Joyce Chan Movies
- 1994
This dramatic film compares and contrasts Chinese and American cultures. It is based upon real events which took place in New York during the mid-'80s when a deranged white male pushed a Hong Kong immigrant off a subway platform. The movie begins in modern Hong Kong and follows the life of Mo-yung, a middle class single woman. In order to get her out of Hong Kong before the Chinese take over the colony in 1997, her parents arrange for her to marry a Canadian man. But Mo-yung demurs and instead follows Benny, a hip, but shady photographer, to New York. Benny is doing more than taking pictures and frequently shuttles between Hong Kong and New York. Her involvement with Benny gets Mo-yung into real trouble. While in New York, Mo-yung meets Rubie, a half white woman who is being followed by a crazy Caucasian schoolteacher with an obsession for Asian women. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anita Yuen, Simon Yam, (more)
- 1982
Ma (Tong Chung-yip) works as a taxi driver, as a collector for his father whose business is high-interest loans, and in his spare time, as a lifeguard. In that last role, he meets Kathy (Pat Ha), a wealthy woman, and romance blossoms. Meanwhile, Kathy's friend Louis (Leslie Chung) is also at the beach a lot and he meets a woman with the unlikely name of Tomato (Cecilia), and they develop a relationship. The two couples have various sexual encounters, and then some dastardly assassins from Japan arrive to snuff out Kathy because she has spurned the son of a major gangster. The sex and the violence are intended to make Hong Kong's beaches all that hotter, but the final judgment will have to rest with the viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Cheung
- 1981
Joy is a student from Hong Kong living with eight other roommates in San Francisco, all of them in college together. Her health starts deteriorating because she hears noises in her head, noises that eventually cause her to try to kill herself. After that attempt, her roommate Ivy telephones Joy's brother in Hong Kong and asks him to come quickly to see after his sister. He arrives and a mutual attraction sparks between himself and Ivy. Joy finally does kill herself, and as the brother leaves for Hong Kong, he vows to come back and marry Ivy. What Ivy does not know is that he is just as sick as Joy was, only the disease manifests in him as the urge to kill. When he returns to San Francisco, he murders all of the remaining roommates in bloody awful ways until Ivy takes matters into her own hands. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chang Kuo-Shu
- 1980
Originally titled Zhuang Dao Zheng, the mildly satiric The Spooky Bunch takes place in the Chinese city of Cheung Chau. A Cantonese opera company arrives to present a show for the benefit of a wealthy and influentual patriarch. Both the actors and their benefactor are plagued by pesky theatrical ghosts, led by a female spirit whose name cannot be repeated in polite company (it has something to do with feline feces). One of the actresses, Josephine Siao, discovers that the ghosts are seeking vengeance for crimes committed by the patriarch's ancestors. Written with tongue comfortably in cheek by Joyce Chan, The Spooky Bunch received its first non-Chinese showing at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Inspector Chow had the effrontery to put the mobster and drug kingpin Lau in prison. While in prison, Lau plots his revenge. The first part of it requires that he have Inspector Chow murdered. The second part requires that he make a big splash in the criminal world by stealing an Italian diamond shipment. He sets his scheme underway, recruiting a corruptible cop, Pang, by tricking him into running up a huge gambling debt. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chu Kong, Chan Wai-Man, (more)
- 1979
Harbinger of a new wave in Hong Kong cinema and one of director Ann Hui's best films, The Secret capitalizes on symbols in Chinese culture referring to birth, marriage and death and sets a definite mood of mystery and foreboding from the beginning. A kind of psychological horror-thriller, the story is based on an actual incident in 1970. Some school children come across the battered bodies of a young man and woman, tied to a tree. Their faces have been smashed in, and their clothes are torn. It turns out that the man (Man Chi-leung) was a medical student in the university. As the story unfolds, the mystery and mood rather outweigh the terrible "secret" connected to the murders. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvia Chiang, Chiu Ah Chi, (more)
