Office

Experimental, fun & disconcerting. The office metallic structure is open & vertical, it's governed by a giant clock; people are moving inside it like coucou figures; one particular scene in all glass translucent restaurant where the employees have gathered for a drink seems borrowed from a hive of swarming bees. Actors are in motion frenzy; this is not a time to probe feelings; what you see is all what there is

Wow, the costumes are lavish, the music superb and the story is engaging. This is the story of an office romance, a divided family, a deception and many power struggles. What more could you want?

There are many helpless plots in the workplace. I really feel the same. The junior clerk at the bottom can't see the day to come. The exaggerated scenery is a failure, although it is to match the performance situation of singing and dancing. Perhaps the story will be more plain, more direct and more touching.

"Scripted by Sylvia Chang (one might wonder how come she didn't direct the film herself, one answer probably is that To is more bankable to secure its none-too-meager budget), she plays Winnie, the CEO of a high-flying corporation called Jones & Sunn, whose chairman Mr. Ho (Chow) is also her lover for more than two decades, as the company is going public, she is promised to be a major share holder. Meantime, Mr. Ho sends her own daughter Kat (Lang) to work anonymously as an intern (with only Winnie knows the lowdown), and Kat meets another tenderfoot, the ambitious but doe-eyed Lee Seung (Wang), romantic tingle eventually materializes as the film follows through their wide-eyed experience of how a corporation operates under the savvy supervision of Winnie, but also cracks start to show when the IPO process is undermined from within, especially by David Wong (Chan), the mid-level executive who commits some hanky-panky both financially (mad keen on earning "double" in the stock market) and sexually (also a casual lover of Winnie), and when his gamble falls through, he has to wheedle Sophie (Tang), the accountant hailed from mainland to appropriate the company's money to save his skin, on the false promise of his amorous fondness."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore

Johnnie To may be an ace in directing and exploiting the settings, usually the streets of cities, and Hong Kong in particular, but here it is the offices of a financial company in Hong Kong, and here the film is visually impressive and Johnnie To fully grasps this universe and this set of sets, stairs, glass walls. But this ensemble leaves us unmoved, without any empathy for the characters, in whom we are unable to take an interest. Is it because it is a musical, a real one? Maybe, because we fully admit to be insensitive to this style.

We can see that Johnnie To is making fun of the financial world and of these characters who all wear the same uniform and whose preoccupations are purely financial and who spend their time lying to each other.

Nevertheless, the film is brilliant on the form. And it is always surprising to see Chow Yun-Fat without a gun in his hand!