Movie Review: The Drunkard/酒徒

I watched this local independent film this past weekend at Broadway Cinematheque in Yau Ma Tei. I rarely go there, given my cinematic proclivities.

While I am, as I almost always say, not a huge independent film fan, and have little use for so-called ‘art house’ cinema, I am nevertheless very glad that a place like Broadway Cinematheque exists. What I mean is that even though I don’t often indulge in it, I would still prefer that I have the option. So for that, I am grateful.

And lest you think that I am somehow becoming a more mature film fan (or human being), I should immediately concede that my major motivation in seeing this film was a chance to once again watch a certain actress onscreen. In the name of rigorous honesty, I should also admit that I had been told she does a love scene in which her posterior is visible.

Yes, I went to an art film just to look at someone’s @ss.

Someone that I know, that I have had dinner with, and on occasion speak to,

a) which is proof she has yet to read that Dead Slowlyreview.

b) at least until she reads this review, I imagine.

So having destroyed probably every last vestige of any critical legitimacy, let me move on to the heart of the review.

The Drunkard/酒徒is an adaptation of the novel of the same name. It takes place in early 1960s Hong Kong, and tells the story of an alcoholic author who struggles with the age-old art-commerce dialectic. He is a serial user of women, and we watch him literally float (on a river of whiskey) through several relationships, good, bad and otherwise.

Like Bruce Lee My Brother,  **The Drunkard/酒徒 painstakingly recreates Hong Kong of 50 years ago, and does so quite convincingly. The clothing, the sets, the dialogue and the props are all quite accurate and do a marvelous job of allowing the viewer to stay immersed in the narrative. Knowing that the film had a rather limited budget, this accomplishment is doubly impressive.**

So too is the acting. John Chang is marvelous as the alcoholic protagonist Mr. Lau, a man so far gone in his drunkenness that he has given up almost all pretense of acting responsibly or respectably. Yet this social degradation bestows a degree of personal freedom that the audience may, in some small way or at least in scattered moments, envy. Watching him stumble through (and down) his existence is mesmerizing, if only because 90% of the audience (hopefully) has no direct experience of such things.

Irene Wan plays a married mother whose husband is physically absent as well as emotionally unavailable. Her relationship with Lau is one of quiet intensity, where happiness cannot stay ahead of sadness. She plays the role well, with the kind of muted, simmering emotion that is very human and at the same time an all-too-rare indulgence for local cinema.

Joman Chiang plays two roles in the film, that of a young man who employs Mr. Lau to work on a new literary magazine as well as Lulu, a young woman who works in a night club. She is oddly convincing in the male role, a situation no doubt asisted by the rather, uh, different standards of masculine and feminine behavīor/presentation at work in our fair city.

She also deserves credit, if one can say such things, for being a smoker. One of my innumerable pet peeves about filmmaking is when non-smoking people have to play smoking characters.

Watching a  non-smoker smoking is a lot like watching pornography made by Quakers; you can tell they don’t do this in real life.

For better or worse, Ms. Chiang is a smoker, so her characters are convincing smokers.

She also plays Lulu well, with the proper mix of youth, pragamtism, and emotion that night club workers seem possess as a matter of course.

From what I’ve read.

And while we do in fact get to see Ms. Chiang’s not-un-noteworthy posterior, it is presented in a manner far more matter-of-fact than titillating.

Though I was still quite glad to see it. Lulu smokes, if you know what I mean. And I know you do.

***The Drunkard/酒徒is by turns tragic, hilarious, and depressing, and as such is a very realistic portrait of an alcoholic life (trust me when I tell you this). The narrative arc is one long downward spiral.*

That said, the view from inside the narrative is not unlike sitting in a rotating restaurant high above downtown Hell, a vantage point from which the panorama of beautiful lights can be experienced, but the stench of vomit and blood down in the streets cannot.

Rarely have I seen such misery rendered so accurately and so beautifully.

I found myself laughing out loud more than once, just as I was, more than once, the only person laughing. Mr. Lau’s often dichotomous behavīor is frequently hilarious.

Only a true alcoholic, someone prone to drinking so much they forgot where (and sometimes who) they are, would fend off the strikingly forward advances of a randy 17-year-old as some kind of moral necessity. This anomalous behavīor is a marvelous example of the reality of alcoholic thinking, and I understood his motivation only slightly more than I wanted him to forego it.

If you’ve ever wondered what alcoholism is really like, watch  **The Drunkard/酒徒. I found it as amusing as it was horrifying, and if that says anything about me, so be it. Alcoholics are idiots, but not without their own reasons, both sound and otherwise.**

Watching  **The Drunkard/酒徒 made me appreciate the honesty of the novel’s author as well as the skill of the director and actors. It is one of the best films I have seen this year, and one of the best-made films I have seen in a long time. It is not easy to watch, but it is a very rewarding experience.**

Even without the @ss.

It has been very refreshing of late to be able to see so many good films. Here’s hoping the trend continues and gains strength and momentum.