Movie Title: 情義我心知 (Moonlight in Tokyo)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (8/10)
Year: 2005
It has been a while since Leon Lai last appear in any more, and it wasn’t until I saw upcoming movie introductions and soon search for it to confirm. And guess what, the poster itself really looks cheap and unappealing. But I guess that’s the look and feel they are going for since the movie’s storyline centred around both Leon Lai and Chapman To turns to be a gigolo aka “duck” (as we Chinese term them), to improve their livelihood.
Contrary to the poster look and feel, the trailer looks promising, especially when Leon and Chapman were doing the Swan Lake dance. And it didn’t just manage to tempt me, it also tempted my good friend – Brian to join us in watching a Hong Kong movie in cinema. As far as I know, he never really watch any Hong Kong movies in cinema aside the blockbusters.
Moonlight in Tokyo, starts by telling the story of Jun (Leon Lai) who is diagnosed with mild mental disabled. After his parents passed away, he lives with brothers and sisters who then decides to leave him in the busy streets in Tokyo after they can’t take the pressure from constant argument and crying from the family members.
Jun cross path with Hoi (Chapman To), when Hoi tried to steal from the mentally disabled Jun after finding himself in serious debt after girls that he illegally brought in to Japan to work as prostitutes ran away. In a twist of event, Jun started to stay at Hoi’s place after helping him paid of his debts and taking care Hoi who was seriously beaten up loan sharks.
In one of their bathing sessions, Hoi finally found Jun’s most valuable potential – his good looks, and decided to turn him into Japan’s top and most desirable gigolo. With Hoi’s guidance and Jun’s good looks, it didn’t take too long for them to be popular and soon money and power starts flowing in.
Like all other movies, money and power always brings bad news along. I loved how the entire movie is being stitched up together, and how they started the entire movie on a comedic tone and in the last 30 minutes or lesser, manage to switch the tone to a more serious tone.
And I loved how the director just vaguely introduced the characters which leads us to assume things about the characters, and in the end got us thinking while the story unfolds.
P/S: Guess what? I am shocked 😲, in some way happy 😆 but somehow speechless 😶 when I accidently found out that Leon Lai and me share the same date of birth.
Haha, but I of course will always still stand by Andy Lau side 💗.