Ironically,
“Generation Like” is pretty darn unlikable, at least in most of their petulant
on-screen portrayals. At least, Hong Kong’s latest lost generation is willing
to work. They all seem to be turning tricks or apprenticing as petty gangsters,
truly making them the children of the previous lost generation. Three young
women indulge in the same shallow social media and defiantly bad judgment rife
amongst their peers, but they just might represent the best hope of their
cohort in Philip Yung’s May We Chat (trailer here), which screens
during the 2014 New York Asian Film Festival.
For
about five minutes, Chat looks like
it might be a HK Clueless, as the
three friends gossip and exchange pictures of the latest fashions over the
WeChat app. Then the deaf-mute Yee-gee meets up with her latest “date” at a
no-tell motel. Wai-wai’s average home life might even be more shocking for viewers,
with her little sister matter-of-factly doing chores while their addled mother tokes
her way to an ice-fueled oblivion behind a thin muslin curtain. Yan should have
the easiest lot of the trio. She is a slumming rich girl with a thing for
violent gangsters. Unfortunately, she is the one who mysteriously disappears
following an unsuccessful suicide attempt.
As
if Chat’s liberal helpings of scandal
and social pathology were not enough, it also functions as a pseudo-sequel to David
Lai’s iconic delinquent movie, Lonely
Fifteen. Yan’s mother Irene was once as street as Wai-wai or Yee-gee, but
she made good. However, she still kept a line of communication open with “Peter
from Cheong Lok Street,” her old street tough chum, who now gets by pimping out
a small but comparatively classy stable of women. When her one hundred grand
reward offer fails to generate information, she calls in a favor with Uncle
Peter.
Chat might not be the
most uplifting film to ever come out of Hong Kong, but it is a spectacular
calling card for its three co-leads. Rainky Wai and Kabby Hui give
extraordinarily bold performances, often putting themselves in downright
shocking positions, as Yee-gee and Yan, respectively. However, it is Heidi Lee
who truly rips out her heart for all to see during Wai-wai’s big closing
confrontation. This is definitely a young person’s film, but the crafty old vet
Peter Mak still lays it down with authority as Uncle Peter.
