Spacked Out (2000)

Cookie (Debbie Tam) is a 13-year old underachiever on the fringe of Hong Kong society; the focus of Lawrence Ah Mon's Spacked Out. She, like her older pals Sissy (Christy Cheung), Banana (Angela Au) and the shaven-headed roughie Bean-curd (Maggie Poon), is caught up in a millieu of coming-of-age troubles amid an upbringing that cannot nurture them. Drugs, border-runs, grotty karaoke hangouts and boyfriend troubles colour their otherwise bleak environment as portrayed this film.

The film is a stripped-back affair; a docudrama approach that follows its subjects rather than handing audiences their identities on a plate. Viewers are thrown enough to build opinions of the characters - nicknames, discussions of promiscuity and sexuality, and glimpses of parents or relatives that offer telling background information without being laboured. Against this, however, director Lawrence Ah Mon threatens to divert viewers' attention with occasional fantasy-styled and relatively arty moments out of place among the realist edginess. A quick shot of Cookie alone in the toddler pool in the swimming pool scene, and later the climactic clinic scene spring to mind - the latter sparking laughter in a Mongkok evening screening. Also clashing against the realism are the male punks that crop up at one point - their depiction over the top enough by Hong Kong standards to reach caricature.

Diversions aside, Spacked Out offers a memorable diversion from youth-gone-wild cliches. The fringe-dwelling kids are all new faces, and they all play their parts well in a film telling just as much about the place the live in. They are based out at Tuen Mun, a New Town far away from the thriving Hong Kong urban areas and boasting an environment with dilapidated malls, bottom-rung schools and dingy karaoke joints. The area is here characterised not only by the '80s throwback triad kids on jazzed up BMXes, but also by the lengthy bus rides to the heart of Hong Kong (no train lines run there). When Cookie visits her man's VCD stall in downtown Mongkok, he comments on her travelling all that distance - inadvertently reminding of the societal impact the New Towns policy can have in isolating Hongkongers.

Similarly, juxtaposing model Vanesia Chu as the smart girl (in both appearance and knowledge) against Cookie's underachiever raises failings in the education system. Indeed, showing the older girls' classroom completely out of control demonstrates that Cookie's is not a lone case at the school in question. Other social problems spring up here and there, notably in the students questioning each other about sex issues - questions that wouldn't need to be asked if Hong Kong wasn't so deficient in providing sex education in, and out, of schools.

This film took me a couple of viewings to appreciate after a so-so impression the first time. Perhaps it was too much to expect a solid narrative on the first viewing; instead the film seems to ask to be read as the director's snapshot of mid-1999 Hong Kong. And in this aspect I believe he has, for the most, part succeeded.

DVD information: After seeing the film again on the Mei Ah DVD edition, I like it all the more. The transfer is clean, bright and colourful and the sound is crisp in its Dolby 5.1 and stereo versions (Cantonese or Mandarin choices). The Spacked Out trailer is as fast-moving and rough as could be expected of this film. Subtitles are provided in Chinese simplified and traditional, and English. Other features comprise a 9-chapter menu, a small data bank on the film and a trailer for Untouchable Mania.

Spacked Out non-painted billboard at Mongkok's Broadway theatre, obscured by bamboo scaffolding for that authentic Hong Kong touch.

Credits:

Directed by Lawrence Ah Mon
Produced by Johnnie To
Cinematography by Lai Yiu-fai
Starring Debbie Tam, Christy Cheung, Angela Au, Maggie Poon, Vanesia Chu and Lam Hoi-man