Princess-d
Reviewed by YTSL
From an October 1999 interview.
Interviewer: So what's
next for you?
Sylvia Chang: I'm concentrating on one film--a young
people's film, involving their fantasy computer world, the mix of fantasy
and the real. Young people in Hong Kong are privileged, but they're
lonely as a result. They don't know what it is to live without a cellular
phone. They don't know how to deal with themselves. It's really
dangerous. . .
. . . Interviewer:
Do you think the Internet is a good thing?
Sylvia Chang: I always get this scary picture of
everybody hiding in the dark, telling each other some very exotic and honest
things. How does it affect people using it all day, where does that
lead? . . . I just have this mental picture of people lit by a green glow
from the screen writing out their hearts, and wonder where it will all stop.
My sons do this. They come home and spend their whole day on the Net.
My second son is 16, my eldest, 19. One sometimes comes home, goes
into my husband's office and starts writing e-mail. I ask him what
he's doing and he says, “I'm e-mailing my brother.” I ask him why he
doesn't just talk to him, or phone him up if he wants to talk when he's not
here, and he says, “but it's not as much fun.”
Reading the above some three years after it took
place, it is pretty obvious that the movie to which Sylvia Chang was referring
in that “Online Time-Asia” interview is PRINCESS D; the creative 2002 theatrical
release that derives its English title from a real life fantasy figure along
with a (for now) completely fictional digital princess described by her creator
as being his “guide of [sic.] adventures” and an independent-minded plus
-acting individual who “when I am in danger, I can just go and leave . .
. behind.” Similarly, and especially in a scene which shows the two
of them happily cyber-chatting with each other while ensconced in their own,
actually adjoining, rooms, it appears fairly clear that the thoughtfully
mature, even while being youth- and seemingly straw-clutching activity-centric,
drama’s pair of main male characters are modeled to some extent after --
or inspired by -- the female co-director cum -scriptwriter’s own sons.
In this context (along with others), it seems rather appropriate that one
of PRINCESS D’s lead duo is known as Kid (although it’s no less difficult
to believe Sylvia Chang having a child like Edison Chen as it was to envisage
that -- as was effectively mandated by this effort -- Anthony Wong’s soulful
ballroom dancing instructor character could be this slacker individual’s
father). On the other hand, and seeing that he comes in the form of
the very straight-laced looking Daniel Wu, the elder of these two brothers
-- a computer graphics designer known as Joker, even though he is far from
being one -- appears to be some years away from being a teenager (even while
most definitely being a member of the cyber-generation as well as an, in
his own way, disaffected youth).
Although her name appears in this quality production’s credits behind --
and she probably does have less screen time than -- Messrs. Wu and Chen,
Angelica Lee it is who steals this show. Portraying a necessarily street-wise,
“take charge” plus outwardly tough individual named Ling (who is miles apart
from the quieter ones she played in “The Eye” and “Forever Theresa Teng”),
the petite female captured the attention and affections of (this member of)
PRINCESS D’s audience as easily and surely as her wonderfully multi-layered
character captivated Joker, and got him wanting her to be both his model
for a computer game heroine plus real life love. So much is this the
case that I found myself majorly ruing the choices made by the movie’s makers
which ensured that the impressively lensed (by Mark Lee Ping Bing) offering
would not focus as much on Ling as it actually did.
All in all, one of the greatest mis-steps on the part of co-helmers cum -scriptwriters
Sylvia Chang and Yuen Gam Lun involved their having counted on it being all
that possible for PRINCESS D’s plot structure to comfortably contain and
seamlessly weave together all of this multi-stranded offering’s different(ly)
interesting principal and salient supporting characters -- and their similarly
combo (of escapist dream with often heartstring-tuggingly harsh reality)
themed stories. Another was that which led to the over-foregrounding
in the work of the, even if only relatively speaking, too bland Joker and
unreasonably immature Kid at the expense of not just Ling but also her certifiably
dysfunctional but, nonetheless, obviously loving family (whose other key
members comprise: her “no longer mentally all there” mother (The now middle-aged
-- but still striking looking -- Patricia Ha gives life to one more mesmerizing
character after too many years away from the Hong Kong movie world); her
prison inmate father (this effort’s composer, Jonathan Lee, shared a couple
of very affecting scenes with Pat Ha in his short time on screen); and her
arguably well meaning Triad small potato younger brother (Sam is played by
Wong Yik Lam)).
At the risk of coming across as far less generally enamored by this admirably
ambitious plus risk-taking offering than I in fact am, here’s stating my
additionally having had problems with the choice of conclusion, especially
ending coda, for PRINCESS D. In all honesty though, the further away
that I have temporally gotten away from my (initial) viewing of that whose
Chinese title rather tellingly translates into English as “Wanting to Fly”,
the less its flaws stick in my craw. Instead, this (re)viewer finds
herself more fondly remembering and highly valuing its more inspired sections;
among which are the effort’s breathtakingly imaginative entire first twenty
minutes (but especially Joker’s hallucinatory view of a gang rumble) and
its wholly otherworldly final cyber sequence along with pretty much every
precious moment in which one -- but preferably two -- of its three truly
outstanding cast members (i.e. Angelica Lee, Patricia Ha and Anthony Wong)
were in the picture.
My rating for the film: 7.5
N.B. Those who wish to view the “Director’s Cut”
of PRINCESS D need to get hold of its DVD. In contrast, the version
of the movie that’s out on VCD is the 10 minutes shorter one that was shown
in Hong Kong cinemas.
