悲傷的記憶

　　一場車禍后，林月家里怪事連連，全身冰冷的姐姐，鏡子里看不見家人的身影，黑夜里爸爸窺探的雙眼，每天凌晨閣樓傳來的彈珠聲，林月循聲而上，當閣樓的門被打開，卻發現里面緊鎖的卻是自己的遺像……

　　以乳鴿店立身的安德森（曾志偉 飾）赴上海創業，卻迷上炒房，將妻子氣死也未思悔改，這天安德森在影院偶然聽到代言新樓盤“碧水云居”的過氣演員潘志強（黃渤 飾）放出的“內部消息”，遂再次籌款預搶購新房。與此同時，新婚的昔日售樓小姐羅茜（姚晨 飾）為碧水云居付出五萬訂金后，驚系該樓盤周邊林立各污染源。潘志強擔任樓盤主持嘉賓并為售樓公司鞍前馬后，只希望對方能為自己的新片注資，不料卻被要求退還訂金的羅茜糾纏，潘志強心生一計，令羅茜將房轉賣安德森，事成后自食其言拒退訂金，羅茜無奈只得曝光樓盤內幕，結果引發連串反應，使潘志強與安德森發現自己陷入了開發商之局，于是各人苦思脫身之法……

　　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.

　　德華（劉德華飾）喜歡打牌，以打牌為生的他出名好牌技好牌品，與他相戀多年的詠琪（梁詠琪飾）因為牌品差，始終沒能與德華結為連理，令她頓足。德華的弟弟天樂（古天樂飾）知道哥哥要以打牌為生養活患有癡呆癥的母親和正在讀書的自己，決定跟青云（劉青云飾）打牌比試，誰知連連落敗。　　一次牌局中，詠琪不甘被德華以牌品的問題多次推搪婚約，便咀咒他從此“一世摸爛牌”，跟著同樣拜師不成的青云離開了。　　咀咒真的靈驗了，使德華家道中落，但一向樂觀的他深信自己的“好朋友”會回來的。在弟弟公司舉行的麻將大賽中一路穩打穩扎，與青云再次對壘，最后能否獲勝呢？