Nice effects though.

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The literal meaning of its original Chinese title is "the day and night of Tin Shui Wai", Tin Shui Wai is a northwestern area of Hong Kong and is noted for its public housing estates, where mostly low-income families inhibit, Ann Hui's heartfelt picture centers on a single mother Mrs. Cheung (Paw) and her teenage son Ka-on (Leung), through their kitchen-sink daily life, it cogently reflects our modern society's interpersonal relations with spontaneous casualness and certainly Hui's best work I've ever watched (I have yet to see A SIMPLE LIFE 2011)! The film runs effortlessly to rotate around Cheung and Ka-on's quotidian doings, Cheung works in a supermarket and Ka-on idles at their boxy apartment since it is summer vacation. Granny Leung Foon (Lai-wan Chan), a new neighbor who lost her daughter recently and her son-in-law remarried, Leung Foon's solitary life is singled out naturally through her entry scenes (buy a paltry portion of beef for herself, the meat vendor even fastidiously complains one of her coins is black and demands a swap), records more closely to her meals (the same beef fried with cabbage being consumed in both lunch and dinner), the artistry is all in the details. Leung Foon is typically protective and penny-pinching, but her heart will gradually open to Cheung and Ka- on, since a near neighbor is better than a distant cousin, among them, a sensitive surrogate family bond is developing and culminating after a tearjerking talking heart to heart on a bus back from a fruitless attempt to visit Foon's grandson. Meanwhile, the backstory of Cheung and the tacit alienation between Cheung and her mother, her well-off brothers are all steadily unraveling, Cheung is a woman full of pride, she can undertake hardships, she never solicit any remuneration for bringing up two brothers, but her mother thinks it is her tomfoolery to struggle in poverty, this creates a knot between them, but family is always family, there is no grudges among them, Cheung's swallow nest congee betokens that tellingly. Hee Ching Paw and Lai-wan Chan are pitch perfect in their lifelike performances (which incredibly counters their theatrical training), newcomer Chun-lung Leung is also a force of nature, here is a young boy without any rebellious traits (no gamble, no girlfriend problem, no drug abuse, no religious hindrance), his upbringing is the most laudable feat and yet Hui achieves that by no hyperbole at all. If you are a Hong Kong cinema connoisseur, you will be thrilled to see a cameo from a comely Idy Chan (15 years after her retirement from the screen).Ann Hui is a tower of strength in current HK cinema scenery, she is less internationally- recognized than Johnny To, but her cannon is so rich and diverse and her unique mastery of humanistic care should enlist her name among the most overlooked directors of all time!

The movie is one of the most recommended movies especially after it won four awards at the Hongkong Film Award. As many viewers have said, it is a very Hongkongese movie. Although I am not a Hongkongnese,I can relate to the everyday stories in the movie. It may seem boring to most Westerners,but I have to say a good movie can also present a real world in which real people are living a real life. While watching the movie, I smiled a lot and cried a lot.Then I felt hopes in the end.Life is not all about getting what you want.It is also about giving what you can give to the people you love or care.Watching a movie and learning something from it matters more.

I agree this is not a run of mill Hong Kong movie, it was quite well made BUT who wants to watch a movie as boring as this??? The movie line is about life in a typical housing estate in Hong Kong, of not outstanding people leading their normal ordinary lives. Its like a documentary, "fly on the ceiling" type of docu-drama, the problem is this... nothing much happened, just ordinary lives. I am sure if I were a Martian coming to study human beings in Hong Kong, this might be interesting, alas I am not. My be when this is broadcast to space someday some aliens might find it useful to see how we live. But I am sorry Miss Director, this movie, if you can call it a movie, didn't work for me.

Unlike all the other Hong Kong action/comedy movies we're used to, this is a relative slow paced drama which offers an insight in the life of an average HK family, in this case the story is centered around a mother and teenage son. They don't have a lot of money and probably can just cope by but they still stay positive in life and this is what the filmmakers wanted to show us. The place of this story is Tin Shui Wai and over the years it has been in the HK news due all sorts of social problems like domestic violence, loneliness, debts, suicides etc. and with this movie the makers showed that -without being paternalistic or dramatic- we most not generalize all the people who live there and there's hope as long your attitude towards life is a positive one.