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Asian cinema: Hong Kong film
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Hong Kong director Riley Ip’s 3 best films, with Shu Qi, Kelly Chen, Eric Tsang and Twins

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Riley Ip made films featuring stars such as Takeshi Kaneshiro and Anthony Wong. Here are the 3 best

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Eric Tsang (centre) and Nicholas Tse in a still from Riley Ip’s 1999 film Metade Fumaca, one of five he made around the turn of the century.
Richard James Havis

Riley Ip Kam-hung began his career as a scriptwriter, but was praised for his sensitivity and innovation directing five films around the turn of the 21st century.

Here we revisit the best of them.

1. Metade Fumaca (1999)

Ip’s second film propelled him to the top rank of young directors working in Hong Kong at that time.

Ip used the framework of a typical gangster story to spin a highly original tale of an ageing triad called Mountain Leopard (Eric Tsang Chi-wai) who is suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

Leopard has been living in Brazil for 30 years, but now that his disease is getting worse, he returns to Hong Kong to catch a glimpse of the girl he loved (Shu Qi) – but never really talked to – before he forgets her face completely.
Leopard hooks up with the young tearaway Smokey (Nicholas Tse Ting-fung) to help him find his muse, but complications arise as Smokey’s personal problems keep getting in the way of the search. Nonetheless, a father-son-like bond develops between the two.

“This is a tale of relationships and emotions more complex than the usual local film,” said the Post’s review. “Ip attempts to relate it in a non-linear manner that corresponds to Mountain Leopard’s state of mind.”

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