after dark

You get the tickets. We've got the plan.

Movie buffs and theatre-lovers can look forward to some very different billings this week.

The Hong Kong Film Archive's Attraction And Magic - Early European Cinema exhibition explores the earliest movies, examines their cinematic tricks and introduces buffs to their stars.

Before the invention of computer- generated special effects, the European pioneers of film had to use their wits and artistic skill to devise images of flying saucers, vanishing wizards and monstrous beasts.

Their favourite techniques included the superimposition of images, dissolving shots and chrono-photography. These devices might seem pretty basic today, but you might understand why audiences were wowed nearly a century ago when you see them in the event's Invention, Spectacle and Beauty sections.

The innovative appearances, disappearances and metamorphoses of French director and magician George Melies are particularly entrancing and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department has treated cinema enthusiasts to showings of treasured Italian, French and German films at the event, which runs at the archive's exhibition hall at 50 Lei King Road, Sai Wan Ho, Hong Kong (tel: 2739 2139) until February 29.

These productions highlight the creation of the first film stars and the realisation that enchanting leading ladies could captivate audiences and influence fashion and design trends.

One early star, Francesca Bertini of Italy, even had fashion designers and perfume manufacturers naming their products after her, and who could forget the German sex goddess Marlene Dietrich, or France's Musidora. For details, visit www.filmarchive.gov.hk

The stage is packed at the City Fringe 2004 festival at the Fringe Club, (2 Lower Albert Road, Central; tel. 2521 7251; reservations: tel. 2734 9009), where many performers test their creative energy and imagination. Among the adult-themed events, talk-show host Crystal Kwok Kam-yan combines dance, drama and music in an hour-long black comedy, Fertility Goddess, about the trials of pregnancy. Can't get pregnant? Try this position. Still not working? Drink that Chinese herbal tea. But whatever you do, don't eat any watermelon, you fool! The play, in English with some Cantonese, and starring film actresses Chang Pui-pui and Marsha Yuen, follows Sally, a modern, ambitious career woman in her mid-30s who is willing to try just about anything to get pregnant. Tonight and tomorrow, 9pm; tickets $180 for non-members; and $150 for members.

Speaking of adult themes, Roger Boschman presents An Orgasm A Day Keeps The Doctor Away, at the Fringe, 9pm Wednesday. Boschman will describe his adventures, from Papua New Guinea to war-ravaged Vietnam in 1969 and his 'rediscovery' in 1981 of an ancient Chinese orgasm-control technique.