Seung fei

Joker, a computer game designer, falls in love with Ling, the bartender on whom he's modeling Princess D, the cyber heroine in his latest digital adventure. Initially bemused by the designer's interest in her, Ling is gradually drawn towards the fantasy world created by Joker for his game as a welcome relief from the grim reality of her dysfunctional family.

In portraying that grim reality, the film stands apart from traditional romances, but is careful to avoid becoming distastefully sordid. Ling sells drugs at the disco where she works, but does so only to free her younger brother from debt to a gangster. Her father is a criminal, but treats his distracted wife with sensitivity and tenderness during her visits to his prison. Her mother's distraction doesn't prevent her from unexpectedly saving her daughter from arrest.

The grimness is also alleviated by flashes of whimsy and humour. When a fly is swatted, a transparent ghost fly emerges from its crushed body and buzzes away. An ICQ exchange is portrayed by superimposing the participants' messages like subtitles, and ends with a cartoon emerging from the computer screen to blow a raspberry. An infatuated girl signals her feelings by presenting the object of her affection with a navel ring.

Helping to sell the unusual cocktail is an appealing cast of young and personable actors with good support from such veterans as Pat Ha (after a 10-year absence from movies) and Anthony Wong (who's never looked more trim and graceful).

Visually, the film adopts whatever style best suits each scene's needs, but without ever seeming derivative. The more edgy and frenetic scenes are particularly impressive when you consider the quite traditional previous work of director Sylvia Chang and cinematographer Pin Bing Lee.

The complex characters, dark back-story and whimsical touches combine to make PRINCESS D an engaging and original contribution to the romance genre.

Angelica Lee lifts an otherwise pedestrian story into one deserving of attention. Lee delivers a powerful performance, made even the more extraordinary because she's relatively new to this whole acting thing. Even so, she's the only reason to watch this movie, giving it heart and soul and just about anything else you'll need to fall in love with this film.

Lee's 2002 film is THE EYE, another great choice.

8 out of 10.

With IMDb describing Princess D as a sci-fi movie, and offering a rating of (then) above 7, I thought I could allow myself to expect a good movie. And while I'll admit that it was Angelica Lee that attracted me to the movie (and she indeed looks stunning), the movie as a whole was something of a disappointment. It doesn't seem to take place in the future; it's about a game designer who's basing a computer game character on a real girl he becomes infatuated with.

But it isn't a sci-fi movie. In fact, the whole computer game aspect grows thinner and thinner, as the movie focuses more and more on the miserable life situation of the girl, who deals drugs in order to pay off her brother's debt to a gangster. The characterization tends to be superficial, some key scenes seem to be entirely missing, and... it's just not a particularly good movie - in my opinion.

But Angelica Lee *is* great to look at...

5 out of 10.

A relatively early outing from three of the young talents of Eastern cinema, this was a demonstration of the future potential of its lead stars.

Daniel Wu plays Joker, a young computer graphics designer tasked with designing the perfect female game character. Inspiration, however, is limited in his company as they design a beauty but lacks personality. In his search for ideas, he encounters Ling (Angelica Lee), a nightclub bar girl who peddles drugs to survive. Despite her beautiful shell, Joker and his brother, Kid (Edison Chen), discover a complex character with a dark background: a father in jail, a mentally ill mother, and a younger brother who seems always to be in the midst of trouble. And yet Joker's princess.

Despite the cheesiness of the outline, the flesh is actually okay. Angelica Lee shines with her performance of a very complicated character, one that is in search of not so much happiness, but more of an average life, yet knows how to have fun. However, she is pretty much the only 3D character (indeed she is supposed to be in the computer game) in the whole film. Which did mean that Daniel Wu and Edison Chen didn't really have the challenge.

The storyline, however, didn't match the quality of some of the performances. Never digging deep enough, never really explaining enough, it feels a bit like a run-of-the-mill kind of story. Again, I can't help but think that more could have been done with the plot. As it was, there was little to shout about.

This isn't a great film, but it's not half bad either. Angelica Lee is one of the great contemporary talents and I really believe she will go far. Even in this early film in her career, she really shone above the rest. One for Angelica fans.

I am a fan of Angelica Lee's acting. She seems so natural, no matter what role she plays. As the model for a computer game character, she seems at once perfect. The two actors that play the game's creators, Daniel Wu and Edison Chen, are also fine, but they don't have the same degree of likability. I have seen more than one film in which Ms. Lee has acted in which her looks are somewhat disparaged (If memory serves, in "Koma" she does it herself!). She has beautiful, big dark eyes and is otherwise very appealing. That appeal, along with her willingness, somewhat reluctantly at times, to go along with being the computer game model, makes the film enjoyable. Of course, there are other things going on, and they don't detract from the movie's unusual premise. You want everyone to succeed in this film. This film sometimes plays on the high definition cable channels, and it looks great in HD. Don't miss it.