Jasmine Women 茉莉花开

 Released Year: 2004

Directed by 侯咏 Hou Yong

Casted by:

章子怡 as 茉 Mo 莉 Li 花 Hua

陈冲 Joan Chen as 妈妈 Mother 茉 Mo

姜文 Jiang Wen as 孟先生 Mr Meng

陆毅 LuWee as 鄒傑 Jie

刘烨 Liu Yie as 小杜 Du

 Story:

The film is divided into three chapters: "grandmother, mother, and daughter"; respectively the story of Mo, Li and Hua.

Mo's Story (1930s)

18 year old Mo lives with her mother who owns a small photo shop in Shanghai. She longs to become a movie star, a dream her mother does not understand. One day, Mo meets Mr. Meng, the boss of a movie studio. She then leaves her mother to fulfil her film career dream. She enters a relationship with Mr. Meng who is married and later becomes pregnant. She refuses to have an abortion and when the Second Sino-Japanese War begins, Meng leaves Shanghai and abandons Mo. The movie studio is shut down and Mo returns home. She gives birth to Li and blames her child for everything she has lost. Her mother's boyfriend (this is never explicitly stated but implied) also tries to seduce her, using the guise of a free hair appointment. Her mother finds out, and commits suicide not long after.

Li's Story (1950s)

Li had grown up with her mother Mo in misery. Mo still remembers her dream of being a movie star. Li marries Zou Jie who was a member of her high school's chapter of the Communist Youth League of China. After marriage, they move into Jie's home but unused to their lifestyle and unable to bear a child of her own, they move back to stay with Mo. Li eventually adopts a baby girl named Hua. Li later becomes mentally unstable. Li's situation gets steadily worse and she even accuses Zou for violating Hua, her adopted daughter. Li’s family collapses and her husband Zou commits suicide by throwing himself at an oncoming train. Li leaves home; her fate is unknown, and Hua is left to live with Mo.

Hua’s Story (1980s)

Li disappeared when Hua was still very young and she grew up with her grandmother Mo. Mo finds comfort in taking care of her granddaughter. When Hua grew up she married a college graduate, Du. After marriage, Du went for further studies overseas in Japan and after that, decided to leave Hua. Unfortunately, Hua was already carrying Du’s child. Mo strongly encouraged her to abort the baby because of her experiences with having a child and being unprepared for it, but Hua decided against it. Hua decided to check into a family planning clinic/hospital to have an abortion in any case, but before she could arrive home, Mo died. Years later, Du returns to Hua to 'finalise things', but it seems Hua had moved on with her life. Closing scenes show her moving into a new home with her daughter.

 L² Scored: 7.5/10

L² Comment: 

The storyline of 3 generations are nothing that fancy nowadays as many of the movies have used this idea before. The extraordinaire of this movie should be the best acting of Zhang Ziyi and Joan Chen. I love the story of the second generation the most... how about u?

Aftershock 唐山大地震

Released Year: 2010
Directed by 冯小刚 Xiao-Gang Feng

Casted by:
徐帆 Xu Fan as 李元妮 Ni
張靜初 JingChu-Zhang as 方登/王登 Deng
李晨 Li Chen as 方達 Da
陳道明 DaoMing-Chan as 王德清 Qing
陳瑾 Chen Jing as 董桂蘭 Lan
陸毅 Lu Wee as 楊志 Zhi
張國強 KokQiang-Cheung as 方大強 Qiang
Story:

In 1976 Tangshan, Yuan Ni lives in a small apartment with her husband and their twins Fang Deng and Fang Da. Yuan Ni expresses to her husband her desire to have one more child, and they get into the back of their truck after putting their son and daughter to bed. Suddenly the ground shakes, and buildings begin tumbling down. Running back to save their kids, Yuan Ni is pulled back by her husband, who runs ahead of her and is instantly crushed. Their house falls down, trapping her two children.

In the aftermath of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, a rescue team informs Yuan Ni that her twins Da and Deng are trapped together under a slab of concrete. Lifting the slab in any way will kill one of her children - lifting it one way will save the daughter at the expense of her son; lifting it the other will save the son at the expense of her daughter. Heartbroken, she is forced to choose between her children, and finally decides to save the boy. Her decision, however, is overheard by her daughter, who tearfully whispers "Ma..." as the screen goes black. The mother clings to her daughter's body before being pulled away to take care of Da, "her one child who still lives." Later, Deng wakes up in a sea of bodies, next to the body of her deceased father.

Assumed to be an orphan by the soldiers who found her in the camp, Deng is adopted by a military couple. She refuses to speak, and claims not to have remembered anything before the earthquake. She eventually opens up and bonds with her adopted parents. Ten years later, Deng is accepted into medical school and moves away, where she meets a graduate student and begins an intimate relationship with him. In her third year of study, Deng's adopted mother falls ill. Before dying, she asks Deng to use the money they saved up for her to find Deng's real family. Deng doesn't respond. After getting back from the hospital, Deng finds out she is pregnant, and despite being pressured by her boyfriend to get an abortion, she refuses to abandon her baby the way her mother abandoned her. She secretly drops out of university and loses contact with her boyfriend and her adopted father.

During that period of time, Da grows up with his mother, who is still torn from the decision she had to make. The earthquake claimed Da's left arm, leaving him physically disabled. Rather than taking his university entrance exams, Da opts to make it on his own by transporting people with his bike. He leaves his mother in Tangshan and eventually becomes the boss of a successful travel agency. He marries and has a son, named Dian Dian.

After a four-year absence, Deng goes back to see her adopted father with her daughter, also named Dian Dian. She apologises and makes up with her father, finally admitting that she remembers everything that happened during the earthquake. She tells him about her mother's decision, and says that she will never forget how she was abandoned. Then on New Year's Eve, Deng tells her adopted father that she is getting married to a foreigner, who is 16 years older than she is and emigrated to Vancouver, Canada with her daughter.

In 2008, Deng sees the earthquake in Sichuan on TV. She immediately volunteers to join rescuers in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake and returns to China. Unknowingly, at the same time, her long-lost brother has also decided to help volunteer in the rescue efforts. While taking a break, the sister overhears a stranger (her brother) talking about his past experiences in the Tangshan earthquake, and quickly realizes that it is her brother. It is assumed that she reunites herself with her brother, and they both decide to visit their mother. At first Deng is angry at her mother for abandoning her, and thinks that her mother hated her and that is why she chose her brother over her, but after all three of them went to visit their father's grave and her grave (she was assumed to be dead), she realized that despite her being "dead", her mother had been buying two sets of all the school workbooks; one for her brother and one for her. At this point, she realized the remorse, emotional agony and guilt that her mother had gone through for the past 32 years and finally she forgives her mother. The family is reunited after 32 years of separation.

The screen then cuts to a stone memorial in Tangshan. Carved into the stone are the names of all 240,000 victims of the earthquake. A single elderly man is seen looking up at a name, then biking away. During all this, the subtitles reveal that this man had been visiting this memorial every year. He had lost all of his family in the earthquake. Of the five people, he was the only survivor. The camera follows him, as he rides past walls and walls of names all carved in with gold lettering

L² Scored: 8/10

L² Comment:

A bravo to Feng Xiao Gang who directed this awesome movie. A movie which include history, disaster and love. The first half an hour is the best of the movie, though the following part is more about the life which the survivor been through aftershock, but it is still well presented.

Love the part when Fang Deng hug a mother to prevent her running to get her daughter's own leg. Very touching and i almost feel the urge to tear~ lol... well, this is a good film which u should never miss in ur lifetime :)

Beauty on Duty 美麗密令

Released Year: 2010
Directed by 王晶 Wong Jing

Casted by:
吳君如 Sandra Ng as 鐵美麗 Tie
蔡卓妍 Charlene Choi as 鐘愛芳 Fang
陸毅 Lu Wee as 陸志昂 Lok
樊少皇 Louis Fan as 袁子丹 Dan
陳偉霆 William Chan as 秦朗 Jerry
李曼筠 Maggie Lee as 君君 June
张达明 Tat-Ming Cheung as 威臣 Winson
許紹雄 Shiu Hong as 鐘 Sir Inspector Chung
谢娜 Nana Xie as 陆伍易珊 Shan
Story:

Fang as the rookie in the police station, her father inspector Chung wants her to marry to a rich guy. Therefore, he chose the best policeman Dan to work with Fang on their beat. Dan will be transferring to SWAT after this due to his good work. On the other hand, Madam Tie is happy to met her first love Lok Sir.

On the last day of Dan & first day of patrol for Fang, they managed to caught the witness, fatty wai with Madam Tie & Lok Sir. Fatty Wai found out his daughter is participating the Ms Pageant, he wants the police to protect her till the pageant end for the exchange to become the witness on suing Mr Wong. Therefore, Fang, Tie, Lok, Dan are send to become spy to protect the innocent June.

During the protection, Fang has to portrait as one of the candidate for Ms pageant while Tie become the management team for the competition. Besides that, Lok & Dan become 2 gay guys who work as the stylist and make-up artist. Fang become friend with June but was attracted to the handsome singer Jerry. Fang and Jerry falled in love with each other and June was jealous about it. Mr wong send out his gang to kidnap June but always fail until the day before the finale.

June and Inspector Chung was caught by Mr Wong and gang but luckily Dan, Fang, Tie & Lok went over for rescue. In the end, June managed to get the 1st runner up in the competition. Tie & Lok decided to get marry, Dan happily got his SWAT work again, Inspector Chung got a promotion while Fang was send to become the host for police tv program.

The movie ended with Fang accept to become Dan's girlfriend.

L² Scored: 6/10

L² Comment:

It was a fun movie by Wong Jing as usual. This time, a lil' mix & match of China & HK artist do makes a good piece of work. Love Sandra Ng new hair, so short yet trendy. William as the hip hop singer aka dancer is very stunning, but too bad, the thick make-up can't cover his acne forehead. China actress Nana is too over-act, a big failure in this movie.

Overall, if you wanna have a good laugh, just go for it. A HK version of Ms Congeniality.