Movie Review: Moonlight in Tokyo/情義我心知

Moonlight in Tokyo/情義我心知 is a 2005 film written and directed by Alan Mak and Felix Chong.

It’s the story of a down-on-his luck Tokyo pimp named Hoi, played by Chapman To.

He borrowed a lot of money from a loan shark to put white meat on his menu.

Unfortunately, these street walkers take their job title too seriously and run off, leaving him high and dry.

Sai gwei mui!

Now he owes a lot of money and has seemingly no way to pay it back.

Leon Lai plays Jun, a mildly retarded man who has apparently been abandoned by his family in Tokyo.

Through a chance encounter, these two strangers meet, get to know each other, and form a weird alliance.

Imagine Forrest Gump meets Deuce Bigalow.

Yes, this is a movie about a mildly retarded Chinese man who becomes a gigolo who pretends to be Korean in Tokyo.

Actually, as weird as this movie is, it’s also pretty good.

The film’s opening scene has some interesting technical work allowing a Hong Kong home to transform into a ballet stage without the use of CGI.

The principals in the film do really good jobs with their roles.

Chapman To is entertaining, and not just as Chapman To. He really fills out his character, (that’s not a fat joke) adding depth that helps us understand and even like him.

Leon Lai handles his role with subtlety and skill, also making his character convincing.

The character isn’t as simple as he first appears, and Leon does very well playing both sides of the character.

Because the film takes the viewer on a roller coaster of comic highs and dramatic lows, the actors deserve even more credit for doing such good jobs.

The supporting cast, including Michelle Ye and Roy Cheung, do a good job within some pretty tight narrative confines.

They are nowhere near as fleshed-out as the main characters, but the actors do a pretty good job with what little they’re given to work with.

The film itself is layered with symbolism and meaning, some subtle and some sledgehammer obvious.

But the film is always entertaining, whether it’s waxing serious about the meaning of life or giving us one of the most bizarre training sequences in Hong Kong cinema history.

There are a number of subplots, and while some are useful, others seem unfortunately undernourished.

The end of the film features a pretty big shock for the viewer.

While it can be seen as a pretty obvious contrivance by the filmmakers, it is nevertheless a big surprise.

Moonlight in Tokyo/情義我心知 is a film that tries to be a lot of different things, and for a change it’s a film that succeeds in almost all of them.

I can definitely recommend that you see this movie.