A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Sunday, July 27, 2025

July Rhapsody (Ann Hui, 2002)

Karena Lam and Jacky Cheung in July Rhapsody

Cast: Jacky Cheung, Anita Mui, Karena Lam, Shaun Tam, Eric Kot, Tou Chung-hua, Jin Hui, Leung Tin, Race Wong. Screenplay: Ivy Ho. Cinematography: Kuan Pun-leung. Production design: Man Lim-Chung. Film editing: Eric Kwong. Music: Tommy Wai. 

The Lams, Yiu-kwok (Jacky Cheung) and Man-ching (Anita Mui), have been married for 20 years. They live in a cramped Hong Kong high-rise apartment with their two sons, who can hear the couple fighting through the thin walls that separate the bedrooms. They're not intense fights, but rather the mostly low-key disagreements that arise between two people who've lived together for a long time and are nursing secrets. Yin-kwok, who teaches Chinese literature at an exclusive school, feels a little resentment that his choice of a profession that he loves has deprived him of the wealth enjoyed by not only his students but also his former classmates. Then a pretty student, Choi-lam (Karena Lam), starts flirting with him. Carefree and a bit spoiled, she enjoys leading him on. This teacher-student liaison, we discover, has a special significance for Yiu-kwok, one that figures in his own relationship with his wife and gives the narrative an extra layer. July Rhapsody is Ann Hui's variation on the domestic melodrama that arises from the familiar midlife crisis, lifted above its genre by lyrical elements and sensitive performances.

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