Chen-Shang and starring Lee Kong-Shang, Vicky Wei and Grace Chen.

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Drunken Master II (aka., Legend of Drunken Master, U.S. Title)

Many Jackie Chan fans maintain that this is his peak achievement, and there is much in this film to support their argument. This is another of those films that, logically shouldn't work... 16 years after the 1978 film that first made him a star, the now 40-year-old Jackie returns to the role of YOUNG Wong Fei-Hung (with a stepmother played by Anita Mui, roughly his own age) in his first period martial arts movie in ages. The result is brilliance. Jackie shows he's lost none of his swiftness and power in the intervening years, giving a series of some of the most memorable stunts and fights in his career (the fight that begins on top of the train at the start of the film, the restaurant brawl, the factory showdown near the end) combined with some very funny comic bits and a storyline that provides enough of a "line" on which to hang the action and humor without bogging it down (Fei-Hung goes up against foreigners trying to steal China's great art treasures and eventually battles for the virtually enslaved workers in the factory of those very same villains). Originally released in Hong Kong in 1994 as Drunken Master II, this is the version released in U.S. theatres in 2000. It contains English dubbed dialogue, a new musical score, and a few scenes deleted from the original, so it's not QUITE the same film you'll remember as Drunken Master II, but it's still one of the true classics in its field. Given that Jackie is now approaching fifty and has broken nearly every bone in his body more than once, it's unlikely we'll ever see him do another movie like this one. All the more reason to see and treasure Drunken Master II.

Directed by Lau Kar-Leung and Jackie Chan. Also starring Lau Kar-Leung, guest appearance Andy Lau.

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Drunken Master III

About half-way through the making of Drunken Master II, Jackie Chan became dissatisfied with the direction in which director Lau Kar Leung was taking the film, fired him, and directed the second half himself. Lau left the whole experience determined to make a "Drunken Master" movie the way he'd intended Part II to be, and this is it. We can probably all be thankful that he didn't get his way one film earlier and make the film with Jackie. The notorious White Lotus Clan, who feature prominently in the Wong Fei-Hong saga in several installments of the Once Upon A Time In China series, are the bad guys here as well, up to their usual skullduggery as they go about trying to not only rid China of foreign influence in any way neccessary, but in the process come up against forces fighting for Dr. Sun Yat-Sen (does this maybe ALSO remind you of a Once Upon A Time plot point?). Jackie has certainly shown us there's nothing wrong with playing Wong Fei-Hong for laughs, but Willie Kwai's performance in the role is kind of like going from Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd to Adam Sandler. He's no Jackie, that's for sure. Lau showed he knew how to stage a good action sequence in Part II, and that makes it all the stranger that much of the action in this installment is curiously lifeless... there are some very imaginative stunts and such, but the participants seem to be just going through the motions, like their hearts aren't really into it. All in all, compare Drunken Master II and Drunken Master III, and next time you hear some temperamental Hollywood star canning their director and taking over the film, you might have more sympathy for them.

Also starring Michelle Li, Simon Yam, Andy Lau and director Lau Kar Leung (the latter two of which appeared in Part II in different roles). (Review written: 6/21/02)

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The Duel

Anyone shaking their head in bewilderment during this film (and there WILL be be plenty of such people) should be warned of one thing before they take too much time and effort trying to figure out what's going on: this is a Wong Jing film (he's co-producer and co-writer), so don't even bother. The slim threads of a plot that CAN be gleaned from the film apparently involve Sword Saint (Ekin Cheng) and God Of Sword (Andy Lau) and their destined fight to the finish to claim a throne. Sword Saint is occasionally aided by his friend "Dragon 9", and all three men have women who, for some inexplicable reason, have pledged themselves to them for life, so you know one or more of them will lend the film some tragedy and pathos with big tragic tears at the end. But we only learn about Sword Saint and God Of Sword after starting out on a false plot trail in which Dragon 9 is suspected of being a notorious criminal known as Thief Ghost, with a police inspector come to town to capture him (once Dragon 9 is cleared of suspicion, we never hear about Thief Ghost again... no loose plot threads here, boy, no sir!). Then once the title duel IS finally established as being what the story is supposed to be mainly about, the movie seems to concentrate on anything else BUT while stalling for time (we get in-joke references to other Wong Jing films, anachronistic dialogue like "How can the paparazzi be interested?")... whatever it takes to avoid the subject of the duel (not even any major TRAINING sequences!). Finally, with barely ten minutes left in the film, we get the duel all of this has allegedly been leading up to... and it's remarkably unexciting, definitely not worth the wait. The Duel is an action film without any interesting action, and a comedy without any really funny humor... well, except for one purely accidental thing resulting from the sub-title translation of one name. It seems that Sword Saint is also known to some by the nick-name "Simon The Snow Blower," which conjurs up amusing images of Dragon 9 taking him out to clear the roads after a big blizzard. But when you have to resort to something like that to find entertainment in a film, that's a good indication that you should probably be watching something else.

Also starring Nick Cheung, Vicky Zhao Wei, Kristy Yeung Kung-Yu and Patrick Tam. Directed by Andrew (not Andy) Lau. (Review written: 1/3/03)

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Duel to the Death

Vintage swordplay of the kind that leaves you constantly shaking your head in amazement, wondering if you could possibly have just seen what you thought you did. It's the old standard plot line: Ching Wen ("Sword Saint") enters an annual swordsmanship/martial arts contest against Japanese opponent Yashimoto, who is determined to prove that Japanese martial arts are superior. But there are a few complications thrown into the mix: Yashimoto's clan attempts to stop him and substitute a new swordsman (he'll have none of that), a group of seemingly magical ninjas keeps popping out of seemingly nowhere to battle both sides, and a certain citizen of "Sword Saint Town" has his own agenda for not wanting the competition to go as planned. The film is not the most original in the world, and its ending is almost the definition of anti-climactic, but you still can't quite help enjoying the little moments of mind-boggling strangeness that keep happening. If you're wondering whether this is a movie you'd be interested in, consider this: how do you feel about a film featuring a scene in which a man is decapitated with a sword, and his severed head tells the man who just sliced it off that his side won't be easily defeated... and then the head explodes? Or how about one in which several characters hold conversations with a remarkably intelligent bird they CALL "Chicken," but which definitely is not one? If you thought "I'd like to see that" irregarding either or both of these, then Duel To The Death is the film for you.

Starring Damian Lau, Tsui Siu Keng and Flora Chung directed by Ching Siu Tung. (Review written: 6/21/02)

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Dust in the Wind

Huen Ying is a young woman with a life not that dissimilar to many: her father, as the result of a foot injury, isn't the breadwinner he used to be, her boyfriend Chung Wan wants to help but isn't much better off and has decided to sign up for three years in the army (three years away from her), and the family, while not technically what could exactly be called poverty-stricken, is basically just scraping by. That's essentially the plot of Dust In The Wind... that situation and how the characters deal with it. A film depicting nothing more than normal life lived the way normal people live it can often be something worth watching, if it's in the hands of film-makers who can make the viewer aware that they're not so much watching a film as looking in a mirror, and Dust In The Wind is just such a film.

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Dust of Angels

Or, "Young And Dangerous: The Rip-Off." Two different triad organizations, one run by our protagonist Dao and his brother-in-law Guo, the other the operation of the sinister Agao, help make the streets of both Hong Kong and Taipei rather more dangerous places to live. Dao and Guo are supposed to be the sympathetic good guys (in part because of what Agao and clan did to their family years earlier), but you'll be hard put to find a lot of difference between the factions... not only because the script gives them pretty much the same character traits, but because the cast plays all the roles on the same one-note, monotonous style with genuine emotion coming into play only when one of their own gets shot (there HAS to be a better way of showing disillusioned youth than this). There's a certain element of Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine, as well, with long stretches of the triads going about their normal daily lives, doing the things they normally do for fun, suddenly punctuated by moments of bloody violence... but this kind of thing had much more impact coming from Kitano, who among other things bothered to make all his characters real, well-rounded individuals. Would this be a film to see if you're a real fan of the Young And Dangerous series or Sonatine? Not really... you'd just end up thinking how you could have had a better time watching that "source material" one more time instead of Dust Of Angels.

Written and directed by Hsu Hsiao Ming. (Review written: 6/21/02)

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