Movie Review: Aberdeen/香港仔

I’d heard a lot about Aberdeen/香港仔 before I watched it. I didn’t see it during the HKIFF, but I did see the premiere ceremony.

Which is, admittedly, of no use to either you or me.

  Aberdeen/香港仔 is a story about a family that have some, uh, issues, not just between each other but on their own.

Ng Man Tat plays the widower father of the family. He’s really impressive in a purely dramatic role, displaying a lot more depth and skill than he would in a comic role.

Carrie Ng plays his girlfriend, a manager at a ‘hostess karaoke.’ The role is small, but she makes the most of it, and inhabits her character very well.

Miriam Yeung is married to Eric Tsang, though not happily. She thinks her mother is haunting her from the grave. She doesn’t know that her husband, a doctor, is banging his nurse. 

Frequently.

 Louis Koo plays a star tutor married to Gigi Leung. He is struggling to accept his daughter Chloe (Lee Man-kwai), who is not as attractive as he thinks she should be.

After all, look at the parents.

He’s encouraging Chloe to study martial arts, and calls her Piggy.

  Dad of the year material.

Cici, the child’s mother (and Louis Koo’s wife), is played by Gigi Leung. Cici is aging, and as an actress and model, that’s a professional death sentence. 

 But in some ways it’s preferable to what she’s asked to do for money or roles.

Dada Chen appears in a cameo as a young woman who, although age is on her side, doesn’t seem to have the same objections to furthering her career through hard work.

On her back.

Art reflecting life?

Aberdeen/香港仔 is a remarkable film in a lot of ways.

It’s a character study of very real people, dealing with regular problems, who display a level of humanness that is not only unusual for local cinema, but very realistic in its depiction.

It’s hard to explain, but it was nice to see Louis Koo acting like a regular person.

It’s nothing against him at all, I just mean that usually he’s playing a very cinematic role in movies, and this time it was quite different.

The one thing I took away from the premiere ceremony was watching him and the little girl who played Chloe in the offstage waiting area. He looked and acted like her father, talking and laughing with her, making sure she didn’t spill anything on her dress,  and just generally being very un-movie star-like. 

For me, everyone in the film managed to shake off their star image and become real people.

The stories were interesting, well-told, well-shot, and the whole movie has a level of competence and excellence that made it very easy and very rewarding to watch.

 Even the music, which I generally don’t pay much attention to, was notable and really contributed to the film.

 But what else would you expect from Peter Kam?

That’s kind of the way Aberdeen/香港仔 struck me overall.  A good director, a good cast, and a good story.

It made for a nice change.

Aberdeen is a really good film, and everyone in it should be very proud of having participated.

I can easily suggest you watch  Aberdeen/香港仔.