牛郎與妓女

等待方舟

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

七年很癢

　　Golf Club經理潘致文(劉青云飾)與老婆張美瑛(蔣怡飾)結婚將近七年，生活平淡、枯燥，雖然他渴望著過過“放蕩的新生活”，但是天性膽小，只敢說不敢做，基本上是一個善良的小男人。　　這一次美瑛要去外地旅行，潘致文覺得這是個大好機會，于是決定趁這個“婚姻大假”找尋一些刺激。撫慰自己強壓六年多的欲海。　　夜晚在PUB中，致文就邂逅了冶艷少女趙靜(應采兒飾)，令到他心癢難忍。正當致文準備向阿靜展開攻勢的時候，卻在相處中了解到她原來身世相當凄慘，放蕩的行為只是因為孤寂的逆反，致文憐憫之心大增，無奈中不得不放棄了占有的欲念。　　而與此同時，致文又遇上了自己的初戀情人張采冰(劉嘉玲飾)，已經成為事業女性的阿冰目前生活無憂，身邊男伴無數，并且和一個健身教練WIL(安志杰飾)關系曖昧。但是外表熱情似火的她對于致文依舊念念不忘，致文立刻與冰重燃了愛火，但同時也覺得對妻子心存愧疚。然而此時此刻家庭的危機也漸漸發生了出人意料的變化……

致我的青春