Sam Fooi (1999) User Reviews

Flawed, but an interesting, watchable film nevertheless

[PTCfromDE · 6/10 · 4 January 2002]

This film has the look of a low-budget film by an inexperienced film-maker. However, it has an interesting story, two interesting main characters, and ultimately is worth watching.

The setting is a university in Hong Kong, and the two main characters are a young Chinese man (19 years old) and a considerably older (40s or 50s?) professor of English Literature. The dialogue is in both Chinese and English, with both languages subtitled in the other language.

Some of the flaws: the sound is sometimes lost below the background music, and is uneven in quality; the DVD I saw it on was not letterboxed, and the adaptation to the TV aspect ratio cut off the sides of many of the english subtitles, which was a bit frustrating.

The ending too, is a bit unrealistic and disappointing. But I'm still glad I watched it, and still will probably share it with friends.

An unusual intergenerational romance

[dwr246 · 7/10 · 15 May 2006]

If homosexuality is finding greater acceptance in the world of film-making, intergenerational romance, especially among men, is still somewhat taboo, which is what makes this film somewhat unique.

This film follows the relationship between Hugh (Edmund Strode), a bitter, alcoholic writer and professor in Hong Kong, and Mark (Alex Wong), one of his prize students. At first, Mark is merely another student in one of Hugh's classes, but Mark's talent soon brings him to Hugh's attention, and once Mark gets to know Hugh a little better, he is clearly smitten with Hugh. While Hugh tries to push Mark away at first, one night, Mark enters Hugh's apartment to find him drunk in the bathtub, and they give way to their passion. But, can they continue their relationship when outside pressures threaten to drive them apart?

It's an interesting premise, especially since there are any number of movies about young women who fall in love with older men, and a few more daring ones about young men who fall in love with older women. However, we rarely find much in the way of age disparity when the lovers are of the same gender. Even then, it is either a kept kind of relationship, like the one in "Jeffrey," or it is not the main romance of the story. This one is, which is laudable. Unfortunately, it really doesn't explore many of the issues related to the disparity in either age or culture, which is a pity.

The acting is okay. Strode gives an interesting performance of Hugh as a bitter, vulnerable man, but shows little about him that would inspire the kind of devotion Mark fawns on him. Likewise, Wong's performance of Alex is sweet, but his motivations are not always clear. Still the performances are well matched, so the movie works as a whole.

While I was delighted to see somebody actually explore the issue of intergenerational gay romance, I was disappointed that this film didn't explore the issue more fully. Still, this is a pleasant enough movie to watch, and I would recommend it as showing a facet of gay life which is not often shown.

A Simple Love Story

[larapha · 4/10 · 10 December 2016]

The plot surrounding FLOP is rather simple. A middle age teacher attracts one of his felloes by the proposition of a gay book to read (Maurice, by J.M.Foster) while maintaining some distance of him, in views of their differences in expectations of live and age. And the film doesn't go very away from this plot, giving little, if one, intrinsically movements of why this relationship is faded to fail. Both actors perform not very well. The Teacher (Edmond Strode) is constantly trying to be though; the student (Alex Wong) fells, or pretends to feel, the pains of first love. And so they go through the film, giving a boring conflict of generations. As a hole, the film doesn't need more than the 50' attributed to it. It can lead to some reflection of the problems of love with such a difference of age, but that won't last a few minutes after the film is closed. Very boring.