Genre: Drama
Starring: Anjo Leung, Lam Yiu-Sing, Sham Ka-Kei, Michelle Yim, Vincent Wan, Venus Wong, Jeremy Liu
Release year: 2008
Language: Cantonese
Subtitle: English
SYNOPSIS:
High Noon is the Hong Kong chapter in an Eric Tsang-produced trilogy of youth films set in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Drawing on the screenplay of the first Taiwan-set Winds of September chapter, High Noon again follows nine teenagers whose lives and friendship evolve greatly in the course of one fateful year, but presents a completely different narrative and tone unique to Hong Kong. Moving at hyper pace through the raucous rites of adolescence, the coming-of-age feature paints a hot-blooded portrait of youth and friendship that is bright, humorous, and heartbreaking. Starring an impressive newcomer cast that includes Anjo Leung from Magic Boy, High Noon packs a strong punch in its realistic depiction of high school drama, the heat of youth, and the loss of innocence.
High school student Wing (Lam Yiu Sing) and his six buddies are typical rambunctious teens who are better at cursing and troublemaking than schoolwork. Though they all hail from different backgrounds and personalities - the loner, the bookworm, the Mainlander, the rich kid, the playboy, the class clown, the rebel - they form a tight bond as they navigate the jungle of high school together in a flurry of fistfights and slurred slang. Acting out against the pressure of home and school, the boys cycle through a laundry list of problems - girls, grades, family, drugs, sex, violence - that threaten their fast, fragile existences. The harder they struggle to hold on to friendship, the more they lose themselves and each other.
RATING: ?/10
USER RATING:
REVIEW:
" At least, it's high school in Hong Kong. Like The Taiwan Chapter, High Noon takes a group of seven boys and uses the dissolution of their friendship to explore their environment and their emotions. The Taiwan Chapter was picturesque and quietly melodramatic - a successful case study in Taiwanese film style that managed to both explore and idealize the end of innocence. High Noon doesn't idealize youth, choosing to present more sordid content than the Taiwan chapter ever did. These kids seem to be courting worse fates than their Taiwanese counterparts, and aren't actively doing much to prevent a bad end. The film alternates between hopelessness and youthful revelry, making it uneven. Occasionally, the film's hip style and obvious themes even make it feel a bit pandering.
But the film does definitely feel like "Hong Kong" - especially when compared to the previous entry's "Taiwan". Heiward Mak uses a variety of flashy, sometimes ill-advised technique, like dream sequences, heavy voiceover, and MTV-influenced montage. While sometimes alienating, the technique does aptly convey Hong Kong's fast-paced, independent, and hyper-emotional nature. The kids in High Noon fight hopelessness and despair, but their circumstances are not favorable and sometimes their elders simply can't or won't help. As such, the sometimes-bouncy tone works as counterpoint to whatever individual pain these kids are experiencing. Loneliness, neglect, frustration - the kids escape these things through their daily play, and pass their time in an understandably careless fashion. That is, until the bottom drops out and they find themselves staring into the abyss.
Winds of September - The Taiwan Chapter feels like it's as much about Taiwan cinema as it is about youth, and likewise High Noon channels a prevailing impression of Hong Kong Cinema. The production is a cheap and dirty one, but it possesses surprising power and emotion. The film does eventually resort to some clichés, including the cloying use of spoken metaphor (undue metaphor is perhaps Hong Kong Cinema's most tired signifier). Choices like that betray Heiward Mak's inexperience, but the ultimate package that she puts together is surprising and worth appreciating. Mak has a fine eye, finding moments to sneak in the occasional beautiful image, and she uses her Category III rating wisely, delivering surprising but not exploitative content that feels real - exaggerated and hyperemotional though it may be. The film sometimes feels calculated, and it's hard to credit it as entirely real because it's a very manipulated form of reality, designed to elicit a response rather than simply speak for itself. But the film finds strengths in its heightened emotions and its daring, and is fast, unpolished, and ultimately felt. In many ways, one could say that it channels the Hong Kong Cinema spirit. "
Source: LoveHKFilm
PREVIEW:
RELATED LINKS:
MU:
DISC 1: Part 01 - Part 02 - Part 03 - SUB
DISC 2: Part 01 - Part 02 - Part 03 - SUB
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