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第100日 (1999)
Our Last Day


Reviewed by: ryan
Date: 11/21/1999
Summary: Our Last Days (1999)

With the poor climate in Hong Kong Film industry, film companies have to find their ways to survive. B&S productions, which has started their film business last year, tried to lower their production by making movies in digital video recorder (a.k.a. DV movie), this is what they called 'Digital Multimedia Movies'. To enable them to show these films, they arrange New Imperial Theatre 1 specialized for showing their DV movies with special ticket price of $ 25. Their first DV movie in release is 'Our Last Day'.

The main theme of 'Our Last Day' is about the love between a boy Wah (Cyrus CHOW Chi-kui) and a school girl Mandy (LAM Nga-see). Wah met Mandy by accident in a MTR train while Wah decided to date her within 100 days. On the 100th day, he prepared a letter to Mandy. During the 100 days, Wah saved Mandy twice while Mandy took Wah home to help her to solve 'her problem'. At that time, Wah knows the full picture of Mandy and her family. Mandy is a girl immigrated from the mainland for less than a year to get back her family with her Dad (CHAN Man-lui) while a Police Constable 28371 takes care of Mandy also.

In viewing DV movie, it is a bit harsh if we consider it as a normal movie. In fact, we can consider it as something like TV movie. The requirement is to make it active. 'Our Last Day' presents the story in pieces for audience to sketch the real picture of the movie. In considering whether the movie is good or not, it depends on the pieces they have taken. I think the pieces they have taken is okay but not enough. The main purpose is to tell audience how they started their 'love' as well as their relationship. Some of the pieces like picking up coins in a minibus is an interesting one. However, I think they can make more stuffs to tell audience their relationship more clearly.

Another issues that I would like to consider is the theme of the movie. It gives me a feeling that the movie is not about love but about relationships. When we take a look at the relationship of Mandy, we will find that she has the problems in communicating with her family and even Wah. I think director CHENG Pou-soi has taken a good way through the use of diary.

For the plot, if you don't know the main theme of the movie, you may be a bit dissatisfied for the second half of the movie as the second half of the movie is a switch to the first one in almost all aspects. To me, I think the second half is okay. Maybe it is due to the good performance of both CHAN Man-lui and Grace LAM. In terms of performance, I think both Grace LAM and CHAN Man-lui has done a good job in it.

One thing that you may note is that the colors of the movie is not satisfactory. Some of the scenes like those in the MTR are not good in lighting. I consider if they have more budget, they should make more efforts in these areas.

In short, 'Our Last Day' is a movie about the relationship of a girl to her boyfriend and her family presented by pieces of scenes and memories. It looks okay. The first half and the second half of the movie seems to be a sharp difference. The performance of Grace LAM and CHAN Man-lui is good. If you seek for an alternative, I consider you may take it as a trial.