"Whenever things go wrong, most adults either hide or simply disappear, so useless. Sometimes, I really wanted to cut out their hearts to see what color they were."
The story of the underbelly of Hong Kong youth is disjoint and quite depressing, but there is so much filmmaking talent on display here, and it takes on extra meaning with Hong Kong being handed back over to China in the same year. The young people in public housing are all living rather desperate lives - we see suicide, abandonment by parents, and being groomed to work in triads. We see violence, incest, and the dangerous path of borrowing from loan sharks. It's as if all of them are on clock that's ticking down, not just the girl who needs a kidney transplant.
It's all highly stylized with plaintive voiceover narration from the lead character, played by Sam Lee (who aside from being charismatic has about 0.0001% body fat). As for content, it's uneven - there are moments like beautiful and touching scenes in a graveyard set on a steep hill, but there was also the guy having wet dreams over the suicide victim, or his mentally challenged friend getting a nosebleed when he sees a girl, both of which seemed a little bizarre. There are also some painful bullying scenes, so beware of that too. Perhaps the finest moments were at the very end, which may directly relate to the direction the Communist party took after the death of Hu Yaobang. I liked but couldn't quite love this film, though it left an impression, and on another night may have rounded my review score up.
