Movie night

Strange how yesterday's rule becomes today's exception. A decade ago, a Hong Kong double feature was such a common element in my life I could come close to calling it "routine". Every February and March, the Film Center would host the Hong Kong Film Festival and, each time, I'd see all or at least most of the dozen movies being screened. How did I fall out of the habit? Combination of things. For one, piracy hollowed out the Hong Kong film industry to the point where finding twelve decent films a year became a serious challenge. (This year's festival, for instance, features only six recent films; the rest form part of a retrospective reaching back to the late 80's.) For another, I started dating a guy who just wasn't big into movies and spending time with him became more important to me than spending time in the cinema.

This year's festival would've passed me by entirely if not for gopower's heads-up some weeks back. He spotlighted a film starring heartthrob Andy "Not in the face!" Lau as a Shaolin-style monk turned male stripper. Cruising the listings last night, I noticed that today was the last day to see it--and that it was playing right before The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, easily the most ridiculous HK film parody I've every seen. I rang monshu up in the morning and sold him on both films.

The first, Running On Karma (the Cantonese title translates as "Big Guy", the nickname of Lau's character) I figured would have some redeeming moments even if it turned out to be an overall mess. At the very least, bodybuilder bodysuit = hilarity, right? We were all pleasantly surprised to find it not so much a wacky comedy as a light drama with some gags and gimmicks grafted on. monshu expected to find the Buddhist philosophy sadly oversimplified, but their take on it was solid enough that we were able to have a serious discussion about some of the issues raised afterwards.

With The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I knew what I was getting. It's one of the very few movies I own on videotape--a gift from Nuphy, who loves it. Here the pleasant surprise was that monshu and his_regard found it more entertaining than exhausting. ("A fun romp", raves the Great White One!) I was relieved to see that we got the version with the good subtitles that Nuphy and I originally saw in the theatre and not the inferior subtitles, which are all he's been able to find on DVD.

Afterwards, we fled back home and took a chance on finding seating at La Fonda. Take note: Success hasn't spoiled them to the point that you can't find a free table at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. Also, they had at least double the specials they've ever offered any other time we've been there. monshu had the tuna (which I never remember seeing there before), I had the lamb chops, and his_regard the Caribbean stuffed chicken breast. Perhaps he has enough good things to say about it that he'll write a review himself?