Trivial Matters

Description: Trivial Matters is exactly what it says on the packet Collection of seven vignettes some sad others sardonic have little in common other than a concern with the small things of life and a throwaway attitude very typical of its creator Pang Ho cheung aka Edmond Pang Hard on the heels of his much more formal Exodus pic may baffle those unfamiliar with the Hong Kong writer director s insouciant oeuvre and will be best appreciated at Asiaphile events Pic did so so biz on local release last December Though Pang is best known internationally for Isabella in many ways his least typical movie Trivial Matters is closer in spirit to earlier pics like Beyond Our Ken and AV in which the audience is never sure just how seriously to take what s being shown Based on Pang s own collection of short stories it also has a scattergun success rate that s also very characteristic of him Best segs are the third and fifth both of which are constructed as mini movies rather than casual jottings and are nicely played by their separate casts In It s a Festival Today a girl Isabel Chan moves in with her b f Eason Chan but doesn t want to have sex finally at Christmas she agrees to service the poor guy which leads him to desperately hunt the calendar for other holidays in order to get pleasured again Punchline is blackly witty Tone in Ah Wai the Big Head the longest and most slickly lensed of the bunch is more wistful sketching a friendship between two high schoolers quiet Kei Stephy Tang and spacey Ah Wai Gillian Chung as they drift apart but meet again at a class reunion Stretching from the late 80s to the mid 90s and based around their shared liking for Cantopop legend Danny Chan yarn has a lovely period feel and subtle chemistry between the two actresses that packs quite an emotional punch at the end Other segs range from passing gags thesp Edison Chen as a dirty mouthed pick up artist to self consciously clever playing with film form The simplest but with a piercing moment of sadness is the sixth episode Recharge centered on a hotel room assignation between a businessman Chapman To and a Mainland hooker Zhang Zheng At a time when Hong Kong production has become increasingly conventional and middle class pic is notable for its natural undogmatic approach to nudity and drug use Casting of names in all the segments including Mainland helmer Feng Xiaogang in a witty cameo as the account manager of an assassination agency maintains interest for auds able to recognize the faces However general viewers are more likely to agree with pic s opening intertitle Life is rather trivial in hindsight

Country:  Hong Kong

Released: 2007

Genre: Drama

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