As Rush said, ‘All the world’s a stage and we’re just players.’ The long lost STephen Fung finds out.
AFterpiece
Director: Keane Wong • Writer: Keane Wong
Starring: Stephen Fung, Chrissie Chau, Myolie Wu, Angela Yuen
Hong Kong • 1hr 53mins
Opens Hong Kong November 12 • IIB
Grade: B+
In the theatre, an afterpiece is a short, usually funny sometimes musical additional act of a play, a fourth act as it were, that is performed after the main drama has finished. Think of it as a kind of 16th century post-credit stinger, the difference being an afterpiece has jack shit to do with the main event. So it’s semi-appropriate that first time feature filmmaker Keane Wong Tak-kin’s Afterpiece | 第四幕 is about what comes after the main event in the life of theatrical actor, writer and director Owen Au (oh, hello there Stephen Fung Tak-lun). The action does have a bearing on Owen’s life, it is connected to his “story” and his main narrative is very much not over. Nonetheless, the idea holds in spirit, and Keane’s conspicuously artificial backstage drama, which will recall every theatre movie ever made, from Joseph L Mankiewicz’s All About Eve to Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body. Keane’s secret weapons are Fung, in a rare film turn, at least of late, and Angela Yuen Lai-lam as an ingenue that has more going on than meets the eye. Stylised in a way that complements Keane’s debates over art, commerce, the cost of success and Almodóvarian levels of “Whose life?” wonder, are the stuff of great melodrama, and he exploits them all to the fullest here.
They will literally break legs
Afterpiece begins with talking heads testimonials about the genius of theatre legend Owen Au, and praise heaped on him from former collaborators like theatre owner and producer Toto (Alan Yeung Wai-lun), a former set designer (Louis Cheung Kai-chung), and co-star and past flame Melinda Su (Myolie Wu Hang-yee). The praise turns to vitriol before long, and we come to learn Owen has been stuck in a creative rut for about a decade, coasting on past glory and sabotaging his marriage to driven financial analyst Tracy (Chrissie Chau Sau-na); seems Tracy is floating the two through their upscale lifestyle for the moment. So as not to get sued by Toto, Owen announces a new play, “Looking Back,” which will be his last, and begins an open casting call.
That gets Melinda’s attention, particularly when Owen casts a total unknown, Hannah (Yuen), in the lead. Melinda wants the part, and her star status gets Toto on her side. While Owen is off at rehearsal shepherding the young, inexperienced Hannah into the world of the stage and scratchily reconnecting with Melinda – the woman Owen dumped for Tracy – Tracy is getting her business and romantic groove back with an assist from an “inspiring” money talking head (Johnny Lu Sze-ming). Before long, the lines between drama and reality, the personal and the professional, start to blur – literally on the stage as well as figuratively – putting Owen on a collision course for an overdue emotional reckoning.
Afterpiece has a lot of layers to it. It’s about performance and artifice, the boundary between real life and entertainment, the compromises between art and commerce, creativity that must bend to the whims of the so-called marketplace (Wong has roped in scads of Hong Kong filmmakers to fill in bit parts), petty rivalries, major grievances and romantic betrayal and emotional death – with a borderline thriller twist thrown in. Yet somehow Wong, a first-timer don’t forget, manages to make it all click into place like Legos, and spit out a film that’s as visually (thanks to We’re Nothing at All DOP Derek Siu Hing-wa and his creative use of spaces and light) and tonally heightened as the play within.
While Fung, whose natural, now more mature, screen charm is a reminder that he’s been sorely missed, and his self-involved suffering artist is at the heart of the narrative, Afterpiece would be just as engaging were it to focus all its attention on Melinda, Hannah and Tracy. Their dynamic – of the scorned diva, the muse that replaced her and the “project” to be moulded in Owen’s image reaching a détente – is rooted in a back and forth that feels real, and despite at first blush looking like they’re there simply for Owen to punish, to soothe his ego, they’re the ones with the wisdom and grace to ultimately transcend that ego. Yuen is cast totally against type, shedding her approachable girl one flat below image for something more caustic and it looks good on her. Wu’s television temper is perfect for Melinda’s entitled movie star schtick, but Chau is underwritten as the wife who, as usual, has to prop up her mess of a husband and put him on the road to recovery. Chau elevates what little is on the page, but how much longer does she have to wait for the Yuen part? Wait. Is that a meta commentary?