Made in Hong Kong

One of the best films of last decade. Impressive visual style, especially cinematography and production design, despite ultra low budget. Deep emotional touch, very special atmosphere, captivating cast, simply beautiful film. This young author (director and writer) did it only with money from his cousins, friends and support from senior Hong kong moviemakers. Enthusiasm above all and remarkable accomplishment is here.

Despite a weak last half-hour, Fruit Chan's debut is absolutely stunning. It continues the 'new Hong Kong' visual style (strobe, overexposure, freeze-frames, and jump-cutting) that fellow director Wong-Kar Wai has pioneered in his last three films. In addition to superb cinematography and editing, the storyline also is exceptional, taking the viewer into the harsh realities of Hong Kong youth gangs. Autumn Moon, the main character, is a rare creation - both attractive and repulsive. The moment we begin to empathize with him, he pushes us away with his enormous capacity for violence. This perfect mix of tenderness and harshness push it head and shoulders above most Hong Kong cinema, not only of 1997, but of any other year as well.

Sluggish gangster genre revitalised by infusion of teen melodrama. One of the films of the year. The violence is, for once, sickening, immediate and real, rather than crude comedy, but interlaced with expressionistic sensibility of dead protagonist. Deeply moving on a personal level, and highly comic in spite of ultimate despair. The director's visual vocabulary is immense, with imagery of such dreamlike, poetic, evocative beauty, your heart stops.

Fruit Chan's debut film was seen by many in Hong Kong as a metaphor for the foreboding that gripped the colony in the years before 1997, and Chan himself has said that it is the first part of a trilogy on the handover--the second part is "The Longest Night." Metaphorical resonances aside, though, under the energetic, sometimes violent surface of "Made in China" is a film of haunting sadness and compassion. The central character, the young, jobless Autumn Moon, is proud of his ability to live by his wits; but he ends up in a world that his wits can't handle. Chan's ingenuity in making this film on a tiny budget with amateur actors is obvious, but one leaves the film overwhelmed with sadness for the lives of the characters--most of all Autumn Moon's, and his despairing inability to help the people he cares about.

absolutely blown away by this film. It got to me like no other film. I couldn't stop the tears rolling down my cheeks. I started mourning for them, sitting there in front of the tv, watching the light went out and the sun started to set. It hurts.