‘Lan Kwai Fong’ was a local Hong Kong movie
which was directed by Wilson Chin and showed in 2011. The movie was mainly describing about the nightlife
in Lan Kwai Fong, where is a small area that popular for drinking, clubbing and
dining in Central. It was telling the
love stories between few couples.
In ‘Lan Kwai Fong’, Steven (acted by Shen
Zhiming), who always went clubbing in Lan Kwai Fong, met Jennifer (acted by
Shiga Lin) who was flight attendant and first time went to nightclub to play
with friends. They had one-night stand
and believed that they fell in love.
Thus, they dated each other to meet again at the New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, Steven regarded Jennifer as a
bad girl because of some misunderstandings and it caused Jennifer felt
disheartened. Then, she disappeared and
decided not to go Lan Kwai Fong anymore.
‘Lan Kwai Fong’ successfully shot the
realistic feeling of huge crowds of people.
In the starting part of movie, director used an almost 2 minutes continuously
long shot to make audiences understand the living beings and activities of
someone we called ‘Po(蒲) Family’
in Cantonese, such as female who like sex, rick men, novices in nightclubs and
middle classes. The entire characters
relationship diagram was brought out through the dialogue and gossip in a bar.
In addition, the movie was acted by many
young and new actors and actresses, but their performances were quite natural
and they had clear personalities. It was
one of the good selling points.
Audiences could see different kind of
stereotypes in ‘Lan Kwai Fong’. Wilson,
the director, described the appearance of ‘Po Family’ meticulously, also the
open attitude of sex as well. There was
a concept held by public that many people believed the ‘Po’ group was open
minded and they could have sex with someone who they did not know after they
got drunk. However, there were some
special cases about two young couples. Although
basically both of them had the relationships, which had sex before love, the
result was to come to marriage as the final aim. Thus, the statement ‘No true love in
nightclub’ was broken in the movie.
Moreover, people may think that the men in
nightclub were never had sense of responsibilities. They would just walk away after having fun
with girls. Nevertheless, at the end
part of movie, Jacky (acted by Jason Chen), who was the manager of club, felt
guilty on his pregnant girlfriend and he acted smooth and natural. It broke another stereotype that men would
not be responsible to women who met in nightclubs.
In conclusion, ‘Lan Kwai Fong’ is the few
Hong Kong films shooting in nightclub theme.
The entire movie was shot with strong ‘smell of Po’. It shows different lifestyle in bars such as
pursuit of one-night stand with different sex partners or hoped to find true
love in nightclubs. I think the entire
atmosphere and performance was good.
Also, the contradiction between the stereotypes of ‘Po Family’ was
interesting.
CHEUNG Pak Kwan, Bosco (10482661)
You have pointed out a few sharp observations on the use of stereotypes in the selected film, such as some typical features of “Po” group, as well as the common belief about “Nightclub” (e.g., not an ideal place for searching true love). Some methods/styles used in narrating the story are also clearly identified and discussed.
ReplyDeleteI guess the film is particularly appealing to the young/middle-class audiences growing up in the 70s/80s. Perhaps you may wish to focus on one or two major scene(s) and discuss the source of identification for the target audience. This helps to elaborate the “strong smell of Po” as described in the review.