Barcelona Dispatch. 4.

Sometimes reminiscent of the forgettable Elisha Cuthbert vehicle The Girl Next Door, Pang Ho-Cheung's AV follows four young airheads' odyssey as they set out to make a fake porn movie with a real porn star, Manami Amamiya (playing herself with little charisma). The Hong Kong film has some wit but not enough to entertain all the way through, and sadly disintegrates into sappy melodrama when its raunchy element should become attractively ambiguous, or uncomfortable, or creepy, at least for a narrow-minded audience. There's another main problem - the refusal to delve deeper into the social framework, which could have made this a Trainspotting.

All in all, this popcorn product's not really better than your average raunchy comedy from the US, and it falls far short of reaching the surreal intelligence of recent examples such as Old School, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle or The 40-Year-Old Virgin - or even The Girl Next Door. This won't be remembered as one of the most valuable entries at BAFF 2006, but it can't be entirely dismissed, either, at least in terms of learning about what makes the box office swell over on far horizons - and of enjoying a good joke or two about Tarkovsky and Sarah Jessica Parker.

There was little to enjoy about Loach is Fish Too, presented in Official Section by its producer, Nan Guang-cheng. Not only because this movie about Chinese migrant workers is a relentless series of tragedies, but also because the film itself is made with a certain lack of rigor. Yang Ya-Zhou forces hystrionics, loses all control of the camera and messes his narrative up as he follows two migrant workers, a woman and an older man, in search for some kind of dignity in Beijing. Good intentions don't always pave the way to interesting movies and, sadly, that's the case for Loach is Fish Too, which cannot be compared with the best examples of social Chinese cinema, such as the early works of Zhang Yimou.

A minimal detail can do a great damage, and in the case of Loach is Fish Too, that detail is the melancholic tinkling of a piano underscoring every little drip of blood, sweat and tears. The director seems not to believe that the crude - and continuous, and complete - exposition of human discouragement is enough to get audience on its knees.

Posted by dwhudson at May 2, 2006 1:15 PM