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Had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, 'Table for Six' and 'Chilli Laugh Story' would have gone head to head at the box office during the lucrative Chinese New Year period. That both films decided in the end to find separate release windows is a blessing in disguise, for both are worthy and deserving of audience attention. Whereas 'Chilli' saw the filmmaking debut of Coba Cheng under the tutelage of producer Sandra Ng, 'Table' marks the sophomore film by veteran screenwriter Sunny Chan under producer Bill Kong, and it is to the credit of both producers that each of these films are warm, wise and funny in their own ways.

Unfolding largely within the confines of their father's former barbeque pork kitchen which three brothers have since converted into a spacious apartment, 'Table' weaves a coming-of-age story for the siblings Steve (Dayo Wong), Bernard (Louis Cheung) and Lung (Peter Chan). The eldest Steve is a professional photographer, who has converted part of the space in the apartment into his own studio; more importantly though, he has taken it upon himself to head the household following the death of their parents. Lung has quit his day job in the hopes of making it big as a professional e-sports player, much to the chagrin of his longtime girlfriend Josephine (Ivana Wong). Among the three, Bernard seems to be the most well-adjusted, though it is also him who throws all their lives into disarray.

The first of several reunion dinners that are the equivalent of the movie's set-pieces sees Bernard bringing home his new girlfriend Monica (Stephy Tang), who was Steve's ex-girlfriend until their break-up three years ago that he still hasn't gotten over. Despite his own feelings, Steve generously welcomes Monica to join the family, inviting her to move in with them than remain in her subdivided flat he is all too familiar with. Steve further over-compensates by asking popular internet model Meow (Lin Min Chen) to move in as well, the latter an online celebrity who happens to be his biggest fan. Together with Josephine, whom Steve and Bernard had earlier invited to move in to be their resident chef, it is as crowded and as complicated as it gets.

Eschewing the 'mo lei tau' style of comedy of the typical CNY comedy, Chan adopts a dialogue-heavy, character-driven approach to his storytelling. A subsequent dinner conversation lays bare how Bernard had been interested in Monica even when she was Steve's girlfriend and had deliberately engineered their meet-cute over a project which Monica's advertising company had tendered for. A heart-to-heart talk between Steve and Meow reveals how the latter is a lot more astute and perceptive than her cutesy image suggests, and what Steve has been suppressing all these years in order not to be a cause of worry to his brothers. And just when you think the only thing that could go right would save the family from being torn apart, Lung and Josephine's relationship unravels in unexpected ways.

That none of the characters ends up being superfluous is credit to Chan's scripting, which takes time to sculpt each character's anxieties, insecurities and motivations. It is no surprise the family will come apart before coming back together again, but the process of doing so feels authentic, heartfelt and utterly relatable. It is also to Chan's credit that the film never loses its cinematic quality despite being largely a chamber piece, with Meteor Cheung's dexterous camera work ensuring that the movie feels intimate yet expansive at the same time. And then there is the ensemble cast, whose chemistry enlivens the material and makes it a lot more than the sum of its parts; in particular, (Dayo) Wong and Tang shine as ex-lovers who have to decide how to move forward not just for their sakes but also for the sake of those they care about.

We'd even go so far as to say that 'Table' is one of the best family dramas we've seen in a while, and with 'Chilli', even more reason to have faith once again in Hong Kong cinema. Kudos to Chan for not falling back on genre tropes for a Chinese New Year movie, choosing instead to pen quite possibly one of his best films to deliver an amusing, affecting and absorbing portrait of what it means to stay together as family. So even though it is now repackaged as a Mid-Autumn Festival release, 'Table' loses none of its joys or poignancy, and amidst a resurgence of Hong Kong cinema, may very well be the best of a very good lot.

You won't find a more closely guarded yet eagerly anticipated movie this year than 'Tenet', described as writer-director Christopher Nolan's most ambitious yet. Little has been revealed about its plot, except that it has to do with a secret agent - known only in the movie as The Protagonist (John David Washington) - who is recruited by a shadowy Government organisation to prevent World War III from being wrought by time inversion.

Time has always fascinated Nolan, right from his crime thriller 'Memento' from two decades ago, to his heist movie 'Inception' a decade ago, and even to his last World War II movie 'Dunkirk'. Here, Nolan goes even further than all his earlier films, suggesting that time can not only be reversed but also co-exist simultaneously between past and present, such that people can move backwards and forwards through time at the same time.

It is an audacious proposition no doubt; but as straightforward as it might sound on paper, you'll know if you've seen any one of Nolan's previous works that it is a lot more complex in practice. True enough, we must admit that we found ourselves rather perplexed by its concepts, comprising algorithms, the Manhattan project and the grandfather paradox among others. Even with a generous amount of exposition delivered by Clémence Poésy, Michael Caine and Hindi legend Dimple Kapadia, we doubt anyone would be able to keep it with its multiple narrative loops at first viewing.

That doesn't mean it isn't entertaining; indeed, even as you might end up befuddled, even frustrated, at its physics and logic, there's no denying that you'll be thoroughly hooked from the get-go by Nolan's James Bond-equivalent. Without naming his Protagonist, Nolan has fashioned a Bond-style espionage thriller, with some time-twisting science-fiction thrown in to up the stakes.

Within its two-and-a-half hour runtime, 'Tenet' brings its audience on a dizzying globe-trotting adventure - beginning in Kiev with a terrorist attack on a packed opera house; to Mumbai to meet the enigmatic wife (Kapadia) of an arms dealer; to Oslo for a jaw-dropping raid on a vault on the airside of an airport; and to the Mediterranean coast where the film's villain Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) makes his home on board a luxurious yacht. It's as expansive as you can imagine, and that's not even counting the other stopover locations such as the cliffs of Italy's Amalfi Coast or the spare Nysted Wind Farm in Denmark.

At least Washington has for company Robert Pattinson's intelligence officer Neil, who proves an invaluable ally in each one of his daring missions; the chemistry between Washington and Pattinson is understated, but their sheer charisma breathes humanity into the otherwise coolly calculated proceedings. Ditto for Elizabeth Debicki, as Andrei's estranged wife Kat; while it would have been all-too easy to paint her as a Bond girl, Nolan's writing gives her character more depth and purpose than you would expect, especially in relation to Branagh's effectively unsubtle villain.

Yet more so than any of his other movies. 'Tenet' is propelled by its spectacular action set pieces, most of it done practically without the help of any CGI; among the most impressive include a freight plane that Neil's crew hijacks on the tarmac and crashes into one of the nearby cargo buildings, a freeway car chase with vehicles moving in both directions simultaneously, and a military-style invasion of a private underground complex with explosions happening in reverse. Like we said, even if you do not quite grasp the logic behind it, you can surely appreciate the tentpole artistry in applying 'temporal inversion' to the non-stop action.

That almost singular focus on science and kinetics comes at the expense of emotion, and if that is one glaring flaw in 'Tenet', it is that it fails to develop its characters in any meaningful way. The closest one comes to appreciating any of the ensemble is Kat's longing to be reunited with her young son Max, part of the psychological abuse which she endures being in a joyless marriage with Andrei. Yet those looking for the sort of emotional anchor as that which Leonardo DiCaprio's character had with his wife in 'Inception' will come off sorely disappointed, because it isn't clear what Washington is driven by other than to prevent Armageddon.

Certainly, those eagerly awaiting the sort of big-scale cinematic spectacle that Nolan is known for since 'The Dark Knight' trilogy will love every minute of 'Tenet'. His blockbuster has been touted as the reason to head back to the cinemas, and let's just say it fully lives up to that promise. What it demands in return is that you embrace its convoluted machinations, including time travel paradoxes, quantum physics and "temporal pincer movements" that feed into a palindromic narrative concept; even if you go 'WTF', know that it is part of the experience, an experience which Nolan warns through a character - "Don't try to understand it, feel it."