|
|
發表於 2009-4-16 20:51:47
|
顯示全部樓層
http://www.bcmagazine.net/hk.bcm ... urian%20awards.html
7th Golden Durian Awards
The Golden Durians celebrate the best of the worst (and sometimes the worst of the best) of the previous year's local filmmaking. With only 50+ local films made last year, this year's choices are pretty easy. But you know what? We do miss the days when we got to see loads and loads of local films to decide who werevv the most deserving recipients of a Golden Durian......
Best Actor Durian
Leon Lai
An Empress and The Warriors
Leon Lai i\s an actor who struggles to convince at the best of times. While that might make him easy prey for an award like this, he has enough fans and supporters who try to persuade the world otherwise. Nevertheless, in An Empress and The Warriors as Duan Lanquan, a mysterious forest-dwelling doctor, were he to stand very still he might just disappear among the trees, his performance is that wooden. His elaborate tree-top dwelling and ridiculous project to build a hot-air balloon seem like desperate attempts by the filmmakers to distract audiences from his empty performance as he supposedly woos Kelly Chen. Perhaps because of this, Chen herself deteriorates once the two are forced to share the screen. The audience desperately prays for Donnie Yen to appear, rescue her and hopefully scythe this deadweight in two.
Best Actress Durian
Kelly Chen
An Empress and The Warriors
In what is arguably the most erratic performance of the year, Kelly Chen is a tough, adept and versatile warrior-princess one minute and a clumsy, sulky, spoiled little madam the next. At once confusing and carelessly anachronistic, Chen battles her way through the first half-hour of the film to convince the audience she can learn sword-wielding skills and lead her father’s army – and that includes the fearsome Donnie Yen – and largely succeeds. However, after an attack on her life leaves her marooned in Leon Lai’s woodland tree house, she quickly regresses into the kind of girl more at home throwing a tantrum on a Mong Kok street corner. Composed and regal one minute, she is colloquial and pathetic the next, totally out of keeping with the period setting of this supposed action epic.
Don’t Even Bother With a Pirate DVD Durian
Nobody’s Perfect
We, the Durian committee, do watch the films we write about here from start to finish, and sitting through the 99-minute Nobody’s Perfect was the most torturous of all the films we endured this year. If director Patrick Kong can make Stephy Tang looks so unappealing in a leopard-print outfit, how low can he sink? That and having to listen to Tang raise her voice to bitch at everyone everywhere is an insult to anyone who brings a brain into the cinema. But that is not the worst of it as Kong pokes fun at the Ekin Cheng and Gigi Leung’s scandal 10 years (!) ago, schedules in massive and shameless product placements of karaoke, internet service provider and EPS etc, and plugs tunes of a Gold Label artist in the middle of a scene…
The Disappearance of Local Hong Kong Actresses Durian
Maybe I am expecting too much but when I go to see Hong Kong films I expect to see Hong Kong actors in them – Simon Yam, Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen, any would be fine – and I expect to see Hong Kong actresses playing opposite. But hang on a minute, apparently we don’t have any, or none worthy enough to star opposite this elite line-up of alpha males. Increasingly, local productions employ Mainland and Taiwanese actresses, who then either help persuade the producers to make the film in Mandarin or have to be dubbed into Cantonese. The two biggest local hits of 2008, CJ7 and Red Cliff, starred Kitty Zhang (China), Zhao Wei (China) and Lin Chiling (Taiwan). Look at the other big local productions of the past 12 months – Ip Man, Connected, Beast Stalker, Painted Skin, Run Papa Run and Three Kingdoms – and you’ll find none with a Hong Kong native in the female lead. Kung Fu Dunk, with Charlene Choi, and An Empress and The Warriors, with Kelly Chen, are the only big-budget local movies to feature a Cantonese star, but neither can claim to be particularly good films. Sadder still is that the only hope for local female talent seems to be the wunderkind of romantic comedy, Patrick Kong. He alone champions the talents of Stephy Tang, Miki Yeung and Chelsea Tong – and that’s a sorry state of affairs to be in, for all parties concerned. But this award goes to him for bucking this terrible trend and continuing to cast the lovely ladies of this fair city. So where is all the talent? Where are Cecilia Cheung, Sammi Cheng, Maggie Cheung, Isabella Leong, Josie Ho and all the rest? Are they all retired, pregnant or living in Europe? Surely Edison hasn’t scared every wannabe actress back into the cozy confines of the corporate sector. The future of Hong Kong cinema is looking precarious enough, but without a single young, talented and bankable actress, how can we ever hope to preserve this city’s identity.
The Having a Go in Hollywood Durian
They try, they fail, they come back. It’s a tried and tested rites of passage that the good and great of the Hong Kong film industry go through at one stage or another during their careers. Kind of like military service. Tsui Hark, John Woo, Corey Yuen, Ronny Yu, and a number of other directors all journeyed West around the time of the handover, and we now have cinematic delights such as Double Team, Knock Off, Windtalkers, In Hell, DOA and The 51st State. Occasionally it works and we get gems like Woo’s Face/Off or Yuen’s The Transporter, but in general Hong Kong directors have failed to make an impact. The latest, Stephen Chow, was to make his Hollywood directorial debut with The Green Hornet, a feature-length version of the ’60s TV show that introduced the West to Bruce Lee, but he has since quit, although he will still co-star in Lee’s role of Kato, alongside Seth Rogen. Actors, unfortunately, also seem to test America’s willingness to feature Asian characters as anything other than silent killing machines. Bruce Lee was on his way after Enter The Dragon before his untimely death in 1973 but successors have found it tough. Jackie Chan has a trilogy of Rush Hour films under his belt but not much else. Chow Yun Fat continues his quest to be taken seriously, and we shall see how that is developing when Shanghai opens later this year, but if he continues to churn out rent-payers like Dragonball Evolution, his credibility will soon evaporate. Actresses like Zhang ZiYi and Gong Li have also found the odd high-profile role. Jet Li seems to be enjoying the most success, even as he moves away from martial-arts roles. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was pretty awful but made over US$400 million worldwide. It also starred a plethora of Hong Kong actors, including Anthony Wong, Isabella Leong and blink-and-you’ll-miss-him Wu Jing. They were all in generic “Chinese” roles but at least it is work in a big summer release. Of course, the language barrier is a problem but not insurmountable for those who are determined. For a number of younger stars whose first language is English – Daniel Wu and Karen Mok to name but two – the language is not an obstacle… nor an excuse.
Biggest Waste of Major Talent Durian
All About Women
Combining the talents of director Tsui Hark with Korean writer Kwak Jae Young to tell a Beijing Sex and the City-style comedy starring Zhao Xun, Kitty Zhang and Kwai Lunmei should have been a home run. However, All About Women turned out to be a bloated, ridiculous, overlong and not-nearly-funny-enough mess of a film. Tsui Hark’s producers had clearly given him far too much creative freedom and what starts off promisingly enough quickly spirals out of control. His actresses (some of China and Taiwan’s finest thanks to many respected, nuanced performances) here deliver crass caricatures of stereotypical city girls – be they mousey, career-driven or just plain crazy. The script, from My Sassy Girl’s Kwak, stretches the bounds of credibility as screwball comedy quickly deteriorates into a desperate free-for-all, but Tsui must bear the burden for this failure – the once great filmmaker flails under the weight of his own reputation.
Worst Costume, Make-up and Styling Durian
The Luckiest Man
We can spare Nat Chan’s hairdo, Danny Chan Kwok-Kwan’s wearing a mink at home and many actress’ dodgy eye shadow and pajamas invoking the ’70s. But young men in black suits wearing flip-flops and sandals playing mahjong with their toes? No way!
Being Daniel Wu Durian
Alex Fong
If Daniel Wu isn’t available, a producer or director could consider Alex Fong. He is good looking, has acceptable acting skills (he is improving, that is) and a clean private life, and he even demonstrated some action ability in Legendary Assassin (though we suspect it may have been a stunt). The question is whether Mr Paco Wong will let his star finally start working in some real films instead of the formulated celluloid fast food of Patrick Kong.
How the Hell Did I Get Here? Durian
Tsui Hark
The maestro released two films last year: Missing, a thriller starring Lee Sin Je, and All About Women, a romantic comedy starring Zhou Xun. Both were bombs. Still, we got a little gooey-eyed during HKIFF’s retrospective programme A Tribute to Romantic Visions – 25th Anniversary of Film Workshop with its programme of great films like Once Upon a Time in China, Swordsman and A Chinese Ghost Story. Dear Mr Hark, we admire your ambition to always look for the breakthrough, but, really, this time we feel obliged to award you this Durian – even while looking forward to your next work and hoping it will make us regret our temerity.
Most Gratuitous Product Placement Durian
Nobody’s Perfect
We thought product placement in movies had already sunk to abysmal depths, but apparently local film investors can coerce scriptwriters to venture even lower: The latest trick is to discover products in the dialogue. That’s why in Nobody’s Perfect, other than ogling a still shot of the karaoke logo and the constant appearance of the ESP I do! poster, we are forced to cogitate lines totally unrelated to the gist of the story like “Do you want to withdraw some cash by EPS?”, “I applied HK Broadband a few days ago and it only takes a few seconds to download XXX MB of files,” “Let’s go to Neway CEO for K Buffet,” and so on. Nobody’s Perfect is a commercial break with a plot. A very weak plot.
The Did-You-Know-It-Existed? Durian
Only the Way
Last year saw a new low in the number of Hong Kong’s annual film releases – as few as 50-something – but, even so, some didn’t register on our radar. Only the Way must have been the quietest of the lot. Directed by Tang Tak Wing and starring Cheng Kwok Keung and Moon Lee, the film opened last May and we completely missed it. Our fault (or theirs?). But with a Buddhist background, the movie explores serious subjects like life and death, Zen and karma: We are curious to see the plotline that frames all that.
The Safe Sex Durian
La Lingerie
If society and mainstream media taught us anything last year, it was that sex is wrong and enjoying it is evil. And so Wong Cho Lam and Stephy Tang demonstrated the perfect HK way of sharing sex in La Lingerie – “You do yours and I do mine.” Throughout the two-and-a-half-minute scene, we see Stephy moaning without much passion while Wong creates a climax out of nothing. Mutual masturbation = sex in the 21st century. We recommend teachers sample the scene as material for their ever-useless sex education classes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0lnfJdwo-o&NR=1
The Bad Advertising Durian
Ronald Cheng in La Lingerie
We agree a guy providing services to maidens who wish to break their virginity may make for a profitable (or even charitable) business, as Ronald Cheng’s solo moment in La Lingerie suggests. But can it, please, not be Ronald Cheng? It is just too utterly unconvincing. |
|
IP卡
狗仔卡
發表於 2009-2-11 16:15:05
提升卡
置頂卡
沉默卡
喧囂卡
變色å¡
顯身å¡
