點五步

COVID19 - School Closure - Day 157  School Reopens - Day 157

Haven't watched a Hong Kong movie in a long time - for various reasons. Access, content, quality... Yesterday while Netflix surfing - came across the movie 點五步 (Weeds on Fire). It's a typical underdog, come from behind, coming of age, reality-sucks, Disney movie.  A Hong Kong version of the Bad News Bear.... where a bunch of the worst students in the city are brought together by a messianic coach... played by 廖啟智... in the name of baseball... in pursue of shedding their image of being losers and demonstrate that they can find strength in numbers. 

Maybe cuz I haven't watched HK Films in a while... this one really stands out... for the writer and director's ability to interweave so many themes into one movie and have it flow in 90 minutes.

• friendships falling apart as time goes on
• baseball - stepping onto the mound (點五步)
• win as a team... lose as a team
• life growing up in a 屋村 - how small and tiny the units actually are.  TVB does a horrible job with this
• in spite of the impoverished 屋村 lifestyle, there are some who see that getting selected for 屋村 is like hitting the jackpot
• teenage romance - being shy and not even mustering the courage to even talk to a girl
• teenage pregnancy - keep your D in your pants!!
• parents marrying and falling out of love at old age
• parents having sex in a tiny house where there's no privacy... gut punch
• aging parents with aging libido... punch, but a tad lower than the gut... 
• extra-marital affair
• humiliation of a loss
• exuberance of a win
• being the best of the best - so you can look down on everyone
• being the best of the best - so others can look up to you
• the one teacher, coach, figure in your life... who won't give up on you, when you've given up on yourself
• and the most memorable scene of this movie.... as the kids were being forced to run up the hills... the end up on top of a mountain with a cross.  They line up and get a scolding from their coach.  As the camera pans out looking down at the team... and aiming at the hillside with the cross... you see across the horizontal bar the words...