The Golden Mullet

Happy New Year. Well, at least I hope YOU have one. I'm miserable. Ali has gone and it was all very shitty. Christmas night, she gave me a dirty look for not leaving Bob's place early enough so she could pack a decent suitcase. She was also a little upset that I had left her alone with Bob, giving him ample opportunity to give her the third degree. On Boxing Day, we popped around to Orange Peel's and had a nice little get together. Ali didn't say a word about staying too late then though. The next morning, we had a quick good-bye and she was off in a taxi to JFK and I was off to work.

I watched Tim yin mat yue or Sealed With a Kiss the next Saturday, and I probably shouldn't have. I watched it because it starred Louis Koo. This is the first drama I've seen him in, and it was actually quite good, except for the shitty ending which sucked. I'd tried to watch it before, but the reception wasn't good so I abandoned the effort. This movie was made before Koo began sporting his Golden Mullet and he looks better, or more believable, without it.

Okay, so the story goes like this: Koo plays a mute villager who doesn't have much to do around the place except help his mum look after the shop, work on his boat, and shake down addicts and restauranteurs for protection money. His friend Angel, played by Suk-Ching Au seems to be the brains of the outfit and Kam Shui (Koo) the muscle. Angel is a bit of a tomboy in the film, but has a crush on Kam. Along comes Mandy, played by Yo Yo Mung, who rents a room above Kam's shop and waits forlorn for her ex-boyfriend to call. He doesn't.

Time goes by, and Kam develops a crush on Mandy, who in turn has developed a crush on a fire-fighter. Kam is left to run the shop all by himself, but as good friends do, he and Angel help Mandy get in with the fire-fighter. Of course, Kam doesn't really want this to work but Angel doesn't want Mandy in the way of her friendship with Kam. Mandy and the fire-fighter go off to Hong Kong, and Angel and Kam continue the shake downs so they can gamble.

I guess in a small seaside village like this one, the protection racket develops a certain rapport with their targets. And so it is with a particular individual who seems to never have the money required and is frequently thrown in the harbour. During one shakedown, Angel who is working solo, goes bezerk on the guy because he tells her that he likes her. She considers this an affront and shivs the guy in the gut with a broken bottle. Kam runs down to the beach and sees what Angel has done, and the fun and games are over.

Angel disappears and Kam takes the addict to a doctor. Everything seems to be back to normal until Kam goes to clean the room upstairs and finds cues from Mandy that she knew he liked her and Kam decides to go to HK to find Mandy. Kam grabs an address and runs through town to the ferry.

And if the movie had ended there, it would have been nice. Unfortunately, some people don't like happy endings and I'm not saying that everything has to end happily ever after, but this ending really sucked, almost as hard as Layer Cake, but with a romantic premise mixed in. On the way to the ferry, somebody stops him and reminds him that his flip flops just won't suit him in HK, and that he should change his shoes. He runs back to the shop and begins to put on his nice shoes. He hears something in the back and goes to investigate. It's the drug addict who seems to be strangely calm considering he's just been caught breaking into a shop. Kam lets him eat some food and just as he turns to finish putting his shoes on, he gets a knife in the back. The remaining five minutes is just too sad, or maybe I'm emo. Suffice it to say that as soon as Kam turned around to go back to the shop, the movie sucked.