Anyways, the problem with "Isabella" is director Edmond Pang is trying to be Wong Kar Wai. Plain and simple. It's cool and all, but come on. Too many forced artsy shots of Chapman To smoking a cigarette or leaning against a slot machine; or just some wannabe art house angle of some wall or something.

On the plus side, the performances are great. The music is beautiful ("O Gente Da Minha Terra" by Mariza is a sweet tune and really adds flavor to this average movie, as does the rest of the soundtrack). Isabella Leung (yes, her name is Isabella in real life) is one hell of a sight to look at. The cinematography and exotic location of Macau are classy.

All this makes a great trailer, but a forgettable movie.

I do have faith in Edmond Pang. After some fine-tuning and maybe some of his own original ideas, I'm sure he's capable of making a great movie of this kind.

Claiming the English title was NOT designed around leading lady Isabella Leong (1*), the setting is Macau on the brink of the handover to China (2*). The naughty premise by Pang this time around concerns cop Ma (Chapman To) picking up yet another one night stand but the girl Cheung (Leong) afterwards claims to be his daughter...

A slightly tricky maze of a character drama but also a very subtle experience focusing on purification, Pang probably doesn't claim to be complete yet and Isabella certainly isn't. However Pang has again provided Hong Kong cinema with a spark in the genre spectrum many dare not or won't acknowledge, which is fine by me. Eyes are despite that even more opened now for the young talent, especially so internationally since the film took home the Silver Bear for Best Music (Peter Kam) at the Berlin International Film Festival.

A fragmented narrative in many ways, Pang opens the film with telling images of disorientation amongst the seedy and naturally run down locales of Macau, captured beautifully by Charlie Lam (Pang's DOP of choice since Beyond Our Ken). The whole dual character tale between Ma and Cheung depends on an aura of mystery and for that reason it also doesn't hand out clues willingly. Cheung you interpret as luring a potential victim into her net, being callus, devious and not at this point representing the purification that indeed the whole of Macau goes through before the handover (3*). There's hate in Cheung's eyes but signs of a fear of losing grip on those you attach your love to, including the titular dog. This flows well into the confrontation with Ma. A cop stuck in a rut willingly or unwillingly, having engaged in choices along the way that he punishes himself for via a lifestyle of drinking and one night stands. Getting hold of what apparently is his long lost daughter reveals what you expect from the plot outline, the awakening of a responsibility in the adult. The adult that also therefore conducted the act of incest. Naughty, naughty Pang.

But guess what, that isn't an issue nor should it be. Pang lets calm emotions and style rule and the purification theme travel a challenging path. Ma is one of those who crashes down in these final days of Portuguese ruling but also hopefully one of many that will treat the new light with respect and welcome it. Pang again has a knack for subtlety and gets striking performances from his main, untested cast, especially young Leong who is nothing but dead on in her very cryptic character emotions and journey. No performer does rely on or is allowed to rely on soap opera hysterics. Not even normally grating comedy presence Chapman To who is starting to transform into an actor of versatility but having said that, I'm sure some annoyance will be generated towards him when or IF he decides to do comedy again. You're not forgiven yet. Watch out for brief appearances by "bigger" stars such as Shawn Yue, Josie Ho and Anthony Wong, playing Ma's superintendent. Lucky for him (or not), he gets to eat during each of his scenes, an aspect that represents a modicum of quirky humour that resides in Pang's vision. During other moments, it's actually character building to go that route.

Isabella can feel cold and emotionless due to low-key choices and is certainly not up to the levels of Wilson Yip's masterpiece Juliet In Love in that regard. But needing to choke up is not an issue with Isabella I found out. Whatever structure you've had in your life and however you've confronted emotions, some of us just don't wear them on our sleeves. Having told myself that, the film is very valid in its approach of feeling slightly cold and unaffecting. It's internal and Pang isn't necessarily wrong to let it play out that way. It might make for more boring cinema but that's an individual viewer problem. Threats of pretentiousness he does avoid splendidly and together with Peter Kam's latin flavoured score, Isabella makes us yet again thankful to have Edmond Pang on the Hong Kong cinema scene. It doesn't require box-office figures to be regarded or to get work. Look at Wong Kar-Wai. Oops, there came some inevitable and lazy comparison but Pang isn't completely far off WKW with his now apparently chosen style of cinema. He's welcome to sport the same cinema coat again though in order to find some form of ultimate voice. Boy is he close...

(1) Leong made quite a slammed leading actress debut in Law Chi-Leung's equally slammed Bug Me Not! and ultimately she is of course not the Isabella character.

(2) To give you a little background, I'll let Wikipedia speak for me:

"Administered by Portugal until 1999, it was the oldest European colony in China, dating back to the 16th century. The administrative power over Macau was transferred to the People's Republic of China in 1999, and it is now one of two special administrative regions of the PRC, together with Hong Kong. Besides historical Chinese and Portuguese world-heritage relics, Macau's biggest attraction is its gambling industry and casinos. Though many forms of gambling are legal here, the most popular game is baccarat, which generates over two thirds of the gaming industry's gross receipts."

Taking over from here, Hong Kong movies have also used Macau's uniquely timeless architecture as historical backdrops and you can see its locations being put to use in Miracles, Hong Kong 1941 and In The Mood For Love.

(3) As detailed in the various title cards interspersed throughout, the intensity of arrests of corrupt police officers increased during this time.