A Little More Competence From Hong Kong

What with business commitments, family obligations, academic work, and multiple personality disorder, I don't have much time to watch movies anymore. Shocking, I know. But last night I made time for Edmond Pang's 2006 melodrama, Isabella. I'm glad I did.

It's just a little set-piece with Chapman To (usually a comic player) as the rogue cop wasting away his life gambling and picking up girls. Isabella Leong plays the ingenue who knows him better than he knows himself.

I'd never heard of Leong before, but she's a good actress, and, part-Portugese and part-Chinese, very pretty. Sorry guys, she's taken. Wikipedia: "In 2009 she gave birth to a son with Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, son of billionaire Li Ka-Shing. For this, Leong was rewarded two mansions in San Francisco and HK$50 million in cash, totaling more than HK$200 million. The Li family has also provided her with an entourage of care-givers, including five bodyguards, four full-time nannies and a personal attendant assigned to her."

Pang is still young (compared to us, anyway), and prior to this he had mainly done comedies such as the fine Men Suddenly in Black. This film has some comic touches (e.g., Anthony Wong in some light cameo work), but showed he could do the other stuff, too.

My wife says to mention Isabella is slow. That's true, so if you're in a hurry don't watch it. But if you've got a minute, it is beautiful everywhere you look:

• Great cinematography featuring Macau landscapes.
• A nicely done apartment set - one of the best-looking shabby apartments you'll ever see.
  
• An excellent soundtrack.

So, yeah, it's a small film, and it's slow. It's a melodrama with a puppy, so this is not going to be the Laird's film. But it is beautiful and worth watching.

The trailer is here.
LoveHKFilm review is here.