23 A Moment of Romance

[Finch]

A Moment of Romance



Small-time hood Wah Dee (Andy Lau, Infernal Affairs) is enlisted by Triad boss Trumpet (Tommy Wong, The Killer) as a getaway driver for a daring heist that goes wrong. Thinking fast Dee takes Jo Jo (Jacklyn Chien-Lien Wu, The Barefooted Kid) hostage to save his skin, but the bosses order her to be killed. They escape and begin a forbidden relationship while being chased by both sides of the law. Produced by Johnnie To (Throwdown) and Ringo Lam (City on Fire) the film is sensationally directed by Benny Chan in his feature debut. With a breakneck pace and violence reminiscent of To and Takashi Miike and the beautiful and emotive sensibility of Wong Kar-wai, the film features stunning performances from Lau, and Wu in her debut work. A Moment of Romance is a classic of Hong Kong cinema that has been much imitated but rarely bettered.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative
• Original uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Archival audio interview with Benny Chan who discusses his start in the industry, A Moment of Romance, and his collaborators on the film (2016, 21 mins)
• In Love and Danger: HK Cinema Through A Moment of Romance - A new visual essay by critic and Asian cinema expert David Desser on the genre tropes in A Moment of Romance and their use in Hong Kong cinema (2023, 26 mins)
• Audio commentary by Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng
• Newly translated English subtitles by Dylan Cheung
• Trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the iconic cast and crew by critic Sean Gilman; and a profile of Benny Chan by Tony Williams, co-editor of Hong Kong Neo Noir
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

[yoloswegmaster]

A Moment of Romance with Frank Djeng commentary forthcoming from Radiance

Great news! I hope that any other Johnnie To-produced films like Beyond Hypothermia and Expect the Unexpected are released as well. It would also be great if Warner Bros would bother releasing Benny Chan's Big Bullet.

[yoloswegmaster]

Coming in August

What a gorgeous cover and it's great to see a new Sean Gilman essay.

[therewillbeblus]

This was an electrifying discovery. A lean, lubricated fever dream of aesthetic romanticism, that engages in nonstop stimulation defined by equal parts agile thrills and fixed pockets of relational intimacy. Even those moments that would normally be shot as static are vitalized by a reflexive hypnotic swirl, and the shot choices during some familiarly-conceived action set pieces are anything but contrived - instead finding rousing slants to construct them into a novel form of vibrant wavelength. I haven't explored the extras yet, but this feels heavily indebted to the cinéma du look works of Carax and Beineix, and I thought more than once during my viewing that frustrating failures like Alphabet City wish they were more like this movie. If Hertzberg was ever interested in taking FCE deeper into world cinema (after a brief pitstop in France), I'm sure he'd love to explore vicinal catalogs

[ryannichols7]

loved this release a lot even if I didn't love the film. firstly the movie, as I agree with Domino we often discuss discs and what will be on them and often don't discuss the movies and what about what's on them. I'm absolutely guilty of this myself. for the film, I think the cheesiness of some of these HK titles really isn't for me sometimes, but this is probably some of the best of that you can find. if your tolerance for the ridiculous is high, you may find this to be something of a masterpiece. it's very energetic, drenched in pop music, with plenty of neon and wonderful Hong Kong sights to show. absolutely violent, absolutely romantic, it's definitely well worth the watch. not to be reductive but movies like this remind me exactly why Wong Kar-Wai's cinema was so popular and appealed to a broad range of people around the world - it lacks a lot of the corniness (though creates its own brand)/over the top acting that many films from Hong Kong often do. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to see it in A Moment of Romance, which really does capture that turn of the 1990s, moving into the last couple years before 1997-era Hong Kong very well. it has a lawlessness that Wong's films obviously totally lack (aside from As Tears Go By, which features Andy Lau basically playing the same character!) but also is way more controlled than the chaos of a lot of the other action pictures of the era. I question the motives of the characters here, but at a certain point, you just gotta let this sort of thing go and give in to the pure entertainment. as TWBB said above - the pockets of intimacy that we get between the two leads are what really sets this apart, and the action sequences don't seem to be overdone (I found the violence to be an "acceptable" amount). if there's other Hong Kong movies like this that Eureka/88/etc have released, please recommend them to me!

on the Radiance side of things - I can't praise the edition enough. transfer looks terrific, and I love the subtitles. I don't pick up the Eureka HK releases so I don't know if anyone else is doing this practice, but as a somewhat passable Chinese speaker, I was able to appreciate that the title card was transliterated AND translated, as Chinese titles are often totally different than the English ones (see Yang's Taipei Story for a great example). pretty cool and still got a lot of the Chinese text in the film translated too. Frank Djeng's commentary is absolutely loaded - I love this guy and his passion is completely infectious. I know a lot of the HK cinema fans claim a lot of the same people show up on each release but I'm very happy with what I've heard from Frank. he's somehow able to bridge the gap for viewers who both exhaustively know their Hong Kong cinema, as well as newcomers. I felt his track didn't overly assume either side, and he provided a lot of great information on the film, as well as the careers of many of the players and creators without turning into a quoting IMDb fest. even if Frank did do this, I think his energy would still make it an incredibly worthwhile listen. David Desser is underused on a lot of these releases and I got a huge kick out of his essay. the common threads linking a lot of these movies (even As Tears Go By, mentioned above). aside from funnier Hollywood comparisons (which I won't spoil if you haven't watched his piece yet), I like that he specifically brought up Made in Hong Kong as I feel like it's a kindred spirit with this film, both looking at the lower levels of Hong Kong society. that Wan Chai shoutout was amazing, Tony Rayns level Hong Kong street smarts. I appreciate Desser a lot cause he has that academic voice but can be extremely funny, makes his pieces and commentaries that much more entertaining. the Benny Chan interview was good to have (wish Lau had gotten an interview) and I thought the booklet was a pretty good read. with every Hong Kong film I always wish Tony Rayns gets brought in to talk for 35+ minutes but Djeng and Desser were a seriously terrific combo and both suit the nature of the film well. this is a really excellent release that I can't recommend enough!