Dave from Ottawa
The actresses are pretty hot in this otherwise pedestrian melodrama, but the budget is low and so is the level of imagination. A young couple is heavily in debt and headed for jail for embezzlement unless somebody steps in financially. Along comes a beautiful rich woman who happens to be dying and wants the lad for herself. The result is a few hot sex scenes in the middle of the picture. (Why doesn't this stuff ever happen to me? Seriously. I would totally do a rich, smoking hot heiress for money...) Anyway, most of the drama plays out in this really picturesque, very isolated mansion which is obviously meant to be symbolic of the sick woman's own bleak isolation etc. etc. That's about it for visual or structural innovation. Very little happens that the viewer doesn't see coming ten minutes ahead, with the effect that even though the movie is only about 80 minutes long, it movies at a snail's pace. Nice eye candy but not much else. Approach with extreme caution.
netwallah
This disconnected but often attractive Hong Kong romance has one virtue, the presence of model-singer-actress Vivian Hsu, who is very beautiful indeed, and she is surprisingly good at acting, even with a poorly written screenplay and uncertain directing. The general lines of the plot are mixed up, but it goes something like this: the girl, Suen, and boy, Kit, swear to love each other until the end; though they could not arrange to be born together, they can die together. A few years later, as the movie begins, the boy is in trouble because he's bought too many stocks and can't cover them, and so he's ruined. The girl runs to join him and they travel, mostly to resorts, go swimming, take amusement park rides, look happy, and have a lot of pretty sex. A rich and beautiful but ill woman, Hung, sees the boy and falls for him, and her assistants pay the boy to spend a night with her. Throughout the movie there's a recurrent theme of preparing to die together, and images of gunshot death pop up in dreams or waking reveries. It's almost a constant motif. Later, when Kit has been caught and jailed, Suen goes to Hung for help, and she bails him out. Suen, pretending to be Kit's sister, lives with them, even as they get married. She goes through pain and desperation, and as Hung is dying, she sees Kit ready to go with her and despairs. But Hung dies, and she speaks to Kit about a childish love, saying earlier she couldn't imagine living without him, but now she loves life more. "I love you," she says, "and I'm leaving." And she does, smiling. He stays; apparently he loves his dead wife more than his living childhood sweetheart. There are unexplained back-stories and play scenes and repetitions. This melodramatic romance could have been much better if somebody had rewritten the screenplay, but, again, it's nice to see so much of Vivian Hsu.
Zargo
'Devil Angel' is notorious for it's 'Cat III' scenes featuring Vivian Hsu, but there's much more to it than a few sex scenes. I'm not the greatest at plot descriptions, but since there isn't one here at the IMDB I thought I'd attempt one. It's a about a young couple who fall deeply in love and swear to be together forever. However, things turn complicated when a beautiful rich woman dying of cancer falls for Vivian's man, and in the couple's need to for money to survive, he relents to become her gigolo. But is he after her money or is he really falling for her? I was kept on the edge of my seat by the intense lead performances of Vivian Hsu, Franco Jiang, and Si Man Yeung. Although this was Vivian's first role she's the real pro, and proves she has talent as well as looks (she's primarily a singer). I recommend 'Devil Angel', it's quite a poignant film, and I had no idea what was going to happen next.
