Rating: 2.5

A worthy attempt to fuse a serious topic with insane action, ‘Skin Trade’ can’t quite find the right balance between the two but rollicks along on the charisma and fight power of its stars.

Ringo Lam in the director’s chair should ensure a film that is at least cohesive. ‘Sky On Fire’ shows that this faith in the film-maker may be currently under review as this incredulous action thriller is a messy, wildly inconsistent affair.

‘Skyfire’ is a suitably big and brash disaster epic that mimics the bombastic Hollywood productions that reached their apex in the 1970s.

Not a complete write off and entertaining in parts, ‘Sons of the Wind’ doesn’t quite reach its potential.

‘Sparrow’ is the archetypal Curate’s Egg, a film that fuses together precious few moments of brilliance with a heavy dose of lethargy, rendering the finished article difficult to digest.

Hong Kong has always spliced genres together with aplomb, but this is an example of where things go wrong.

Much of the problem with ‘Speed Angels’ is its apparent contentment with clichés and a dogged determination to be utterly mundane.

When the closing credits rolled, I opined that I had lost a full ninety minutes that would’ve been better used watching one of these sub-genres more accomplished works.

Had ‘The Captain’ focused on the drama on the plane and not felt the need to flick back-and-forth to dull secondary characters, it might have brought the true story to the screen with aplomb.

Despite Jing’s attempts to prove otherwise, ‘The Conman’ is really little more than a second rate attempt at remaking ‘God of Gamblers’.

It was a big box office hit on its release, features Chingmy Yau looking adorable and has some decent chemistry between the cast, but that’s not enough to drag the viewer through the ninety-minute running time.

As a meditation on father/daughter relationships, ‘The Empty Hands’ is lazy and thinks that a slickly delivered camera shot is a good replacement for basic storytelling.