Viva Erotica

Sing is a director whose last films did not make money. Nobody will finance him. In the end one offer comes: he will shoot an adult film. He takes it because there is nothing else. Everything on the set goes wrong; the producer keeps interfering, the actors are not ready, there is no budget, and Sing cannot respect his own work. At the same time he still wants to believe he could make a good film. Derek Yee directs. Leslie Cheung plays Sing, with Karen Mok in the cast. The film is a satire of the Hong Kong industry. In the middle of the nineties that industry was shrinking and cheap adult productions were how many people made a living; the narrative tells it from inside. What is odd is its relation to its own subject: the film mocks such productions and contains scenes belonging to the genre, and it does not hide the doubleness. Karen Mok won an award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for her part. Leslie Cheung does not play his character for laughs; the man's shame is at the centre and the comedy comes out of it. The working conditions of the industry are given in detail: scenes shot in a day, wages unpaid, and actors with no bargaining power. Who it is for: viewers who like Hong Kong cinema and satire about the film business. Who it is not for: the tone is uneven, some scenes become exactly what the film criticises, and the narrative is scattered.