[Movies] Switch (2013)

The Hong Kong film industry is a factory that spews out movie after movie after movie. There will be the great ones, the good ones and the inevitably bad ones. And I honestly thought that this might be a good one when I loaded it into the plane's in-flight entertainment options, but sadly I was mistaken.

Andy Lau has made over a hundred movie over the course of his lengthy career and he's quite the superstar in this market. And to be fair, he does have some pretty great movies ranging from intense dramas to quirky comedies. I honestly enjoy watching his movies when I get the chance, and thus my optimism when it came to this particular movie.

But in the end it was a rather confused mess - a spy thriller of sorts that contained dated elements from 1960's movies of the same genre. And this wasn't some brilliant homage or something - it was just a tired and rather disappointing experience overall.

[Movies] Blind Detective (2013)

My recent trip to Singapore has rekindled my interest in Andy Lau movies for one reason or another. I guess credit needs to go to Singapore Airlines for including two of his recent movies as part of their in-flight entertainment selection.

Blind Detective was certainly a lot more of a story than I had initially expected - and I'm not exactly a stranger when it comes to Hong Kong movie sensibilities. The comedy bits were already fun to begin with, but at its core there was a deeper story at play

I don't often have time for foreign movies since reading subtitles means that I can't multitask other activities when I watch them at home. That's a good and a bad thing given my fairly busy life since deciding to watch one of these movies requires me to fully dedicate some time to the experience.

And to be fair, this was indeed a movie that was worth sitting down for.

[Movies] Fat Choi Spirit (2002)

During our flight over to Singapore, I found myself digging up Andy Lau movies in the plane's entertainment options in order to preoccupy myself on the flight over. As much as there were an insane range of options of what to watch, I figured that this was as good a chance as any to take the time to watch a movie with subtitles.

I learned to enjoy Andy Lau movies back when Star Mandarin was a free channel across typical SkyCable subscription packages. My brother and I spent many a night getting into this Hong Kong movie or another, and Andy Lau quickly became one of the more recognizable actors that we came across.

Fat Choi Spirit is admittedly one of my favorites, and it's one that taps into the love for the game of Mahjong. And while it has been a number of years since I've last watched this movie, it's one that has really stuck in my memory for one reason or another.

[Movies] The God of Cookery (1996)

Back in the day, SkyCable had Star Mandarin as one of its standard cable channels - one of those tricks that cable companies do to inflate their channel counts. Surprisingly, my brother and I ended up watching the various movies on the channel during those lull hours when HBO seemed determined to play every single movie 2-3 times in a day while all the other channels seemed to lack anything worth watching. It's a weird world that way.

Recently I was struck by a wave of nostalgia about movies that I wanted to share with my partner. This was one of the movies that really stood out for one reason or another. Maybe it's because of the fact that we had also finished watching the entire Cooking Master Boy anime series at the time. Or maybe it's because Stephen Chow's career was already reaching new heights and this old gem had been dug up to capitalize on his popularity at the time.

It kind of pains me how movies in other countries in the region look so much better than local movies. And I'm not even comparing to movies of the past - it's a very real problem that continues to plague the local film industry.

But I suppose that sort of a rant can wait for another post entirely.