Cornerhouse have sent out a Press Release about Visible Secrets going on tour;

A new Cornerhouse touring film season Visible Secrets, is set to celebrate and highlight Hong Kong’s female film directors in major cities across the UK this autumn. Launching this celebration is Ivy Ho’s directorial debut Claustrophobia, starring Hong Kong megastars Karena Lam and Ekin Cheng.

Claustrophobia, will launch the UK wide tour of Visible Secrets with a special gala screening at Curzon, Mayfair in London on Monday 02 November.

Visible Secrets: Hong Kong’s Women Filmmakers will tour to venues across the UK including: New Park Chichester, Eden Court Inverness, Pictureville Bradford, Showroom Sheffield, Broadway Nottingham, Watershed Bristol, QUAD Derby, Chapter Cardiff and Barn Dartington.

POF 57 guest Paul Loudon has done a terrific job bringing us several excellent reviews, which we will do a final post with all the highlights and a very special interview.

Claustrophobia is not like the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong movies that I have seen. Where in your typical Hong Kong flick characters state implicitly and clearly what they are feeling so that the entire world and his dog can get behind it, in Claustrophobia our cast of bedraggled yet always immaculately dressed office staff keep their emotions a tightly guarded secret. As an audience the trick throughout this movie is to read between the lines, to catch a glimpse of human frailty lest you spend the entire movie wondering what the point of it all is.

The movie begins with Tom (Ekin Cheng) dropping his closest co-workers home at the end of a shift. They are essentially a motley crew of typicals; the old grumpy one, the office bimbo and the nervy geek. And then there is Pearl (Karina Lam) who is last to arrive home. Whilst sat in the car, Tom takes this opportunity to tell Pearl that she is a great employee and deserves a better job working for someone else. What he is really saying here is that she should take a hike because the mutual office flirting could screw his marriage up; Pearl doesn’t take too kindly to this. (continue reading…)

Possibly the most anticpated Hong Kong movie for me this year has to be “The Storm Warriors”, the Pang brothers directing the sequel to the hit “Stormriders”. From the looks of the trailer, Christmas can’t come sooner! I might just have to fly to Hong Kong to see the movie on the 17th. It just looks so damn good! so good! I plan on write more about this as soon as possible, if I get my act together you might be able to read about this the magazines. Peace Out!

The yearly Edinburgh International Film Festival is due next month. They do usually show the occasion arty Mainland land flick or some obscure Korean movie. They’ve done the same this year again, but they have added the awesome edition of Kelvin Tongs supernatural crime flick “Rule #1″, starring Shawn Yue and Ekin Cheng.

Obviously if you visit this website and listen to our podcast you know damn fine that I’m possibly Scotlands leading Ekin Cheng fan. Rule #1 is a damn good movie, if I compiled a top ten for last year and Rule #1 would be in there!

The movie is being screened at The Cameo on 18 June 2009 @ 22:00. You can book tickets from HERE!

Now I just need to decide whether I wanna go…

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…)

Ning (Vicki Zhao) is a village girl from one of the poorest areas in Shanghai, yet one day her multi-millionaire car Tycoon Father, Cheung (Richard Ng) finds her for the first time. The only way Ning could believe that she was his daughter was by the identical photographs they have of Ning (aged six), Cheung (with hair) and her late mother.

With Cheung being a very wealth he’s planning to have a very important dinner party with guests including the British Ambassador and his son Frankie. Cheung is planning to set his daughter up with Frankie and hope for the best. Yet Ning’s image isn’t very suitable…so he puts up a notice for an Image Consultant, to transform her from the average village girl to Shanghai Beauty Queen.

(continue reading…)

Plot: King Chan (Ekin Cheng), Queen Chan (Kirsty Yang) and Jack (Louis Koo) are experts in reuniting People with their first loves. They have even turned this skill in a Organisation, ran by the three called “Bad Boys Detective Agency”, I think they also enjoy ruining Blacky Ko’s chances of getting married…twice!

One day Tin Ai (Daniel Chan) calls upon the service of this mighty trio to find his girlfriend, Shadow (Shu Qi) who disappeared 14 months. Yet he has no money to pay for them to help him, although Queen is quite taken by his case and decides to take him on. Soon after meeting Tin Ai, the body guard of Yung Yung Hsin (Jerry Lamb) confronts the agency and asks them to find his bosses first love, Kwan Chin. Kwan Chin was Olympic athlete in sprinting, known as the Asian Antelope.

The Bad Boy Agency seem stunned that both Shadow & Kwan Chin are identical, but Mr. Yung knew her 20 years ago. But he found someone identical to her in a Disco…but its not Shadow? Mr. Yung suggests that this Disco Girl is Kwan Chins daughter.

Jack and Queen decide to look for Kwan Chin and King will look for this mystery look-a-like.

King treats his women like Chewing Gum! They are nice and sweet at first, but then he looses his taste in them and leaves. He also dazzles his women by asking them to choose a card from his set of taro cards, but this is also crooked, all the cards are the say, The Lovers card… (continue reading…)