Tag: Will Or Wai-Lam

A Foggy Tale (大濛, Chen Yu-hsun, 2025)

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A young girl witnesses the horrors of the White Terror when she travels from her rural hometown to retrieve the body of her brother who has been executed by military police in Chen Yu-hsun’s otherwise light-hearted odyssey through 1950s Taipei, A Foggy Tale (大濛, dà méng). The title refers to a story the heroine’s brother Yun (Tseng Jing-hua), whose name means “cloud”, tells twice. First, it’s a metaphor for a resistance movement as two drops of water join many others to form a cloud that then descends on a patch of land that makes it farmable. Secondly, the second water droplet never makes it to the cloud, but instead becomes trapped half way and dissolves into the mist.

It is, however, into a foggy town that Yue (Caitlin Fang) arrives after leaving alone when her uncle, who has taken over her parents’ house following both of their deaths, explains that he can’t pay to retrieve Yun’s body. Their aunt is already resentful of the money they spent trying to save, and in truth does not want the extra mouths to feed of her niece and nephew. She would much rather have the house, which she regards as her husband’s rightful inheritance anyway, to herself for her sons to be the masters of. While he was in hiding, Yun had approved of Yue’s desire to become a teacher though she’s been taken out of school and, as he says, women in the country generally have little other choice than to become wives and mothers working the land. 

To add to the sense of displacement, Yue has an older sister in Taipei whom she’s never met because she was fostered out as a future daughter-in-law before Yue was born. Hsia (9m88) has since left the family who brought her up after refusing to marry the man she was betrothed to because they had been raised like siblings, though he remains somewhat resentful and badgers her to return. She had been acquainted with Yun while he was a student in the city, but has no idea that he has been killed after being arrested as a possible “communist” for protesting against the regime. 

Though she may not have felt it in the country, the forces of oppression are all around Yue in the city in the very presence of the military police. After being caught sleeping in the street, she’s taken in and beaten up by a policeman for talking back, while they also push her to “explain” where she got her money as a prelude to confiscating it for themselves. A kind yet flawed rickshaw driver (Will Or Wai-lam) who saves her from being kidnapped and sold into sex work, explains to her that the funeral home even charges for the bullets that were used to shoot her brother and she likely needs two or three times as much as she thought or they’ll throw him in a mass grave with the other victims of the regime.

Years later, an older Yue who has fulfilled most of her dreams though she no longer speaks Taiwanese with her adult daughter but Mandarin, sees a news report about the discovery of a mass grave and checks the names of those identified looking for someone she lost. This unearthing of the buried is past of symbolic of the desire to expiate this history, though Yue does not find the answers she’s looking for and the question is left hanging. When times where unbearable, Yun had told her to wind his watch forward and think of the Taiwan years to come that would be better where people could be free from oppression and exploitation. It took longer than expected, but some of that world has come to be, the film seems to say, if not completely and still with this mist hanging in the air that is the victims of the White Terror. Still, Yue’s story has its share of whimsy as she chases through the backstreets of a labyrinthine city. She encounters both kindness from the justice-loving rickshaw driver who tries to help but also scams her out of her brother’s watch only to return it years later as a means of assuaging his guilt, and cruelty from the men who tried to sell her, the secret policeman who apparently went into business, and unforgiving detectives. But in other ways, what she finds is a kind of peace and her place as a part of this nation and society as time continues its eternal march forward.

A Foggy Tale screens in Chicago 10th April as part of the 20th edition of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Another World (世外, Tommy Kai Chung Ng, 2025)

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The Another World (世外) in title of Tommy Kai Chung Ng’s animated adaptation of Saijo Naka’s novel SENNENKI -Thousand-year Journey of an Oni-, most obviously refers to that beyond our own which belongs to the dead and those who exist outside of time, but it also hints at the other worlds that might be possible if only we could find ways to channel our negative emotions into something more positive rather than allowing ourselves to be consumed by rage and resentment.

As Soul Keeper Gudo (Chung Suet-ying) says, the seeds of evil lie within us all though he does not necessarily believe that they destroy humans, rather that they may also push us to survive. Throughout his wandering adventures, the souls he encounters are angry for reasons that are not irrational but a natural consequence of the world in which they live. Goran is a powerless princess resented by her subjects for being the apparent victim of a curse. She blames herself for her mother’s death in childbirth and is consumed by feelings of worthlessness even before her father the king dies and riddles the court with conspiracy. Coming to believe that he was murdered, her rage blossoms turning her into a cruel despot inflicting crazed violence on her subjects until eventually fleeing the palace. Flower City is reduced to Wheat Village where the farmers are pressed by the occupying force which demands half of their already poor harvest and does not much care if they starve to death despite warnings that they won’t eat either if the peasants are either too weak or too dead to farm the land.

It’s starvation that is really the true evil most particularly when it is caused or exacerbated by human greed and cruelty. Echoing Yuri (Christy Choi Hiu-Tung), a young girl who does not know she is dead and is intent on finding her brother from whom she has been separated, Gudo makes this simple act of sharing food a means of connection and identification. Farmer Keung, meanwhile, believes that he can only free the village by becoming a “Wrath”, a creature of indiscriminate violence that arises when the seeds of evil blossom and threatens to destabilise both this world and the other. Gudo tries to dissuade him, showing him that those who succumb to their rage and anger often end up harming those closest to them no matter how much they say they’ll be different. But Keung’s eventual conviction that their salvation lies solidarity and standing together against the oppressive regime eventually backfires when they’re betrayed by its duplicitous soldiers. Ying too, a young orphan exploited as child labour and forced to work in a factory during the Industrial Revolution, witnesses someone close to her literally consumed by the machinery.

The film does not suggest that this rage is wrong or misplaced, only that giving in to it is a choice that only puts more fear and evil out into the world. Gudo suggests the solution is solidarity after all in that anyone can offer salvation, but it also requires time and faith in one’s self. His various charges must learn to forgive themselves before they can let go, lay down their burdens and prepare for reincarnation. This is really the only way it is possible to endure this impossible world, which is not to say that it cannot be changed or resisted but that the means of resistance is to live in the better world that does not yet exist rather than succumb to violence which will result only in more of the same.

Beautifully animated, the film appears to draw inspiration from the work of Studio Ghibli including a few homages in particular to Castle in the Sky, though relying more on verbal exposition than purely visual storytelling or thematic resonance. Nevertheless, there is something satisfying in the depiction of resentments as a series of knots to be untied leading to a gradual liberation as if symbolising the work to be done. The closing scenes perhaps imply that this world cannot be cured, even if the other one may be, but is not itself without hope, and that whatever else may be human warmth and the desire for the world to be better will endure.

Another World opens in UK cinemas 29th February courtesy of Central City Media.

UK trailer (English subtitles)

Good Game (觸電, Dickson Leung Kwok-Fai, 2025) [Fantasia 2025]

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Maybe esports don’t sound that intense, but it turns out that they require a good deal of physical training and stamina. Which is to say that like many other athletic pursuits, there’s an invisible age cap in which players are often written off at a comparatively youthful age because their reaction times might be slower or they might struggle to pick up on new strategies or ways of playing the game. But that’s only part of Solo’s problem. He’s never exactly been a team player, but esports is all he’s ever known and he’s fiercely resentful of being edged out by a bunch of 20 year olds.

Dickson Leung Kwok-Fai’s Good Game (觸電) is really in part about how one is never really “too old” to make a go of something. But also about growing up, which doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning your dreams, but perhaps becoming a little more aware of the reality along with gaining self-awareness about the self-sabotaging effects of your behaviour. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is changing too, but is clinging on to the past really the best thing you can do?

Nowhere more is this change being felt than in Tai’s internet cafe. As is pointed out to him, kids play games on their phones these days, so establishments like his no longer have as much to offer. His bright idea is entering an esports tournament, not only for the prize money but to advertise the cafe and bring the customers back. But the problem is that his best customers are an elderly couple who’ve ironically started coming to the cafe for stimulation because the games help stave off Auntie Lan’s dementia, while her husband, Golden Arm, turns out to be actually quite good at them. 

To win, he wants to recruit Solo, a formerly successful esports player. His team has just been disbanded after losing a championship, but Solo doesn’t want to give up yet. He refuses to believe that his esports career is over just because he’s nearly 30, but also doesn’t want to lower himself to playing with the oldies on the Happy Hour team even though no one else he called wanted to join in because they all moved on from esports ages ago or just don’t want to deal with his drama. As his name suggests, Solo is somewhat egotistical and hasn’t figured out the reason his team kept losing was because of a lack of teamwork and trust. 

As his friend points out to him, Solo can only devote himself to esports because his parents are still supporting him financially, whereas he had to do two part-time jobs just to make ends meet because the economy’s rubbish and unemployment is sky high. Esports is not viable nor long-term career choice, but it is a lifeline for people like Tai, Golden Arm, and Auntie Lan who can find purpose and community in gaming that allows them to carry on fighting even when their problems seem insurmountable. 

With an inevitable rent hike looming, Tai is urged to look for smaller premises but stubbornly tries to hang on. Yet like many recent Hong Kong films, Good Game seems to say that it’s alright to let go of a fading Hong Kong or at least to try to grab on to the parts that matter most and take with you what you can carry while embracing the community around you. Tai’s daughter Fay’s inability to stick at her jobs hints at this sense of restlessness, but also a changing dynamic in the younger generation that won’t be satisfied with a dull but steady job that pays the bills but nothing more. Though Solo’s former teammate gets a regular job selling insurance to try to gain some kind of financial stability, he still returns to coach the team and is then offered another job doing the same. Winning or losing don’t really matter as much as playing a “good game”, which means learning to work as a team and make the most of everyone’s unique skills while trusting them to do their best and have your back. Leaning in to video aesthetics in interesting ways, the film creates a sense of immersion in its virtual world but equally a sense of warmth and solidarity in the real one as the rag tag team band together to fight for their right to continue fighting. 

Good Game screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

One More Chance (別叫我”賭神, Anthony Pun Yiu-Ming, 2023)

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A feckless gambler gets a final shot at redemption when he’s suddenly asked to take care of an autistic son he never knew he had in Anthony Pun Yiu-Ming’s nostalgic drama, One More Chance (別叫我”賭神). Previously titled “Be Water, My Friend”, the film has had a troubled production history only reaching cinema screen four years after filming concluded in March 2019 and has been retitled in the Chinese “Don’t Call Me the God of Gamblers” which seems to be a blatant attempt to cash in the audience’s fond memories of similarly pitched Chow Yun-fat vehicles from the ’80s and ’90s such as All About Ah Long.

In truth, Chow is probably a little old for the role he’s cast to play as the middle-aged barber Water who’s long since fled to Macao in an attempt to escape problems with loansharks caused by his gambling addition. Of course, Macao is one of the worst places someone with a gambling problem could go and so Water is already up to his neck in debt and a familiar face at the local casino. That’s one reason he ends up going along with the proposal of old flame Lee Xi (Anita Yuen Wing-Yee) to look after her grownup son, Yeung (Will Or Wai-Lam), who is autistic, for a month in return for 50,000 HK dollars up front and another 50,000 at the end assuming all goes well. She claims that Water is Yeung’s father and even provides forms for him to send off for a DNA test if he doesn’t believe her, but at this point all Water is interested in is the cash. 

To begin with, he pretty much thinks of Yeung as cash cow, descending on a Rain Man-esque path of using him to up his gambling game but otherwise frustrated by his needs and ill-equipped to care for an autistic person whom he makes little attempt to understand. For his part, Yeung adapts well enough and tries to make the best of his new circumstances but obviously misses his mother and struggles when Water selfishly disrupts his routines. For all that, however, it’s largely Yeung who is looking after Water, tidying the apartment and bringing a kind of order into his life while forcing him to reckon with the self-destructive way he’s been living. 

Picking up a casino chip in the opening sequence, Water describes it as a “chance” in an echo of the way he’s been gambling his life just as he decides to gamble on taking in Yeung. At one point, he wins big on the horses but takes his winnings straight to the casino where he’s wiped out after staking everything on a single bet only to realise he’s been played by another grifter at the table. It seems that Xi left him because of his gambling problem and the resultant change in his lifestyle that had made it impossible for her to stay or raise a child with him, causing Water to become even more embittered and cynical. Where once he provided a refuge for wayward young men trying to get back on the straight and narrow, now he’s hassled by petty gangsters over his massive debts.

Nevertheless, it’s re-embracing his paternity that begins to turn his life around as he bonds with Yeung and begins to have genuine feelings for him rather than just fixating on the money while simultaneously recognising that Yeung is already a man and able to care for himself in many more ways than others may assume. One could say that he gambles on the boy, staking his life on him rather than endless rolls of the dice to fill an emotional void but also rediscovering a sense of himself and who he might have been if he had not developed a gambling problem and left it up to chance to solve all his problems. Unabashedly sentimental, the film flirts with nostalgia in the presence of Chow and Anita Yuen and largely looks back the Hong Kong classics of the 80s and 90s if with half an eye on the Mainland censors board, Bruce Lee shrine not withstanding, but nevertheless presents a heartwarming tale of father and son bonding and paternal redemption as Water crosses the desert and finally reclaims himself from his life of dissipation. 

Original trailer (English subtitles)