Here comes another feature from the most productive sibling director in Asian film, the Pang Brother. After Oxide goes solo with “The Detective”, now is Danny who’s take the turn with his latest solo effort away from his brother. “In Love With The Dead” also his solo project after the not so working “Forest of Death” last year. In this new film, it seems that Danny has trying something slightly different from the usual ghostly themes for which he and his brother are well known. Even the movie title is still pointing to some supernatural things, but actually the film will goes more to a character driven drama, anyway, consider that this is a Pang Bros film, so the dark atmosphere, some creepy factors, and the twisted part definitely still be the main menus of the show. The Hong Kong version DVD of the film is now available on the market, packed in 2 disks set that feature both English and Mandarin subtitles. Also included are 5 printed postcards as a fold out card sheet with perforations to separate the postcards with key scene film stills.Ming (Shawn Yue – Invisible Target, Infernal Affairs 2) and Wai (Stephy Tang – Love is not All Around) are a couple living together happily. When Wai is diagnosed with a fatal pancreatic cancer, Ming swears to take care and does everything he can do for her. But then it proves to be a not easy task, because as long as Wai’s health that slowly deteriorates, she soon start acting very strangely, her temperament becomes volatile, and she begin to do an odd action by lurking around in their dark flat all day. Wai’s strange behavior also reminding her little sister Ping (Zeng Qiqi) with a ghost from the scary comic she loves reading. Disturbed and depressed, Ming having a passionate fling with his attractive colleague, Fong (Yoka Yue) when he’s under the influence of alcohol during a business trip. The fatal attraction turn to be a painful triangle for all involved, one night Wai suddenly disappear and at the same time both Ming and Fong have a car accident. Afterwards, unexpected things are happen to each of them, Wai is suddenly appears next to the door of their flat and she quietly has a better changing with her body and behavior. The worse thing now is happen to Ming, he’s begin to smell like a corpse, his hair falls out like Wai’s, and the most terrible thing is when he vomits a dozen of living worms.Story: 6/10 – Ending: 6/10 – Actors: 7/10 – Overall: 6/10
Product Details: Product Title: In Love With The Dead – Hong Kong Version DVD Actors: Shawn Yue, Stephy Tang, Yoka Yue, Zeng Qiqi, Patrick Tam Director: Danny Pang Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1 Languages: Mandarin, Cantonese Subtitles: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese Region: 3 Number of Discs: 2 Genre: Romantic Thriller Running Time: 98 Minutes Distributor: Universe Laser (HK) Release Date: January 25, 2008 (Order Your Copy Now!)
Special Features: - Behind the Scenes - Gala Premiere - More Attractions - Undeserved Love MVOther Review for the dead: (By Kozo – LoveHKFilm) Decent direction, half-baked story. That could be the epitaph of the Danny Pang-Oxide Pang duo, better known to the world as the Pang Brothers, whose work in the Asian horror genre has gone from accomplished to uninspiring to finally repetitive. Thankfully, the brothers are attempting new genres with their stories, dropping the usual "I see ghosts" plotlines for detective films (The Detective), sci-fi mysteries (Forest of Death), and now terminal illness dramas (In Love with the Dead). However, there still has to be a horror element, because if there wasn't, then what excuse would there be for loud shock scares, creepy production design, or pale, long-haired girls who look like they've not eaten in months? In Love with the Dead, directed by Danny Pang and produced by Pang and brother Oxide, changes up the Pang Brothers formula, and does so in a surprisingly involving manner. But in the end, despite any innovations to the usual Pang tropes, it doesn't really go anywhere, resulting in an underwhelming motion picture. You could score some laughs, though. Box-office princess Stephy Tang stars as Wai, a sweet young thing afflicted with pancreatic cancer. The prognosis is not good, with only a 20% chance of recovery, but at least she has insanely loving boyfriend Ming (Shawn Yue), who lives with Wai and her little sister Ping (Zeng Qi Qi). While Wai stays at home in their poorly lit, borderline creepy flat, he's out there trying to make ends meet, but his insistence on knocking off early to race home to Wai results in his unemployment. His new job promises to be slightly more understanding because he's working for childhood friend Fong (Yoka Yue), but Fong is pretty damn attractive and apparently not so stable with her fiancé. She also had a thing for Ming back in grade school, and Wai is well aware of it, also having attended school with the two of them. Since she's dying, plus her condition makes intimacy difficult, and Ming may have a chance with a hot ingénue, perhaps Wai should consider some sort of noble sacrifice in order to ease her beloved's heartbreak. That is, before Ming is tempted into two-timing anyway. Hold on, there's also a horror element to add to the mix. Little Ping keeps getting busted at school for reading horror comics, and thinks that Wai is starting to resemble the icky drawings in her pulpy reading material. Wai's battle with cancer comes with the appropriate mood swings, but there are odd details arising, including her growing disenchantment with Western medicine (she hates chemotherapy), and a growing belief in Eastern practices, including herbal medicine and practicing qigong, or the coordination of breathing patterns via poses and postures, AKA internal martial arts. No, this doesn't mean Stephy Tang will soon be kicking Shawn Yue's ass as the toughest terminal beauty around, but she may be able to walk via her hands, plus there may be side effects requiring the creepy stylistic touch of the Pang Brothers. The bigger question may be what's happening to Ming, because soon Ping starts to think that Ming looks like the drawings in her comic books, too. Since the title of the film is In Love with the Dead, we can only assume that someone is being kicked off. But is it Wai or Ming who's lacking the pulse?In Love with the Dead earns points for dabbling in other genres, namely the terminal illness romance, and Danny Pang's effort is surprisingly accomplished. He uses very few characters, few sets, and a maximum of breathing room (the film is glacially paced by Hong Kong standards), but there is something involving in his pacing and how he slowly digs into the characters to reveal their insecurities and fears. The cast turns in decent performances, and the film progresses effectively. The horror elements are introduced quite well, creeping up slowly, and building to a final revelation or discovery that will hopefully make everything that came before worthwhile. These elements do intrigue, adding anticipation to the film, and despite the overuse of certain techniques (shock sounds, montages, fadeouts), In Love with the Dead feels like it's heading somewhere. The film is patient, and forces the audience to be patient too. As the film nears its close, it's obvious that something is definitely up, and Danny Pang does enough to keep us around to find out. But is the payoff worth it? I say no, and in fact, I also call shenanigans. Thanks to selective disclosure and an abundance of misleading details, In Love with the Dead goes from portentous horror-romance to red herring-filled disappointment. When the big reveal occurs, its handling can cause giggles, if not derisive laughter. Comedy was obviously not the final goal of the Pang Brothers, and indeed there's nothing truly that funny about what In Love with the Dead reveals in its final moments. But the film does not seduce or convince enough such that its climax elicits the desired emotion. One can only suspect they were looking to disturb or even horrify the audience, but it doesn't work here. For most of the film, Pang seems to know what he's doing, building the situations and the tension, but when the ending rolls around, the whole thing collapses. What's to blame here? A flimsy story? Uninteresting characters? Too many misleading details? Or does Pang Brothers + horror genre = not working anymore? It's probably all of the above, and the quickest fix may be to try something completely, totally different. I still believe that the Pang Brothers have the talent to do a lot more. However, given their recent run of films, that belief has begun to waver.
On its cinema release, the film is well-known with title “The Banquet” or “The Night Banquet” if loosely translated from its Chinese title “Ye Yan”. This Chinese wuxia drama film will release on region 1 DVD by Dragon Dynasty which had re-titled it to “Legend of the Black Scorpion”, why they have decided to rename the movie on its DVD release might be will eludes us a little but this stunningly stylist film which story is loosely adapted from William Shakespeare’s popular story “Hamlet” is still very worth to complete our home cinema collection while it has all of those strikingly beautiful cinematography, sumptuous set, costumes and stunningly choreographed fight scenes that will give a lot of pleasure to our eyes. A retelling of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” set in 907AD, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period following the fall of the Tang Dynasty, directed by mainland director Feng Xiao Gang who raised his name with Hong Kong action drama “A World Without Thieves”. “Black Scorpion” is one of the biggest budgeted Chinese films ever made as with “The Warlords” or “Curse of the Golden Flowers.”Below is the film synopsis from Wikipedia that had compared it with the Hamlet’s plot and characterizations: The Crown Prince Wu Luan was four years older than "Little Wan" (later Empress Wan) and they both felt for each other when his father, Emperor, decided to marry "Little Wan" and she became Empress Wan. Wu Luan, deeply hurt by this, fled to the South to rejoice in music and dance. Emperor Li (Shakespeare's Claudius) then murdered his brother and upon acceding the throne, and taken his brother's young wife, Empress Wan (younger version of Shakespeare's Gertrude), who he previously molested, as his wife and has her recrowned as Empress. The usurping emperor then sents out riders to assassinate his nephew, Crown Prince Wu Luan (Shakespeare's Hamlet), who would succeed the throne before any of his uncle's progeny. The crown prince, away at a retreat for masked mime actors, survives the massacre at the monastery and is eventually spirited back to the palace. To keep him alive, Empress Wan has made a compromise with his uncle, which angers Prince Wu Luan. His relationship with his stepmother is unusual because they grew up together in the court, are about the same age and she has romantic feelings for him. However, the prince is engaged to marry Qing Nu (Shakespeare's Ophelia), the daughter of a palace official, the Grand Marshal (who can be linked to Shakespeare's Polonius). A close ally of the former emperor, the Grand Marshall's power is weakened when his son (Shakespeare's Laertes), who is very protective of his sister, Qing Nu, is sent to a distant province to become governor. Meanwhile, the Empress Wan is to have a new coronation ceremony. As a special treat, Prince Wu Luan, an accomplished singer and dancer, stages a masked mime play that exposes his uncle as his father's murderer. Rather than kill the prince and risk alienating Empress Wan, the emperor decides the prince would be traded as a hostage for the prince of a neighboring kingdom, the Khitans, although it is known that the neighbor prince is an imposter. An ambush by the emperor's men is set up in a far away, snowy land, but the Grand Marshal's son saves the prince. Believing that power is firmly in his grip, the emperor calls for a grand banquet. Qing Nu, the Grand Marshal's daughter, has planned another play for the occasion, and in tribute to her fiance, she wears his theater mask. Empress Wan has her own plans – to poison the emperor. However, the scheme to poison the emperor fails as the cup he was to drink out of is instead given to Qing Nu out of respect and partly of pity for her. Upon the young woman's death, the emperor realises in horror that the empress Wan had plotted his death. It is then revealed that Crown Prince Wu Luan was in fact a member of the masked performing troupe. The emperor then commits suicide by drinking the rest of the poisoned wine intended for him. As Empress Wan asks Wu Luan to kill her, the Grand Marshal's son attempts to kill the Empress to avenge his sister, but his poisoned blade is stopped by Prince Wu Luan and Empress Wan stabs the Grand Marshal's son. However, Prince Wu Luan fatally poisons himself in the process of stopping the Grand Marshal's son. In the end sequence, Empress Wan grasps bright red cloth ands speaks of the "flames of desire" that she has satiated by taking the throne. She is suddenly pierced by a blade from an unknown source. As she is dying, she turns around and looks at her killer with a horrified expression. The blade is then dropped into a mossy koi bed, and the blood soaks the water. The killer has been rumored to be the Crown Prince or the "late" King. Firstly, it has been argued the Crown Prince did not die from the poison on the knife due to the fact that the poison was different from that of the Empress and hence less venomous. Furthermore, the sword that was used to kill the Empress has been argued to be that of the Crown Prince. Secondly, it is believed that it was the "late" King who set up the scheme in order to eliminate his rivals. Hence, he did not die from drinking the wine as it seems to be from a different cup and seemingly contained no wine, just water. On a further note, it has been been said that there was not a physical person who killed the Empress but rather the event itself was a metaphor for corruption, greed and desire of the human heart.
Cast: • Zhang Ziyi as the Empress Wan (a modified "Gertrude") • Ge You as the Emperor Li ("Claudius") • Daniel Wu as Prince Wu Luan ("Hamlet") • Zhou Xun as Qing Nu ("Ophelia") • Ma Jingwu as the Grand Marshal ("Polonius") • Huang Xiaoming as the Grand Marshal's son ("Laertes")Trivia: - At 180 meters long and 60 meters wide, the set for the Emperor's Palace is the largest set ever built in China. - Gong Li was originally supposed to play Zhang Ziyi's part. Due to scheduling conflicts, the role was passed onto Zhang Ziyi and she gladly accepted because she thought the character was so interesting. - Both Gong Li and Maggie Cheung were originally considered playing the queen's role. When Zhang Ziyi took over the part, the script was rewritten to make the character younger.Product Details • Actors: Ma Jingwu, Ge You, Daniel Wu, Zhou Xun, Zhang Ziyi • Directors: Feng Xiaogang • Format: Color, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC • Language: Cantonese • Subtitles: English, Spanish • Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 • Region: Region 1 • Number of discs: 2 • Studio: Dragon Dynasty • DVD Release Date: February 26, 2008 • Run Time: 126 minutes • Release Date: February 26, 2008 (Order Your Copy Now!)
Asian Home Cinema-Meter: Story: 7/10 – Actors: 7/10 – Ending: 6/10 – Overall: 7/10
After the controversial western drama “Brokeback Mountain”, Ang Lee get the attention with another controversial drama that had taken him back to his hometown, “Lust, Caution”. The film had once again become an acclaimed work for Lee from the international and domestic movie awards to its domestic release box office, which competed with "The Warlords" in the top position of 2007 highest grossing movies. Lee has embarked upon a cinematic adaptation of Eileen Chang’s finest work “Lust, Caution”. Eileen is the famous author that moved to America from China in 1949, and was beloved as one of the finest writers of her generation. Her Lust tale focuses in Shanghai in the era of World War II, the story involves a plot to assassinate an intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government. Asian cinema icon Tony Leung (Hero, In the Mood for Love) plays the intelligence chief, Mr. Yee. Chinese veteran actress Joan Chen plays Yee’s wife, and a rising star in mainland China, Tang Wei makes her feature film debut as Wang Jiazhi, a young woman who gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with Mr. Yee. Other casts of the movie include Taiwan famous singer Wang Lee Hom, Tony Wang, Chu Chih Ying, Indian veteran actor Anupam Kher and Shyam Pathak. The DVD version for “Lust, Caution” is now ready to be adding on your favorite collection, the region 1 or even its region 3 is already stocked in the market.Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a phone call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom). Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe's new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences - and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee's trust by befriending his wife (Joan Chen) and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted - until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee. Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong - having emigrated from Hong Kong - goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit...Product Description: Provocative, thrilling and passionate, Lust, Caution is the daring new film from acclaimed Academy Award®-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Set against the backdrop of a transforming country, a young woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless and secretive intelligence agent. As she immerses herself in her role as a cosmopolitan seductress, she becomes entangled in a dangerous game that will ultimately determine her fate. Erotic, breathtaking and suspenseful, this award-winning film is being called "exquisitely beautiful" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) and "lushly sensual" (Leah Rozen, People).
Product Details: Product Title: Lust, Caution (Widescreen NC-17 Edition) Actors: Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom Directors: Ang Lee Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Language: English, Japanese Subtitle: English, Chinese(Traditional/Simplified) Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 Region: All Region and Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan) Number of discs: 1 Country Made: Taiwan Genre: War Drama Distributor: Universal Studios Release Date: February 19, 2008 (Order your copy here and here!)Story-Meter: 7/10 Ending-Meter: 7/10 Actors-Meter: 7/10 Overall-Meter: 7/10
The film review by Roger Ebert (Suntimes.com) Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is first languid, then passionate, as it tells the story of a young woman who joins a political murder plot and then becomes emotionally involved with her enemy. It begins at a 1942 Mah-Jongg game in Hong Kong, when erotic undertones become clearly audible to us, and then flashes back to Shanghai, 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China. One of the rich ladies at the game table is revealed to have been a college student, and not really the wife of a wealthy (but unseen) tycoon. The underlying plot gradually reveals itself. Too gradually, some will believe, unless the languor is necessary to create the hothouse atmosphere that survives in the midst of war. The Mah-Jongg game is taking place in the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), whose wife (Joan Chen) is the hostess. Since coming from Shanghai, he has moved up in the collaborationist government, handles interrogations and tortures, and is repaid by status and access to such restricted items as nylon stockings, cigarettes, even diamonds. When Mr. Yee comes home in the middle of the game, he exchanges a significant look with Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei), who first joined the circle in Shanghai. It's clear to us there's something secret and intimate between them. But who is this wealthy Mrs. Mak, who travels in a chauffeured car but whose husband is always away on business? The flashback reveals her as Wong Chia Chi, a young student who on summer vacation falls in with a group of radical Chinese patriots and takes a key role in their hope of assassinating one of the Chinese who are working with the Japanese. Her assignment: become Mr. Yee's lover. This she did in Shanghai, but the war separated them before she was able to bring about an opportunity for Yee's murder (she is not expected to do it herself). A natural actress, she took easily to the roles of lover and rich woman. But she had some difficulty in sacrificing her virginity, which was necessary for her to play a married woman convincingly. We do not see Mr. Yee at work, torturing his countrymen, but Leung is able to project the man's capability for menace and begins to do that in bed with her. Then commence the scenes that earned the film its NC-17 rating. They are not specifically hard core in detail, but involve so many arcane and athletic sexual positions that the MPAA's injunction against the depiction of "thrusting" is left with their clothes on the floor. When their sex drifts steadily into S&M, the nature of their relationship shifts. It is impossible to say that Wong Chia Chi/Mrs. Mak likes his tastes in pain and bondage, but they create a fearful intimacy that, for both of them, transcends their lives apart. And it is that tension, between private fascination and public danger, that gives the movie its purpose. Failing to find the connecting link between such Ang Lee films as "Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Hulk," I was quickly corrected by readers who said, obviously, all his films are about people trying to realize their essential natures despite the constraints of society. Readers, you were right. Here we have a woman who hates her lover enough to help kill him, and yet is mesmerized by him. And a man whose official position would be destroyed by the exposure of this affair (especially if Mrs. Mak's true identity were discovered). Yet the heart, as Pascal said, has its reasons. Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak are just as transgressive as the Brokeback lovers, just as entranced by a form of sex that is frowned on by their societies. There is not a frame of the film that is not beautiful, but there may be too many frames. Why does Ang Lee go into such depth and detail to establish this world, and why does he delay the film's crucial scenes? I don't know, but of course seeing the film the first time I didn't know that was what he was doing and grew restless before I grew involved. Asked to edit the sex scenes to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating, Lee quite properly refused and was backed all the way by James Schamus, his co-writer and also, significantly, head of Focus Features, which is releasing the film. The nature of the sex is Lee's subject, and he is too honest to suppress that. His moments of full frontal nudity avoid the awkwardness of most movie sex scenes in which the lovers, although alone, carefully mask their naughty bits. The scenes are not edited for erotic effect, it must be observed, but are treated in terms of their psychological meaning. Film by film, Ang Lee, from Taipei out of the University of Illinois, has become one of the world's leading directors. This film was his second Golden Lion winner in three years at the Venice Film Festival. But it is not among his best films. It lacks the focus and fire that his characters finally find. Less sense, more sensibility.
Ming (Shawn Yue – Invisible Target, Infernal Affairs 2) and Wai (Stephy Tang – Love is not All Around) are a couple living together happily. When Wai is diagnosed with a fatal pancreatic cancer, Ming swears to take care and does everything he can do for her. But then it proves to be a not easy task, because as long as Wai’s health that slowly deteriorates, she soon start acting very strangely, her temperament becomes volatile, and she begin to do an odd action by lurking around in their dark flat all day. Wai’s strange behavior also reminding her little sister Ping (Zeng Qiqi) with a ghost from the scary comic she loves reading. Disturbed and depressed, Ming having a passionate fling with his attractive colleague, Fong (Yoka Yue) when he’s under the influence of alcohol during a business trip. The fatal attraction turn to be a painful triangle for all involved, one night Wai suddenly disappear and at the same time both Ming and Fong have a car accident. Afterwards, unexpected things are happen to each of them, Wai is suddenly appears next to the door of their flat and she quietly has a better changing with her body and behavior. The worse thing now is happen to Ming, he’s begin to smell like a corpse, his hair falls out like Wai’s, and the most terrible thing is when he vomits a dozen of living worms.
Ming (Shawn Yue – Invisible Target, Infernal Affairs 2) and Wai (Stephy Tang – Love is not All Around) are a couple living together happily. When Wai is diagnosed with a fatal pancreatic cancer, Ming swears to take care and does everything he can do for her. But then it proves to be a not easy task, because as long as Wai’s health that slowly deteriorates, she soon start acting very strangely, her temperament becomes volatile, and she begin to do an odd action by lurking around in their dark flat all day. Wai’s strange behavior also reminding her little sister Ping (Zeng Qiqi) with a ghost from the scary comic she loves reading. Disturbed and depressed, Ming having a passionate fling with his attractive colleague, Fong (Yoka Yue) when he’s under the influence of alcohol during a business trip. The fatal attraction turn to be a painful triangle for all involved, one night Wai suddenly disappear and at the same time both Ming and Fong have a car accident. Afterwards, unexpected things are happen to each of them, Wai is suddenly appears next to the door of their flat and she quietly has a better changing with her body and behavior. The worse thing now is happen to Ming, he’s begin to smell like a corpse, his hair falls out like Wai’s, and the most terrible thing is when he vomits a dozen of living worms.
by Dragon Dynasty which had re-titled it to “Legend of the Black Scorpion”, why they have decided to rename the movie on its DVD release might be will eludes us a little but this stunningly stylist film which story is loosely adapted from William Shakespeare’s popular story 
