Dancing Lion (2007)

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Commercialisation of Chinese culture… Francis Ng is a talented actor and perhaps can soon be a talented director. His last outing involved something called 9413, which seemed like a cheap budget, yet artistic low budget flick. Here, Ng departs from his previous debut style, to create an easy going movie that is lightly packaged in the disguise of Dancing Lion. It is always a pleasure for the viewers to witness the duo of Francis Ng and Anthony Wong, arguably the two most versatile actors in the Hong Kong industry. While both are spontaneously overacting, the movie is easily a fun and talkative type of outing. Perhaps, Ng used the dancing lions to represent Chinese culture and traditions and how things are being exploited and overused whenever something becomes popular. Towards the end of the flick, Wong seems to point out about the stock market and how there will always be quick money to make and the vice versa. Perhaps, this is just a nonsense movie about some dancing lions, but it is pretty clear that Ng either loves money or hates it.Living in such a commercialise world in the shape of Hong Kong, it is clear that packaging, marketing and money dominates the tiny territory. Hong Kong people are fashionable and there is no question that people love to follow popular trends. When something is new, fresh and good, people will continue to exploit the strategy until it becomes an absolute cliché and sometimes to the point of annoyance. When the concept of Infernal Affairs became the territory most popular theme, dozens of movies, talk shows and everything else seems to relate to the aforementioned flick. A new idea becomes overused and eventually too cliché for its own good. Such is the concept that director Francis Ng seems to be pondering.As an actor, there are few that can mimic any characters with such conviction and flair than Francis Ng. Here, he is able to play a 40 year old lad, who still thinks he is a damn cool hip hop kid in his 20s. Ng frequently overacts, but what makes Ng better than most is the manner he acts with such conviction. Anthony Wong also overacts and at times displays some priceless blank-faced facial expressions, resulting in a fun and satirical performance. Other characters appear here and there, including the fat lad – Lam Chi Chung who is simply playing himself and Teresa Mo in her usual outing. Once again, Hin Cheung is disappointing and his presence is seamlessly unnecessary. Really, Neo only have two words of advice for his fellow "Hin" – stick to singing.Sometimes when you realize that life isn't exactly what it seems to be is rather a disappointing issue. Perhaps the nature of money has now become the social norm as something to aim for and act for. Without being critical with the issue of wealth and money, Ng plays with the idea and concept, but ends up not discounting money all together as after all, we still need it to meet our own needs and wants. Popular culture is now an integral part of today's society and that being popular nowadays does not mean or equal quality. With all being said, director Ng and Marco Mak have created a light and easygoing flick disguised as a Dancing Lion, by having at the very least something to say or emerge about Hong Kong's culture. While it isn't saying anything new, it is still an interesting piece of work and with 9413 and now this under his belt, Francis Ng's skills are fast developing and hopefully continuing. It isn't exactly faultless, but at the very least it is a highly enjoyable, little piece of gem…I rate it 8/10www.thehkneo.com

Right, as for my first few sentences of this movie, my advice to you is that there is literally no point in attempting to watch this movie. The plot is overly simple with no intentions or objectives, crudely to put it in a way rather amateur and the comedy that the director is attempting to make, sorry to say this, but it's just rather unattractive. Though there is a meager storyline and the hype about liondance, there just isn't any significance in it as one were to compare between the trailer and teasers with the movie per se. I applaud the movie for its efforts however, on the costume designing - the actor as well as the lions. Having watched a heap-load of Hong Kong comedies filled with random acts and jokes, especially by Chow Tsing Chee, I had to admit that none could have been more random and weakly acted out as his earlier productions. How wrong was I when I took on the wrong choice by watching Dancing Lion.The storyline revolves around a group of family members played by Francis Ng, Anthony Wong, Teresa Mo, Lam Chi Chung etc. which simply put - inherited the family business of lion-dancing which has been handed down from generations to generations. The problem starts when few of the community would accept such traditional play that their business was heading towards a possible extinction. Drawing on all the latest trends that appeals to the youth and the young people nowadays, the lion-dancing business which is commonly seen within grand-openings of businesses and Chinese New Year; were extended further to cover the needs of the new generation of Hong Kong people. Viewers are then taken towards the movie aspect of seeing lion-dance in clubs, funerals and football match viewings. They took onto the streets in almost every corner banging their instruments away and creating a lot of noise that at one point, the community around voiced out their complains over these problems that are disrupting their peace.Having confined towards this problem, Francis (I can't recall their act names) was forced uninterestingly to continue teaching a bunch of kids about liondance. It was all a bunch of hoax as you would see that the children spent most of their time lazing around rather than practicing. Professionalism was questioned by his partner, Lam Chi Chung, though Francis seemingly was unperturbed. To him, as long as there is money, he will keep the business running without applying any form of business ethics. His aunt however, Teresa Mo went into the slimming business by producing what is known as the "lion milk" which apparently functions as a slimming drug whenever one would take it. I don't know how she was able to gain so much support from the people around, but then again... the setting of the movie initially was already pointless, so what's with the queries anyhow? Within the family, only one of the members kept himself true towards business ethics and the true culture of lion dance - the granduncle played by Anthony Wong. Though he was capable of many things and giving advices, none of the members would listen to his long-winded poetic stories as they meant nothing to them when fortune was knocking on their doors. It was not until later when they became more susceptible to his advices when a friend of Francis Ng introduced him towards a game TV, faved by many viewers in Hong Kong. He promised that he would pay him a huge amount of money if they were capable of answering his questions. They were successful up till the last test when his aunt was purposely called in to expose his behavior in the house. Things got out of hand as the mockery between them started and what seemingly supposed to be a teasing, turned out to be a heated quarrel which was directly screened on air. The amount of lies heaped up was poured out unwittingly and to the viewers rage, the group of family members were thrown into depression and an attempt of suicide.It was then when their grand-uncle, who was taking some time off in Beijing, returned to Hong Kong and advised them on the true-roots of liondance. The poorly crafted story of the movie sent Francis to a deep sleep and when he awakes, he found himself a huge group of his trainees (the children) all ready to hit the roads to perform. Having agreed on an earlier arrangement to perform for a philanthropic billionaire businessman (also the grand-uncle's best friend), they went to the venue only to get a glance of another group of lion dance team performing there. Their opponents were from the Northern Province of China, whereas that of Anthony's drew its roots from the Southern Province. Both agreed on a competition to fight to the last in order to gain back what was once fame and tradition.The movie literally has no beginning and ending, as it tails from one section to another with no continuity. It's short and it's poorly crafted that I would not recommend this to anyone. Please by all means, if you've planned to watch it, to avoid it.