An Autumn’s Tale (1987) HK

April 27, 2003 • Film, Reviews

Directors: Johnnie To Kei-Fung

Script: Philip Cheng Chung-Tai
Producer: Taap Ga Jan

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat (Yeung Ah-Long), Sylvia Chang Ai-Chia (Sylvia Poon Por-Por), Wong Kwan Yuen (Porky), Ng Man-Tat (Dragon Ng)

Merit: Winner – Chow Yun-Fat, Best Actor, Hong Kong Film Awards

Cantonese: A Long Dik Goo Si
Mandarin: : A1 Lang2 De5 Gu4 Shi4
Country: Hong Kong

Language: Cantonese
Running Time: 106 min

A brilliant portrayal by Chow Yun-Fat makes a good script into a truly great film, a heart-rending story of love and redemption.

Chow Yun-Fat is cast as Yeung Ah Long, a former motorcycle racer who is reduced to working in a quarry, driving a truck. Ten years earlier he had lived the life of a wastrel, womanizing, drinking and beating his pregnant girlfriend. As if in repayment of his heinous actions Ah Long was involved in a terrible motorcycle accident while gleefully trying to outrun the police and he is injured to the point that he can no longer ride competitively. While in jail for this escapade, Ah Long learns that his girlfriend PorPor has borne him a son, but the child has been placed in an orphanage and she has emigrated to the United States. After his release, he finds the child and goes about trying to put a life together for himself and his son in the ghastly slums of 1980s Hong Kong. A chance encounter brings PorPor back into the life of Ah Long and to the son whom she was told had died at birth. Living a somewhat sterile existence, PorPor seems at first to be reluctant to let any part of her past intrude upon her new, orderly life but the pull of the past is strong though she fights it all the way.

The setting of this film is unrelentingly realistic. The squalor in which Ah Long and his son live is presented without apology; the only thing which prevents the surroundings from becoming overwhelming is the relationship between Ah Long and his son, which transcend their environment. The humor is crude, the emotion raw. This is a film about human lives without the candied veil of Hollywood drawn across the camera lens. There is no sterile emptiness here of the typical American ghetto stereotype, but a teeming rancor which is unsettling.

—Leigh Melton, A Freeman in Hong Kong

***

This movie had a huge influence on the romantic dramas coming out of Hong Kong. Instead of relying on a soap opera plot or incredible tragedy, this is a very understated movie about a nice guy who likes a girl, and tries to make her happy. Director Mabel Cheung and screenwriter Alex Law (the same pair that created Illegal Immigrant and later Now You See Love, Now You Don’t) break new ground by developing the characters rather than throwing in unnecessary plot complications. Little touches like Chow’s self-improvement list or dream of opening a seaside restaurant don’t have a shattering effect, but make you care about the characters. And Cherie Chung and Chow Yun-Fat don’t waste the fine writing, turning in perhaps their best performances.

—Joseph M. Fierro, Hong Kong Cinema

American fans who know Chow Yun-fat only from the John Woo gunplay films, or from US efforts like “Replacement Killers,” may be startled by his work in writer-director Mabel Cheung’s gentle autobiographical tale. This a serious, personal picture, filmed on a shoestring in New York, a John Sayles-style film that happened to strike a chord with HK’s big audience. A recent college graduate, played by Cherie Chung (the perky gold-digger in Tsui Hark’s “Peking Opera Blues”), arrives in Manhattan from Hong Kong to study acting. She’s a virginal country mouse, appalled by the filth and the abrasive natives, very earnest about her Art. Chow plays her city mouse cousin, a conniving taxi driver who drinks, brawls and gambles, and takes the green girl under his wing. Plot developments will remind you of every naively sensitive autobiographical first novel ever written, but the slightly dazzled tone fits the characters. The behind-the- scenes glimpses of Chinatown gambling dens and restaurant kitchens, and Chow’s all-stops-out star performance, are definite assets

—David Chute, Hong Kong Movie Database

-AFF

chow yun fat drama hong kong Johnnie To Kei-Fung