Made in Hong Kong

Despite a weak last half-hour, Fruit Chan's debut is absolutely stunning. It continues the 'new Hong Kong' visual style (strobe, overexposure, freeze-frames, and jump-cutting) that fellow director Wong-Kar Wai has pioneered in his last three films. In addition to superb cinematography and editing, the storyline also is exceptional, taking the viewer into the harsh realities of Hong Kong youth gangs. Autumn Moon, the main character, is a rare creation - both attractive and repulsive. The moment we begin to empathize with him, he pushes us away with his enormous capacity for violence. This perfect mix of tenderness and harshness push it head and shoulders above most Hong Kong cinema, not only of 1997, but of any other year as well.

Sluggish gangster genre revitalised by infusion of teen melodrama. One of the films of the year. The violence is, for once, sickening, immediate and real, rather than crude comedy, but interlaced with expressionistic sensibility of dead protagonist. Deeply moving on a personal level, and highly comic in spite of ultimate despair. The director's visual vocabulary is immense, with imagery of such dreamlike, poetic, evocative beauty, your heart stops.

At least two famous film critics retired at a time when they felt they were no longer in step with new cinema. One was a much revered Sunday newspaper journalist in the UK who saw the writing on the wall when she could only register her loathing for "Psycho". Although I am not a professional critic and simply like to impart enthusiasm rather than condemnations through this website, I sometimes wonder if I am out of step with what a much younger generation of audiences admire. I have all but ceased going to the commercial cinema where nine out of ten offerings seem to be mindless kids' fodder delivered at a painfully high decibel level. Far too often those that my peergroup recommend, "0negin" or "The House of Mirth" for example, I find to be dreary and portentous. And so I sit through endless art house movies, many of them enervating in the extreme, just for that wonderful sense of discovery when something like "La Promesse" from Belgium or "After Life" from Japan occurs. However, I had a sobering experience the other day which has warned me not to be too dismissive of "youth appeal" films when I saw "Made in Hong Kong". First impressions were dreadful, slapdash hand-held camera stuff, washed out colours, tempo continuously at feverpitch and a plot I could barely follow - the last factor is something I recognise as a personal shortcoming if my interest is not initially aroused. I could not quite pinpoint at the time why I did not abandon there and then a film I was barely comprehending or why something afterwards tempted me to give it a second go. I was extremely glad I did as I think I achieved an insight into why such a film can work for young people. The three main characters are all so likeable. There is Moon the school dropout turned toughie, his sidekick a retard whom he protects called Sylvester and Ping the girl with a serious kidney disease whom they are both soft on. For all its violent rough cut trappings, "Made in Hong Kong" is an incredibly sentimental film about camaraderie of the "Kings Row" sort that my generation wallowed in and "Dead Poets Society" revered by the generation in between. It is that old "youth - death" thing all over again. My recognition and appreciation of this in a film initially as alien as "Made in Hong Kong" gives me hope that I can still keep in step.

Every once in a while you'll see a film that just makes you say "wow". After the final scene goes by, you just sit there watching as the credits go by, then the black space after the credits, then the "snow" after that, then finally the tape rewinding itself. You just continue sitting there watching the screen... dumbfounded.... you just sit there and say "wow". Made In Hong kong is one of those movies. To say that this movie blew me away would be an understatement. This movie got inside of me and changed the way I look at HK cinema, or cinema as a whole for that matter, hell... it even changed the way I look at life.

Autumn Moon is a low life thug, he and some friends discover the body of a dead girl who committed suicide, and a note she left. This dead girl that he never knew ends up teaching him more about his own life than he could by himself, and also guides him to his own fate. See this movie and experience cinema at it's best.

"Made In Hong Kong" is one of the best movies i have watched that have come from Hong Kong. This was directorial debut of Fruit Chan and it is impressive for the first movie. This movie was made on low budget with amateur actors but it is the best thing, that made this movie to be more realistic and unique. Sam Lee is just fantastic in the role of the main character Moon, you can really feel the emotions and his expressions, and this role is just natural for him, i can really imagine him to be like that in real life, and i really like his character, he is just small thug but in heart he is good person, he was made like that because of environment in which he grew up, it is my opinion that all people are generally born good, but society and regimes made people to came on the wrong side. I also liked the relationship between Moon and Ping, it was beautifully portrayed and it reminds me of the works of Kai War Wong, it was beautiful and melancholic. I also like the end of the movie and the last sequences, i totally understands that for some people in his position, death is only solution. I will definitely watch more movies from Fruit Chan in the future.