[This short story was originally published in the summer 2007 edition of The Hawai’i Review and republished in installments on my previous, now defunct personal blog.]

I’ve always thought that the little moments in life count just as much as the big ones. If you really stopped to think about it, you’d probably go insane. I mean, let’s say your shoelaces come untied. If you bend down to tie them, you just might end up meeting the love of your life. But if you decide to ignore the situation and walk just a little bit farther—WHAM!—you’re flattened by an out-of-control eighteen-wheeler. One little moment changes your life forever. Or ends it.

Now I’m not sure how many of those little moments it took to get me halfway across the world, but there I was—stranded in Singapore attending an academic conference on “Words in Asian Cultural Contexts.” And it was all thanks to fate, God, or a world of happy coincidences. Hell, maybe L. Ron Hubbard was to blame.

Whatever the reason, this whole conference business had taken its toll on my patience. So as the day’s proceedings came to a close, I detached myself from the crowd and discreetly slipped out the back of the room. Luckily, none of the people milling around outside the conference hall seemed to notice me as I made my way to the hotel lobby. I wasn’t trying to be anti-social; I just needed a break from everyone. Once I got back to the hotel suite, I thought I’d mix myself a nice Scotch and water, watch a little idiot tube, and then call it a night. So much for seeing the sights.

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“Very old Chinese wise man once say, madness twin brother of genius because each live in world created by own ego — one sometimes mistaken for other.”

– Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) in Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)

In addition to updating this blog and writing the occasional review for LoveHKFilm.com, a lot of my time has been dedicated to completing my doctoral dissertation in a timely fashion. To date, I’m about two-hundred-and-fifty pages into a first draft with at least three more chapters and an epilogue to go. I’ve mentioned the content of my dissertation before, so I won’t reiterate the details here, aside from saying that part of its focus has everything to do with the fictional character, Charlie Chan.

During this intensive research process, I have read every single Charlie Chan novel ever written (even those not written by original author Earl Derr Biggers), heard every surviving radio show, seen all of the Alfred Andriola comic strip, and perused every issue of the short-lived Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine. On top of that, I’ve watched all thirty-nine episodes of the 1957 television series, the sixteen episodes that comprise the Hannah Barbara cartoon, the never-before-released-on-home-video TV movie, and the final 1981 crapfest that ostensibly ended the franchise.

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While prepping some blog posts about a gaggle of promising Hong Kong films scheduled to be released in 2011, I remembered a piece I once wrote for the very first installment of my old “A Man Called Sanjuro” column for LoveHKFilm.com.

Way, way, way back in 2003 — perhaps in anticipation of what I presumed would be the long, slow death of Hong Kong cinema as we know it — I published a list of Hong Kong movies that I arrogantly believed would “save” the nation’s film industry in one fell swoop. Really, all I did was propose a list of movies that I would make if I had the power, connections, and/or talent to do so.

Interestingly enough, at least one of them is coming to pass — my proposed Monkey King movie — albeit not in any way influenced by me and to be shot in 3-D with a different cast and crew. As far as the other films on my list, I don’t think anything remotely resembling what I proposed is any closer to getting made.

Still, I personally think What Now? would be a great, if challenging concept for a romantic comedy in any country, as I think the genre is incredibly stale and almost offensive to watch in its contemporary iteration (Damn you, Katherine Heigl!). Also, a film in the vein (get it! Vein!) of The East Runs Red could be fun, especially in the wake of the vampire craze kicked off by Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. Some might say this movie has already been made, but I’m not sure that Vampire Warriors is exactly what I had in mind. Oh, and the less said about The Trouble with Twins the better.

As far as LoveHKFilm.com The Movie is concerned, it’s especially amusing to look at the main characters of this proposed in-joke of a film. Aside from Kozo and myself, you’ll probably be left wondering “Who the heck are these people? And what happened to them?” Honestly, I’d like to know myself.

Anyway, looking back, I think I would recast myself slightly younger and thus closer to my own age. Hmmm….

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“Creative differences” — that’s the diplomatic way in which most filmmaking break-ups are explained to the public, and that’s exactly what was said when Stephen Chow left Sony’s The Green Hornet several months after he had been tapped to not only direct the film, but co-star as the Green Hornet’s sidekick, Kato, most famously played by his idol, Bruce Lee in the 1960s TV show. Chow had been quoted as saying,”The idea of stepping into Bruce Lee’s shoes as Kato is both humbling and thrilling, and to get the chance to direct the project as my American movie debut is simply a dream come true.” As many people probably wondered, why did Chow walk away from his “dream come true”? Well, now we have a possible answer, although whether or not the source is being facetious or not remains to be seen.

In the January 14th issue of Entertainment Weekly, director Michel Gondry, the man who eventually nabbed the directing gig after Chow parted ways with the Seth Rogen-led project, explains just what those creative differences were. According to a piece written by Benjamin Svetkey, Gondry says Chow had “really, really crazy ideas that you would not dare bring to a studio […] AIDS was involved. Plastic boobs were involved, too.”‘

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In the Mood for Lunch

With the #lessambitiousfilms meme exploding on Twitter, it was only a matter of time until Hong Kong cinema fans created their own variant #lessambitioushkfilms — with contributions from our very own Kozo, Kevin Ma, Sanney Leung, and yours truly, among many, many others.

Just a few of the highlights include: Sanitary Ho (@LoveHKFilm.com), The Mid-Level Boss (@TheGoldenRock), Aces Stay Home (@ShelfLifeCC), and Casserole on Fire (@PedestrianY). If you’re game, join in with your own funny contributions to the #lessambitioushkfilms meme on Twitter.

If you never got around to seeing Jay Chou’s 2007 directorial debut,  I would advise you not to read this post because I’m going to be divulging the big mystery of the film (or at least, what the mystery isn’t), and I wouldn’t want to spoil the experience for anyone who’s actually interested in seeing the movie on their own. If you’re curious to know more about the movie, I’d strongly advise reading Kozo’s review over at LoveHKFilm.com. It’s an accurate appraisal that goes out of its way not to spoil the film for you.

Now before I get into serious spoiler territory, I’ll begin by saying that I was pleasantly surprised by Jay Chou’s work as a director here. I liked the film while I was watching it, and the more I thought about the movie, the more I like it — even though the plot holes just kept adding up for me. For some odd reason, the film’s failure to live up to its own rules doesn’t annoy me terribly, although I’ll have to admit that I was disappointed in the ending — serviceable, but not quite what I was hoping for.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

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Yep, that’s Maggie Cheung in Boys are Easy.

By all rights, this 1993 Wong Jing-directed farce should not be as funny as it is, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t entertained all the way through. A lot of the film’s charm is a direct result of the game performances given its all-star cast. Consider the big names involved: Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching, Tony Leung Ka-Fei, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, and the man himself, Ekin Cheng! The plot — or what passes for one — is all over the place, but what do you expect in a Wong Jing film?

Eager to get all of his daughters married off, Ching Sing (Richard Ng) hatches a daring plot with his son, Ching Siu-Pei (Jimmy Lin) to achieve this incredibly old-fashioned goal: he fakes a cancer diagnosis, telling them he only has a month to live. And so, due to Ching’s manipulations, the three girls do their best to pretend they have boyfriends to placate their “dying” father.

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