Province 77 (Thai 2002)

Director : Smith Timsawat
Cast : Prinya Itachai, Matinee Kingpoyom, Erik Markus Schuetz and Pete Tongchua.

Synopsis
A recently immigrated Thai family struggles to survive in Los Angeles’ fast-paced consumerist culture, while still maintaining traditional values. The identity struggle affects Pat, a good boy tempted by a life of crime, and his sister.

Review
by Edward Tang

Well, I truly don’t know where to begin. Province 77 is billed as another version of real GANGSTA life in the likes of Better Luck Tomorrow and Boyz n the Hood. So in other words, sorry to those films for getting an unlucky comparison to a lousy film. Well I was going to try and not insult the film up front, but frankly it stinks of cliched moments and annoying characters that got older as the film went along. Granted, this film is based upon how a Thai family struggles to survive in their new environment but why is that interesting?

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DVD Information
Distributor : Fortune Star
Audio : DD 5.1, DTS, DD 2.0
Discs : 2
Languages : Cantonese, Mandarin
Format : NTSC
Subtitles : Chinese, English
Running Time : 96 mins and 91 mins
Contents : 2 DVDs
Screen Ratio : 2.35:1
Classification : -
Region : 3
Others : -

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Director : Ringo Lam
Cast : Chow Yun Fatt, Tony Leung Kar Fai, Roy Cheung, William Ho, Tommy Wong

Synopsis
After being framed for a murder and sentenced to an anarchic prison ruled by a brutal guard, a naive businessman finds an ally in the ever-honorable Mad Dog in this brutal but touching action drama from master director Ringo Lam.

Review
Lo Ka Yiu (Tony Leung) is the new “fish” at a prison run by the nefarious “Scarface” Hung (Roy Cheung), who rules the institution with an iron fist and a perpetual sneer. Lo immediately starts off on the wrong foot by demonstrating both anxiety and a stiff, by-the-rules attitude that alienates both the corrupt guard and the entrenched Triad hierarchy. Meanwhile, “Mad Dog” (Chow Yun Fatt), an easy going veteran convict, takes Lo under his wing and protect him. Prison on Fire is a not just a typical HK prison movie, but a much truly great HK flick in the 80s. Its a tense, understated melodrama  that’s Hong Kong’s answer to Cool Hand Luke.Ringo Lam won Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards for this movie which followed by another fairly good sequel, Prison on Fire II.

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Director : Norio Tsuruta
Cast :  Hiroshi Mikami, Noriko Sakai, Maki Horikita, Mayumi Ono, Kei Yamamoto and Kazuko Yoshiyuki.

Synopsis
Newspapers are used to tell the past, but for a few unlucky individuals, they foretell the future. When Hideki picks up a newspaper he knows what he will see…death. Foretelling ill-omened fate of everything from slaying to train crashes, there is nothing Hideki can do to stop the events…or is there? When the paper predicts the demise of his daughter in a car crash, Hideki seeks out others like himself, searching for a way to change the future.

Review
by Edward Tang

With an interesting plot, a movie can be more hyped than anything. You can give a piece of shit movie a good plot on paper. This film follows that notion to a key. A movie about a newspaper that foretells your death? This could be interesting. But alas, the idea became skewed as the film basically fell down a pit and got lost in the land of throwaway.

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Director : Jackie Chan
Producer : Leonard Ho Koon-Cheung 
Writer : Jackie Chan,Edward Tang King-Sun 
Action Director : Jackie Chan’s Stunt Team 
Cast :  Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Charlie Cho, Yuen Chor, Danny Chou, Mars, Kwok-Hung Lau and Bill Tung.

Synopsis
The story is about a police raid on a drug gang goes awfully wrong, and for detective Jackie Chan, nothing seems to go right from there. The gang boss is acquitted at his trial, when Jackie’s evidence mysteriously disappears. Jackie’s attempt to rescue a beautiful but reluctant key witness results in his being framed for murder. Now on the run from both the gang and his own squad, Jackie must stay alive long enough to bring the gang to justice and convince his colleagues of his innocence.

Review
by Edward Tang

There are some films that will always live because they truly are the best of the genre. Police Story for example has everything you could ask for, truly humorous moments and some of the best action you could ever ask for on screen. Jackie Chan hit bad in America so he decided to come back to Hong Kong and make a true action film, and that’s exactly what he did. The film contains probably one of the best stunts you could ever have seen, literally this stunt looks insane, but gives the film something you’d never see from a Stallone or Ah-nuld vehicle. This film still lives on as one of Jackie’s finest (his favorite “action” film) and one of the films that is COMPLETE 100% entertainment from beginning to end.

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Director : Edmond Pang Ho Cheung
Cast : Simon Yam, Nick Cheung Ka Fai, Maggie Siu, Irene Wan, Annie LIU

Release Date : 4th October 2007

Synopsis
Yuan is a poor and quiet girl from Taiwan who got married and settled down in Hong Kong. However, her marriage was soon over and she is separated from her husband Bing. One day, Bing goes missing and the police looks for Yuan to record statement. Ye is a policeman who happens to be involved in an earlier case where Bing is caught for peeping in the washroom. Bing had earlier explained to Ye that he had discovered an incredible secret: a lot of women were planning secretly to destroy men and they were exchanging their ideas in the washroom. Ye was feeling bizarre about the whole case, as whenever he found some evidence, they would go missing at a blink! Ye soon developed feelings for Yuan and the both soon discovered that Bing was killed because he knew too much about the secret organization. The both are in danger too…

Director : Fumihiko Sori
Cast : Yosuke Kubozuka, Arata, Sam Lee, Naoto Takenaka, Shido Nakamura, Koji Ogura

Synopsis
Two friends, Peco and Smile are the best two table-tennis players in their school. Peco is fullof teenage attitude and often misses practise but plays games for money, while Smile (so called because he always looks miserable) practices but only actually plays to kill time. The two friends enter a tournament and Peco loses miserably and takes it badly, while Smile is convinced by his coach Ota to start playing seriously. As they enter local tournaments the two friends and some of the players around them find that they are maturing in their outlook on the sport – and their lives.

Review
by Martin Cleary

Based on a manga by Taiyo Matsumoto, Ping Pong takes what seems to be an unlikely sport (for the cinema) and turns it into a decent sports-comedy-drama. The two friends Peco and Smile (played by Yosuke Kubozuka and Arata) provide the central plot. This initially seems to be a strange friendship as Smile is a bit of a miserable sod while Peco is a loud show-off. We soon learn that the two became friends as children when Peco saved Smile from being beaten up. The differences in the friends personalities reflects in their approaches to their sport – Peco plays for fun but also to win, while Smile plays to kill time and will not try to win if it hurts his opponents feelings.

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Director : Byeong-ki Ahn
Cast : Ji-won Ha, Yu-mi Kim, Woo-jae Choi, Ji-yeon Choi and Seo-woo Eun.

Synopsis
Soon after Ji-won gets a new cell phone, her friend’s young daughter, Yeong-ju, puts it to her ear and immediately begins screaming in terror. When other strange things start happening in connection with the phone, Ji-Won does some investigating and discovers that of the people before her who had the same number, almost all of them died suddenly under unusual circumstances. As Yeong-ju’s behavior becomes increasingly alarming, Ji-won digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the number’s first owner, a high school girl named Jin-hie.

Review
by Edward Tang

For the last year or so, I’ve seen about 15 movies that center around the telephone. The telephone is a device that can be used for many purposes, like getting pizza or calling a 35 year old woman and enjoying yourself in more ways than one. But these small ideas couldn’t fit with the writers of the world, so the phone became a demonic device which signaled your death with an eerie phone call.

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