The Fantastic Water Babes - 出水芙蓉

The Fantastic Water Babes (出水芙蓉) is a 2010 film out of Hong Kong. The film stars Gillian Chung and Alex Fung. Supporting cast includes Eva Huang, Stephen Fung, Chrissie Chau, and former olympic gold medalist Tian Liang.

Gillian Chung plays a brass swimming gal who's madly in love with her boyfriend. However, she's gravely embarrass when a secret recording is broadcast of her boyfriend cheating on her and making bad remarks about her. She challenges the gal he's cheated on to a swimming challenge. In order to do this, they kidnap Alex Fong, who's a world class swimmer.

This movie is common HK fare these days. The gals are pretty, the plot suffers from cheesiness, but its a feel good movie at the end. This is so different from the HK movies that I grew up watching from the 80s and 90s. Where happy endings were made fun of. Watch it for Gillian, Eva, and Christy. Skip if you want a good story that makes sense.

The Avenging Fist - 拳神

The Avenging Fist (拳神) is a 2001 film out of Hong Kong. It stars a lot of people. But the main star is Wong Lee Hom. Apparently, the movie was to be based of Tekken, but the license was lost right before production. The movie was directed by Andrew Lau of all people.

Wong plays a young up and coming fighter. Wong's father was also a legendary fighter before his death. Now Wong wants to become the best fighter there is. However, there's a dark and secret force that threaten the world as they know it. The police investigate and love interest are introduce to Wong.

This movie was a blast to the past in terms of storyline and it goes something like this. "I like to fight, my dad liked to fight, so let's fight man!" The CGI was grossly overused, but was needed for the "world" created to house this madness.

Do you need to watch this? Yes. Will it suck? Prolly a little. But it is a no nonsense HK action movie at its core.

Gen X-Cops - 特警新人類

Gen X-Cops (特警新人類) is a 1999 film out of Hong Kong. It is hard to believe that its been 10 years since this films been out. Starring a majority of young unknowns, this movie was part of the launching pad for some of today's more popular Chinese male actors. The male stars are Nicholas Tse, Stephen Fung, Sam Lee, and Daniel Wu. The female stars are Grace Yip and Jaymee Ong.

I recently re-watched this while washing dishes and it was a doozy. I remember that I had lost almost all faith in HK cinema at the time. Of the gazillion movies being release from HK, only a couple every few months are even watchable. The quality of the films suffered from the handover. This wasn't a great film, but it was so much better than all the other junk at the time. I remember renting this bad quality version and than watching it a few months later on an official release DVD.



At the time of its release, I was in my mid-twenties and the males leads were all younger than me. The "coolness" factor was emphasized and they threw in rave and club culture on top of that. Something that was new at the time. Is it accurate? No way, but movies only present a scene to move the story along. And the way the story moved along caught my attention.

Jaymee Ong was the star of the movie for me. Jaymee was really just eye candy in the film as she had so little screen time. But the scene time was greatly appreciated. It's too bad Jaymee moved on to the US after to break into Hollywood. I read that she's onto Singapore now. With only 2 HK movies to her credit, its a shame.

In all, the movie actually stands the test of time and is entertaining to watch. Turn you brain off and reminisce to the that Y2K era. A guilty pleasure it is.

They did have a sequel to this that was no where as good. More on that in the future.

All About Women - 女人不壞

All About Women (女人不壞) is a 2008 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Zhou Xun, Kitty Zhang, and Kwai Lun-mei as the female leads. Eddie Peng, Stephen Fung, and Godfrey Kao show up as the supporting male cast.

The movie follows the lives of 3 women who are all very different in personality and demeanor. In a strange twist of happenstance, all 3 get linked together mid way through the film.

All the people in this film are eye candy. Even in glasses and a bowl cut, Zhou Xun doesn't come across as disgusting or ugly as the film suggest.

It does expose us a little to the Beijing Rock and Roll scene and that there are mega-corporations left and right in China.

I didn't like the movie much and fast forward through 25% of it. Didn't skip a beat with the fast forwarding as the story was uniquely predictable.

The cast only includes a couple of HK stars, but is a HK film. Funny. Watch it for the pretty people, Beijing, and production value.