HONG KONG -- The Heavenly Kings meets at the juncture of Andy Kaufman's Inter-Gender Wrestling and This Is Spinal Tap. First-time director and Asian-American actor Daniel Wu gathered a clutch of friends and pulled a fast one on the Hong Kong media. He also produced one of the territory's funniest, most critical films of the year.
Wu has stated that he made The Heavenly Kings for Hong Kong audiences. But the subject matter, boy bands, is going to play well all across Asia, where such manufactured, corporate controlled bands are an integral part of the music industry. To a lesser degree, overseas viewers are going to recognize the 'N Syncs and Backstreet Boys and possibly have their worst fears confirmed about those bands' origins. Word of mouth is already strong in Hong Kong, and could take the film farther than anyone had planned. It's a clever film, and could well be enlightening for viewers outside of Asia where the boy band phenomenon isn't quite as intense.
ALIVE is a Hong Kong boy band, along the lines of F4 from Taiwan or SMAP from Japan, that was created specifically to be the subject of The Heavenly Kings. Self-produced, shot with a skeleton crew and a tiny budget, Wu, Conroy Chan, Andrew Lin and Terence Yin -- all actors -- pull the wool over the collective eyes of the Hong Kong press long enough to shoot 300 hours of footage detailing the rise and fall of the group they decided to form. Working from a synopsis less than a completed script, Wu wrote scenes that would work for the film to fit the best of the footage.
The music industry in Hong Kong gets sufficiently skewered, but Wu keeps his slings and arrows humorous rather than simply mean-spirited. Cut in among ALIVE's antics are talking heads interviews with some of the industry's biggest stars (Jacky Cheung, Miriam Yeung, Karen Mok, Nicholas Tse) that give the film a level of credibility that's usually unseen in faux docs like it.
The interviewees speak honestly about the industry and how to play it, making ALIVE's behavior and actions all the more hilarious (trying out a stage 'look' and learning to dance are fantastically funny). Woven into the local industry comedy are comments on the changing role of the big label distributor, the relationship between the consumer and artist, between artist and sponsor, and the schizophrenic way Hong Kong treats its own stars. These bits add a level of seriousness that occasionally slows the picture down, but not enough to count as a serious flaw.
The Heavenly Kings uses its DV roots to its advantage and the 35mm transfer is one of the cleanest seen in recent memory. Any audio or visual glitches -- and there aren't that many -- can be chalked up to style: It's as difficult to differentiate the rough documentary video from blips as it is to separate fact from fiction. The film's music is great as it's supplied by some of Hong Kong's most prominent independents. This is a strong, assured debut and just the jolt the Hong Kong industry needs right now.
THE HEAVENLY KINGS
Man 5 Production Ltd.
Credits:
Director: Daniel Wu
Writer: Daniel Wu
Producer: Conroy Chan, Andrew Lin, Daniel Wu, Terence Yin
Executive producer: Patrick Lee
Director of photography: Kim Chan, Phat Chan
Music: ALIVE, Jun Kung, Paul Wong, Hardpack, Audiotrafffic, Qiu Hong
Editor: Kim Chan, Phat Chan.
Cast:
Conroy: Conroy Chan
Andrew: Andrew Lin
Daniel: Daniel Wu
Terence: Terence Yin
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 87 minutes...
Wu has stated that he made The Heavenly Kings for Hong Kong audiences. But the subject matter, boy bands, is going to play well all across Asia, where such manufactured, corporate controlled bands are an integral part of the music industry. To a lesser degree, overseas viewers are going to recognize the 'N Syncs and Backstreet Boys and possibly have their worst fears confirmed about those bands' origins. Word of mouth is already strong in Hong Kong, and could take the film farther than anyone had planned. It's a clever film, and could well be enlightening for viewers outside of Asia where the boy band phenomenon isn't quite as intense.
ALIVE is a Hong Kong boy band, along the lines of F4 from Taiwan or SMAP from Japan, that was created specifically to be the subject of The Heavenly Kings. Self-produced, shot with a skeleton crew and a tiny budget, Wu, Conroy Chan, Andrew Lin and Terence Yin -- all actors -- pull the wool over the collective eyes of the Hong Kong press long enough to shoot 300 hours of footage detailing the rise and fall of the group they decided to form. Working from a synopsis less than a completed script, Wu wrote scenes that would work for the film to fit the best of the footage.
The music industry in Hong Kong gets sufficiently skewered, but Wu keeps his slings and arrows humorous rather than simply mean-spirited. Cut in among ALIVE's antics are talking heads interviews with some of the industry's biggest stars (Jacky Cheung, Miriam Yeung, Karen Mok, Nicholas Tse) that give the film a level of credibility that's usually unseen in faux docs like it.
The interviewees speak honestly about the industry and how to play it, making ALIVE's behavior and actions all the more hilarious (trying out a stage 'look' and learning to dance are fantastically funny). Woven into the local industry comedy are comments on the changing role of the big label distributor, the relationship between the consumer and artist, between artist and sponsor, and the schizophrenic way Hong Kong treats its own stars. These bits add a level of seriousness that occasionally slows the picture down, but not enough to count as a serious flaw.
The Heavenly Kings uses its DV roots to its advantage and the 35mm transfer is one of the cleanest seen in recent memory. Any audio or visual glitches -- and there aren't that many -- can be chalked up to style: It's as difficult to differentiate the rough documentary video from blips as it is to separate fact from fiction. The film's music is great as it's supplied by some of Hong Kong's most prominent independents. This is a strong, assured debut and just the jolt the Hong Kong industry needs right now.
THE HEAVENLY KINGS
Man 5 Production Ltd.
Credits:
Director: Daniel Wu
Writer: Daniel Wu
Producer: Conroy Chan, Andrew Lin, Daniel Wu, Terence Yin
Executive producer: Patrick Lee
Director of photography: Kim Chan, Phat Chan
Music: ALIVE, Jun Kung, Paul Wong, Hardpack, Audiotrafffic, Qiu Hong
Editor: Kim Chan, Phat Chan.
Cast:
Conroy: Conroy Chan
Andrew: Andrew Lin
Daniel: Daniel Wu
Terence: Terence Yin
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 87 minutes...
- 6/22/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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