The
decline of the Hong Kong
film industry seems to have
opened up a new space for
independent production in
the territory. Lawrence
Wong's Cross Harbour
Tunnel (shot on
Super-16 but playing in
the Forum on video) was
dreamed up in a night and
shot in a week. Its wild
and crazy spirit represents
everything that's fresh
and surprising in the sudden
surge of non-commercial
film-making.
The
film comprises four different
stories which intersect in
the manner of Mystery
Train or Pulp
Fiction. They range
from the character-based comedy
of a young couple nervously
visiting a love hotel to the
grand guignol melodrama of
a Filipina maid's thwarted
passion.
But
the undoubted highpoint
is the wicked parody of
Tsai Ming-Liang's Vive
L'amour in which
a young man finds a key
to someone else's apartment
and falls in love with its
temporarily absent owner.
