The tenacious “Aunt” of director Ann Hui’s 2006 film is something of a middle aged battle-axe at odds with the ever changing sprawling city of Shanghai in which she lives (Ye Rutang played by Gaowa Siqin) we join her meeting her nephew Kuan Kuan at the train station. He soon finds his aunt to be something of a weirdo; she lets her birds fly around the flat, has an empty fridge and no mobile phone. Ergo he decides not only to escape her tenacious ways but also to fake his own kidnapping for financial gain. What happens thereafter to the poor Aunt are a series of tragic, events in which characters drift in and out whilst attempting to con “Aunt” Ye Rutang out of her money. For the first half of the movie these events are interspersed beautifully with comedy then things all get a bit too much for Ye Rutang and she retires to live with the afore-mentioned nephew in a smaller industrial town in Manchuria. (continue reading…)

Plot: Dried up actor Poon Kar-Fai (Lau Ching-Wan) once relished his time in the lime light and ended up throwing it all away through arrogance. Working in amateurish productions, Poon decides to change his career from Actor to Manager. His protégé appears in the form of mainland beauty – Faye Ng (Fok Sze-Yin). With little experience and knowledge of the business, Poons help is valuable.

With Faye’s popularity growing by the bucket full the relationship between Poon and Faye gets tested. Faye soon finds herself going to star in a rather risqué movie in Japan. With Faye gone, Poon tries his hand at the movie business one last time… (continue reading…)