This film has not yet been reviewed. Check back later for the complete review here on FilmThreat.com. Synopsis: From the “Hollywood” high-rise apartment building in the center of Hong Kong’s last shantytown comes a young woman as beautiful as sunshine through the cracks of decrepit walls. She gives a surge of excitement to life in the impoverished neighborhood.
As soon as this sensual beauty from Mainland China arrives, chaos begins to stir in the nearby barbecue pork shop run by an obese man and his two equally hefty sons. The father can think of nothing but the girl. The sex-starved elder son is an easy target for her game of seduction. The young son likes her just because she’s pleasant to have around. Even their pig, “Mama,” behaves bizarrely.
Things spin out of control when a gangster falls in love with the young woman, thinking she’s a prostitute. The various faces of the mysterious femme fatale are soon unveiled. When they are cheated of love and money, the men face uncertain futures as their shantytown approaches its imminent demolition.
The second part of a trilogy about Chinese prostitutes, HOLLYWOOD HONG KONG introduces a world and characters plump with life. Fleshy images filmed in warm, red colors ooze from the screen. Fruit Chan demonstrates his command of the bizarre in this rich, sometimes grotesque, tale that operates on a cerebral level–it metaphorically examines the switch in economic climate since Hong Kong was handed back to China– and a sensual level with extreme close-ups of sliced pork and human limbs along with montages of sexual encounters. It is a film that does not easily fade from memory.
