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All About Ah-Long

All About Ah-Long

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Features:
  • Color
  • Closed-captioned
  • Widescreen


Description:

This is the first picture directed by Johnny To, who went on to become a major director and producer of flashy urban action films. It's a lackluster 1989 weepy, equal parts Kramer vs. Kramer and A Man and a Woman, and it was one of superstar Chow Yun-Fat's biggest hometown hits. Chow's certainly in his element as a motor-mouthed truck driver with a shoulder-length mop of hair who lives in affectionate squalor with his smart-mouthed 9-year-old son. Dad's also a former motorbike champion who had to retire after a crash; he walks with a limp and the doctor warns that even one more serious injury could be his last. (Talk about telegraphing a finale!) Sylvia Chang is the boy's long-lost mom, a yuppie expatriate who returns to Hong Kong and tries to pry her son away from his dad. Most of the movie is jaunty romantic-insult comedy, with Chow and Chang as uncommonly charming sparring partners. But the wrap-up takes an unearned swerve into melodrama, as Chang and the kid watch Ah-Long's comeback race. And you can guess the rest. Kleenex, anyone? --David Chute
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