He's a Woman, She's a Man (1994)

Sadly Over-hyped

Purely Joyful Movie!

Better Late Then Never

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The producer Sam (Leslie Cheung) and the singer Rose (Carina Lau) are a successful and happy couple on the screens and in the news. However, in the real life, they are splitting. Billy (Anta Yuen) is a girl, who dresses like a man, trying to get a spot in the show business. The problem is that both Sam and Rose fall in love with her. This Hong Kong version of `Victor or Victoria' is a funny romantic comedy and a good entertainment. The problem is that in Brazil, the Brazilian distributor Abril Video has decided to release a version dubbed in English, forgetting that the speech is part of the interpretation, destroying a funny movie with a ridiculous dubbing. A shame! Anyway, my vote is seven.Title (Brazil): `Sou! Mas Quem Não É?' (`I Am! But Who Is Not?')

Your typical boy meets girl (only masquerading as a guy) story. Although the story is set in a modern-day Cantonese milieu, this story has a number of parallels with Victor Victoria. A straight man is attracted to someone he believes is a man and is worried about his sexuality. Of course his love interest is a woman so the audience can enjoy a laugh at his expense without being made uncomfortable themselves.There is an older openly out gay man who is consulted for advice and generally accepted but he is used throughout for comedic affect and seems to be the only gay man in their immediate circle who's `getting any'. This is another of those films that seems to be using gay themes to titillate the audience and sell tickets without actually showing any truly positive gay images but at least it's not anti-gay. Used to be there was a class of movies called `Blacksploitation' films. I'd suggest that this film and others like it (`In and Out', `Victor/Victoria') will one day be labeled `Gaysploitation' in much the same way. On a technical level, the film is well done and enjoyable but the DVD copy had some problems. The white subtitles were often unreadable against the white backgrounds and some went by so fast that I found myself constantly pausing and replaying a scene to see what was said. The translation was a bit off as well. There were frequent misspellings and grammar errors and several of the Cantonese songs were not translated at all. What made this particularly annoying was that the subtitles only had one setting (English and Mandarin) so when these un-translated Cantonese songs were going on the Mandarin subtitles continued.

A sweet, funny movie. An idol-crazy girl pretends to be a boy so she can attend an audition and meet superstar Rose. Through a quirk of fate she gets selected and begins to spend a lot of time with Rose and her producer boyfriend. As time passes, her presence sways the once-thought-to-be-unshakeable relationship between the two stars.Although the ending of this movie is romantic, in a way it's also slightly disturbing. I can't say why, for it'll be a spoiler ;)The audience's emotions are carried along by moving love songs by Singaporean composer Dick Lee, adding to the overall effect of the film. The soundtrack is so wonderful that my copy is almost withered down by repeated playing!

An excellent parody into the workings of the Canto-pop industry for those familiar AND unfamiliar with it. Especially interesting that Leslie Cheung, a real life Canto-pop legend, plays the producer "Sam," to Carina Lau's singer-superstar "Rose." There are plenty of scenes involving music and songwriting, the best being the scene where the film's theme song "Chase" is "written" and performed by Cheung himself. Hilarious audition moments in the beginning of the film parody Chinese pop music, as well as equally funny portrayals of fan obsession. Poignant scenes between Lau and Yuen as "sisters," as well as for Cheung and Yuen while stuck in a darkened elevator. Carina Lau is perfect as the diva and Anita Yuen is truly phenomenal in her HKFilm award-winning turn as the gender-turned "Wing." Leslie Cheung is at the top of his form as straight man (no pun intended!). Laugh-out-loud comedy and great acting all around.