Love and Sex of the Eastern Hollywood (1998)[Warning: If you think you will enjoy working out who's playing who in the Hong Kong entertainment industry in this movie, please skip to another review.]As if it was researched from the pages of Next Magazine (a
prominent HK gossip weekly) this film is an 'expose' of the lives
and loves of several of Hong Kong's prominent celebrities. It
starts in the present day, as a failing singer named Hung wakes to
find her work as a prostitute in the far away land of Funroy has
been exposed in the above-mentioned magazine. She's not impressed.
The film cuts to trendy Royce Boutique where we meet our selection of celebs. We have Yue (obviously Sandra Ng Kwan Yue), Ying (a take on Veronica Yip?), Salina/Pink (Kenny B's ex-wife) and Maggie (a not-too-subtle take on Maggie Cheung). The film then shoots back a few years, as we see these characters acting out the many rumours that have plagued them. Yue's possible lesbian swing surfaces in her relationship with Yin Chau (a take on a prominent commercial radio DJ). Hung is lured to the foreign country to take up her role as a royal prostitute and comes back to be raped repeatedly. Maggie's first relationship fails and the second, to a swindler, is disastrous. Ying finds her film career fading fast and gets the breast implants needed to launch her to three porno roles. The worst of the lot, though, is the portrayal of Kenny B's ex-wife, who is shown sleeping with the husband of a well-known cancer patient ... in the same bed. Needless to say, there are a lot of references to the HK
entertainment industry. However, this film is pleasant enough to
watch. Director Aman Chang's done a good job with this film (it's
his third). Throughout the film, the characters build effortlessly
and it really helps that the actors in this film are good. Athena
Chu Yun makes a nice Sandra Ng and Kathy Chow is great once again.
Note: The no-doubt inaccurate Cat III comedy 'Rebekah', released during 1997, takes another view of the agent who lured 'Hung' overseas. |
Credits: Director: Aman Chang |
| Main | Movies | DVDs | Extras | Links |