Aspiring film director Kar-Lok (Tsui Tin-Yau of pop group Shine) gets expelled from university after utilizing a female student in a fake movie shoot, just to get a chance to make out with her. Buddies Leung (Lawrence Chou - Truth Or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat, The Eye), Band Aid (Derek Tsang, son of Eric Tsang), Fatty (Jeffrey Chou) and Jason (Wong You-Nam, the other half of Shine) sees his work and decides to pull of a similar scheme where they invite an adult video star (real life AV actress Amamuya Manami) onto a fake movie set. Just so they all can have sex with her...

Coming back to the porn aspect, Edmond Pang first introduced a similar plot in his debut You Shoot, I Shoot and has continued to feature themes surrounding sex, both in a comedic and highly serious ways since. Never exploitive as such before, AV is a prime opportunity to actually go down that route (with a given Category III rating looming). Well for one, this movie ended up rated Cat IIb and secondly, Wong Jing didn't write or direct it. In his hands, it would've been a Wong Jing quickie but AV is an Edmond Pang quickie. Meaning, a short shooting schedule but I would like to say that Pang succeeds once more in giving us entertaining and in "only" a slight way this time, thoughtful Hong Kong cinema, while still walking his own path completely as a filmmaker.

Employing yet again the looser style as seen in Beyond Our Ken, leaning towards a documentary feel, it's either due to tight scheduling, a style that Pang feels fit or it's actually both. Neither choice detracts as it's not an MTV video throughout, just clean looking cinematography by newcomer Lam Chi Kin that just happens to move about a little bit more freely. We're not talking The Blair Witch Project here so don't worry! While then AV in the end holds serious thought, Pang sets out to make a teenage screwball comedy first, very much in the vein of American Pie and by god, he does succeed, despite the expected Viagra jokes and various crudeness along the way.

You've got much loud, broad comedy but initially some welcome sly one as Pang deconstruct nicely the notion of perfect sex like in the porn movies and brings up, out of all things from the player Band Aid's perspective, the hygienic aspect of sex. It's quickly de-romantisized even though these youths clearly are one-track minded. They're also very much a unit of buddies that are prone to be jackasses towards each other and generally act juvenile for their own amusement, the whole basis for the plot really. Pang keeps a throughline to the comedy pretty much 90% of the time, injecting clever to crude dialogue but his direction of his pop star "actors" is strong. An essential here is to get timing, delivery and chemistry correct and several such deliveries are hilarious coming from this largely untested group of performers.

Pang doesn't set out to turn AV into a Cat III exploitation film either despite going for it most of the time with broad, foul-mouthed moments coming from Jim Chin, the rousing speech given by Lawrence Chou to his fellow horny students (the style seen in this scene brings back fond memories of Men Suddenly In Black), nudity and the mentioned Viagra joke that despite its predictability is a tour de force of low-brow humour. So all this works but AV features a serious thematic also as per all other movies that Pang has directed. That fares less well this time around.

This time, youth disillusionment plays a huge part and while slightly out of left field coming from these politically incorrect characters, Pang manages to state serious points through dialogue exchanges, detailing the fact that their kind of happiness doesn't apply to this world and that they feel ashamed as a generation when looking back at the initiative prior fellow students has taken. This becomes an area of the film where Pang's material in writing doesn't necessarily stumble but it doesn't resonate as greatly within this package as he clearly wants. Here's where the untrained performers aren't fully up to snuff and secondly, the romance where Wong You-Nam's Jason gets involved with Amamuya Manami does feature some awfully stale acting on both performers behalf.

Yet, it's very much well-meaning and Edmond Pang leaves the audiences with something to think about after pretty much laughing, in a good way, throughout. AV does not further Pang like Beyond Our Ken did but more importantly, he continues to log works filled with effort, love for movies and confidence is clearly sprinkled all over this production. Don't let the pop star cast bother you as they're more than up to the task of providing laughter and entertainment, even though they're not showcasing range as such. Hong Kong cinema dead? Box-office wise, it's a fight but several profiles are still rolling on, including this new kid Edmond Pang.