Ping Pong review – cheerful, far-fetched caper that dives into London’s 1980s Chinatown

There’s a sweet charm to Leong Po Chih’s 1986 mystery-comedy Ping Pong, set in and around the restaurant businesses of London’s Chinatown, now rereleased. It was produced by Film Four, who two years later brought out Mike Newell’s comparably set Soursweet, based on the Timothy Mo novel, although that is more serious. Ping Pong is eminently likable, though for me there is something perhaps a little soft-edged and carefully paced which dampens the energy a bit. It is a cheerfully far-fetched caper that could have taken some influence from the…

Joy Ride review – slickly likable Asian-American comedy dwells on family and identity

Writer-producer Adele Lim, who worked on the script for Crazy Rich Asians, now makes her feature directing debut with this likable and brash Asian-American comedy about four women leaving the US for a trip to the Chinese homeland; they come to terms with their roots in various ways, expressing sexualities queer and straight and of course celebrating friendship. It all barrels along, with a journey-of-discovery narrative template not entirely dissimilar to the recent Book Club sequel; the energy levels are high and there are some outrageous gags, between which the…

Everything Under Control review – endearing comedy caper from Hong Kong

Hoping to sustain a recent mini-resurgence of Hong Kong films through to lunar new year, Ying Chi-wen’s second feature is a silly, initially laboured but increasingly endearing comedy mashup. A remake of 2021 Taiwanese gangster film Treat or Trick, which is itself a do-over of 2004 Korean horror-comedy To Catch a Virgin Ghost, it manages to hit virtually every branch on the genre tree on the way down: Bad Boys buddy action comedy, dead wet girl Asian horror, knockabout Beijing opera farce, wuxia parody. Yau Shing (Hong Kong singer Hins…