夏季搖擺

　　三年前的 8 月 31 日，突如其來的“侵略者”，—艘巨大的“母艦”降落至東京上空，世界似乎迎來了終結……在那之后，絕望融入了日常生活，巨大的圓盤飄浮在上空的世界持續到現在。小山門出、中川凰蘭兩個高中少女，在這個走向終結的世界中，揮灑著自己的青春時代。

　　日本著名胸圍公司的香港區總裁Samantha（劉嘉玲 飾）破例聘請了Johnny（劉青云 飾）和Wayne（古天樂 飾）兩名男設計師。他們的上司高級設計師Lena（梁詠琪 飾）覺得他們根本無法勝任這份工作，因此常常刁難他們。公司要求他們設計出一款“絕世好Bra”，可是多次失敗。　　在工作的過程中，Johnny和Wayne分別與Smantha和Lena產生了感情，最后他們也在各自女友的幫忙下，才最終把“絕世好Bra”設計成功。

　　當紅網絡恐怖漫畫作家姜知允（李詩英 飾）新作接連問世，備受好評。而生活中她似乎越來越分不清現實和虛幻的界限，不僅經常遭遇極度逼真的恐怖噩夢，身上還常出現莫名其妙的傷口。某個夜晚，姜作家的責編徐美珍以極其殘忍的方式自虐身亡，而其死亡過程和現場慘狀竟與姜作家不久剛剛發給她的新作內容如出一轍。未過多久，又發生了一起和漫畫內容相似的殯儀館殺人事件。盆唐警局刑警琪哲（嚴基俊 飾）和后輩金永秀（金顯祐 飾）介入調查，并慢慢追蹤到姜作家鮮為人知的背景。　　霓虹燈下鬼影幢幢，每個人心中都有不愿為人知曉的秘密，冤有頭，債有主。因果報應，毫厘不爽……

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.