Oscar Lau

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A Hong Kong cinephile.

Favorite Films = the last four films I watched with a rating of 4.5-5★

Hong Kong

Favorite films

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Monster 2023

★★★★ Watched 18 Jun 2023

Hirokazu Koreeda is easily my favourite director working today, I basically love most of his films and picking one Koreeda film to be my favourite is deemed impossible. Despite his latest film Monster does not fall immediately into the tight competition, it is still very close to the top, and I could see the potential of a higher rating after a rewatch when all the puzzle-solving mystery is deprioritised. Monster is Koreeda’s return to Japan after directing two foreign films (French and…
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 1975

★★★★★ Rewatched 25 Apr 2017

Ranked 1st (215 critic-vote, 46 director-vote) in 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll
Added to: My 250 Favorite Films of All Time
"The Mother and the Whore"
Before watching Chantal Akerman's 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, I had learnt two things from what I read on cinema: the film itself is one of the best films ever made, and it's one of the best film ever made by a female filmmaker.…

Flight of the Red Balloon 2007

★★★★ Rewatched 01 Oct 2023

Probably the most under-appreciated work in Hou’s late period, Flight of the Red Balloon barely has a plot, hardly fit to be considered a ‘remake’ of Lamorisse’s short film. But Hou’s signature style, registered from the perspective of an outsider culturally and intuitively, rendered the ‘light’ material into fleeting moments of transcendence. It’s subtly magical in its cinematic language, eluded conflict but remained authentic to human emotions. I was unwittingly charmed by the unhurried rhythm and the keen observation on human interactions.
Hou Hsiao-hsien Ranked
Millennium Mambo 2001

★★★★ Rewatched 30 Sep 2023

Bodily bathed in disorientating neon light and surrounded by bumping techno music, the seemingly liberated Vicky (Shu Qi) was striding forward along an empty pedestrian bridge whilst intermittently looking back, into the camera, perhaps at us, until she arrived at the end of the bridge, went down the stairs into complete darkness. Meanwhile, we hear Vicky’s voice, wrapped in nostalgia, reminiscing her romantic relationship with Hao-Hao (Tuan Chun-hao) in 2001, in a third-person narration, 10 years removed from where she’s…