Mr. Cinema - 老港正傳

I just got back from the MOS theater.  I caught the one and only showing per day of 'Mr. Cinema' ( 老港正傳 ), starring Anthony Wong, Teresa Mo, Ronald Cheng, Karen Mok and.... special appearance by Mr. Andrew Lin! (an unexpected surprise. this is the second movie I've seen that he's made a surprise appearence in the last three weeks!)

The film is about the family of a movie theater projectionist at a pro-Mainland cinema house in Hong Kong named Mr. Zuo (literally his family name is '左', which means 'left').  The film is a melodrama about his family from the 60's through today (10 year anniversary of the handover to Mainland) set against the backdrop of Hong Kong history during that period (including stuff like the  revolution inspire pro-communist riots in 67, the various economic recessions, opening of China, the handover, SARS, etc).  As a pro-mainlander, Zuo's lifelong dream is to visit Tiananmen Square, the center of modern China, so most of the story is told from the perspective of this character's view of the world -- and how this effects his livelyhood and his family. 

His outlook is definitely colored by the idealized propaganda films which he showed in his theater:

  But unlike most, he actually believed what he was spouting...

I enjoyed it for the most part,  Anthony Wong and Teresa Mo did a great job in their parts (I found Ronald Cheung's performance as the son to be kind of annoying though). 

The main problem I guess I have with the movie was that it wasn't /really/ about leftist movie history in HK... they threw in some clips here and there, but didn't go into too much depth (they do mark the arrival of Shaolin Temple and Jet Li in the early 80s though!).  Furthermore it wasn't /really/ about HK history too much - just some TV clips thrown in here and there,  nor was it /really/ about HK's relationship with the Mainland or Leftist activities in HK.... 

That last part is because this movie is a coproduction with the Mainland, (as we mentioned in the news section, they did a premiere in Beijing the other day). So you know what that means?  You've got a movie about a guy who's life long dream since the 60's is to go to Tiananmen square, but they completely don't mention the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations AT ALL...

This is a glaring error that can't just be skipped over.   If they showed Zuo acknowledging it,  discussing it, rationalizing it,  etc,  that would have made a huge difference to me,  but the fact is you can't even discuss that it happened in a movie if you want to be released in a Mainland theater, so they don't.

In the end its a good melodrama about a family in HK, lots of good performances and an emotionally engaging story,  but I felt that its distinguishing features were all hollow facades that only recieved lip service... 6/10.

I think people who grew up in HK will still enjoy it quite a bit for its nostalgia aspects.  I thought it provided a good look into how the average HKer's life has changed over the recent decades...