X'mas Rave Fever (1999)

Don (Mark Lui) wakes up hungover and bleary-eyed after a night on the town. Running late for work, he finds a blue Filofax left behind by the previous night's fling. His mind's a blank but the diary offers a phone number to call if it's found. Mark duly dials the number, hoping to find the source the love bites he's sporting. No luck. His second option is to gatecrash the diary owner's pencilled-in lunch appointment in Quarry Bay. No go again. On a last ditch, Don scours his home for signs of the woman, finding some hair, lipstick on a glass and a rave party ticket. It's time for Rave Party 1.

With the ticket in hand, Don descends into the club and spots Nicole (Jaymee Ong). He had bumped into her in the restaurant earlier. She pushes away the diary and drags Don to the bogs for a quickie. Soon the two are blasting off into HK's clubland; but not before the blue diary changes hands. Don gets swept up in Nicole and burns into moneyspinning excess leading up to Rave Party 2 where he's miffed that his flame is back in the men's room with another guy. Such are Nicole's ways - "If I didn't like you I wouldn't have shagged you," she explains casually. Don wanders off and chats to bloodied and wasted Gordon (Sam Lee) who's promptly picked up on a possible murder charge by cops with Ashley (YoYo Mung) and Stephen (Terrence Yin) in tow.

Ashley's the recipent of the Filofax at Rave Party 1 and the point of view switches to follow first her, then Gordon and then Don again in the quest to find what's up with the mysterious diary owner.

Alan Mak's direction follows a single story shown from multiple perspectives. The parties are numbered as each is revisited and repeated over the course of the movie, each time viewed from new angles as more is revealed and hidden. It's an intriguing sensation and ably handled in the scripting, acting and placement. The locations range from dance clubs like Ce Top to the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter and the soon-to-be-demolished former Government Supplies Depot at Fortress Hill. Despite the large number of sets, all are combined coherently and are easy to recall over the course of the multi-stage plot. The cast is adequate and all hold their parts well, especially YoYo Mung as a manipulative clinger. With two overseas Chinese in the film - Ong and Yin - and the relatively international nature of the current local rave scene, much is spoken in English. The music was below my expectations considering Mark Lui's rep as a songwriter. Local ravers are nuts over trance and house but the music at X'mas Rave Fever's various parties sounded more like the weaker, synthier stuff heard in triad flick disco scenes. But it's hardly something I'd dissuade would-be viewers with - despite the festive date-specific title, X'mas Rave Fever is well-scripted, ambitious and enjoyable for all seasons.

DVD information: X'mas Rave Fever looks very nice on the Deltamac disc, available under the more sensible title Rave Fever. The film comes across crisp and colourful in its letterboxed transfer. Subtitles are given in Chinese (x2) and English and the soundtrack in Cantonese and Putongua choices. No trailer is provided for the film itself. A bonus section contains wallpaper images of the stars, presumably for use by folks with DVD-ROM drives, and the song from Fly Me To Polaris, misleadingly identified in English as "Trailer".

DVD box art for the Deltamac release

Credits:

Directed by Alan Mak
Starring Mark Lui, Jaymee Ong, Sam Lee Chan-sam, YoYo Mung and Terrence Yin