The Presence of Lau Ching-wan

Sometimes you have to take what you can get with a movie. In this case I'm thinking of Fairy Tale Killer, which I saw at PiFan. Despite director Danny Pang's attempts to goose it with stylish camera work and lots of noise, it's in the end yet another cookie cutter serial killer flick.

But one thing did keep me going with it, and that was the performance of Lau Ching-wan.

In Praise of Lam Suet

Let's take a moment to praise the long-suffering Lam Suet. Round of body, square of head, Lam has has been reliably typecast as the fat guy in some 116 movies since 1982. If someone is going to take a bullet in the butt, or have to be dragged away from a bowl of noodles, it's Lam. Among the names his characters have been given over the years are: Piggy King, Fatty, Fat Lok, Fat Lo, Fat Ball, Big Mouth, Fat Tong, Fat Bo, Big Head (twice), Fat Seven, Fatty (at least twice), Bun Man, and, early in his career, Pudgy Triad Member.