General releases
Fighting For Love (Cantonese) (IIB): This production may have Hong Kong box-office cash registers ringing, but it fails to bring any glory to its stars, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Sammi Cheng. Leung plays restaurant owner Tung-choi, whose establishment is famous for its tripe (or should that be trite?) soup. Meanwhile, Cheng plays Deborah, a hot-headed, chain-smoking business executive. Their paths cross after a traffic accident and - guess what? - they eventually fall in love.
The Mummy Returns (IIB): The super-speedy sequel to the hit movie The Mummy - and, my, how the cracks show in the script. Stephen Summers directs a returning cast (Brendan Fraser as Egyptologist Rick O'Connell, Rachel Weisz as his wife, John Hannah as her brother and Arnold Vosloo as the mummy, Imhotep) in a wild-eyed plot which just can't sit still for a minute. Summers throws everything possible at a creaky puzzle involving the return of the Scorpion King (WWF star The Rock) and the reanimation of Imhotep, in which the best thing is Fraser and Weisz's nine-year-old son. Substituting special effects for plot and lazy anachronisms for dialogue is a disservice to The Mummy's young audience and parents won't be grateful for its two-hour-plus running time either.
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Italian) (I): The director's cut (175 minutes) of Giuseppe Tornatore's ageless celebration of youth, friendship and the enduring magic of the picture show. A famous film-maker returns to the Sicilian village of his birth after more than 30 years and reminisces about his lost teenage love, Elena, and the bond he forged with Alfredo (Phillipe Noiret), the projectionist at the local theatre who gave his dream wings. Few films can claim to possess the power to change your life. This is one of them.
Pearl Harbor (IIA): The 45 minutes which chronicle the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour are fantastic. The rest of the film, set around the surprise assault of December 7, 1941, is drippingly cheesy. Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) are childhood friends who are vying for the affections of nurse Evelyn Stewart (Kate Beckinsale). After winning Evelyn's love, gung-ho pilot Rafe heads off to practically command the Battle of Britain, where he's later presumed dead, letting Danny console his best buddy's girl into bed - in Hawaii. In a juvenile comic dialogue which occasionally allows the Japanese to explain Pearl Harbor's plot, the production waves the Stars and Stripes so often it makes Saving Private Ryan seem like commie propaganda. Director Michael Bay has adapted the film's dialogue for foreign audiences, affecting lines such as: 'It looks like World War II has begun.', But look out for scenes where President Franklin Roosevelt (Jon Voigt) springs to his feet to inspire his cabinet and Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmy Doolittle (Alec Baldwin) instructs his pilots - who are almost always shot in slow-motion - how to say, 'I'm an American', in Putonghua. It will have you either laughing or crying.
Spot (I): A gag-a-minute kids' flick that sometimes goes overboard in the clever department. It follows Spot, a canine FBI agent who has a price on his head from the mafia and is adopted by a postman who hates dogs (David Arquette). Slapstick and scatological jokes are the order of the day but there are some nice moments and strong performances.
