Anita is reverential, mainly plays safe, and is bittersweet (Film review)

Publicity for Anita, the movie

 

Anita (Hong Kong-Mainland China, 2021)

- Longmond Leung, dir. & co-scriptwriter (with Jack Ng)

- Starring: Louise Wong, Louis Koo, Fish Liew, Terrance Lau, Gordon Lam Ka-tung

 

This blockbuster biopic about the late Anita Mui Yim-fong (1963-2003) may well the most long awaited Hong Kong film of 2021.  At the very least, it looks to have been the most promoted local production for quite some time and most widely released, opening on the same day (November 12th) in cinemas in Australia, Canada, Mainland China, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S.A. as in Hong Kong (and also getting releases in cinemas this month in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand).    

A reverential production geared towards fans of the superstar entertainer (and those nostalgic for the glory days of Canto-pop plus Hong Kong cinema), Anita stars debutant actress Louise Wong in the title role.  After a short mood-setting prelude, the movie properly begins in the grounds of the Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, where the young Mui Yim-fong sang as a double act with her elder sister, Mui Oi-fong.  Early on, the woman who would come to be known to her fans as "Mui Chea" (Elder Sister Mui)'s impulse to do good is established as well as her singing talent and love for her elder sister (the only family member physically represented in this movie).  

 

Fast forward to the 1980s and, before signing up for a singing contest, the now young adult siblings acquire English names: Ann (played by Malaysia's Fish Liew) and Anita.  After winning the contest, Anita's star quickly rises -- thanks, in no small part, to recording producer So Hau-leung (played by Gordon Lam Ka-tung) and the designer-stylist Eddie Lau (essayed by Louis Koo) as well as, of course, her own undoubted talent. 

 

Rather surprisingly, given the early emphasis on the strong bond between the two sisters, Anita ends up being a film in which Anita Mui is shown interacting more with men than fellow females.  Although singer-actress Miriam Yeung also features in Anita as her manager, hers is more of a cameo role than anything significant.  Given more screen time are Nakajima Ayumu and Tony Yang, playing two very different romantic interests of Anita Mui; and Terrance Lau, playing her best friend and fellow superstar, Leslie Cheung. 

 

Those who didn't know that he was gay would have looked at the way Leslie and Anita Mui are portrayed in the movie and wonder why they didn't end up being a romantic couple.  This is one of the many aspects of Anita that could be said to be underplayed in such a way that if you know, you'd get the picture/message but if you didn't, it'd completely fly over you.  

An argument also could be made that its filmmakers have generally clearly played safe and sought to paint as uncontroversial -- and, thus, to their minds, palatable -- a portrait as they can of a woman whose description as the Madonna of Asia points to her having been known to court controversy and shock as well as awe.  This can result in Anita the movie and its eponymous character being less fiery and impassioned than some of us would like even while also omitting details of her life that would have struck certain parties as too unsavory or politically problematic as well as negative.     

 

We're talking, after all, about Anita Mui having been someone who never knew her father, whose mother (and brothers) have often been described as "bloodsucking" -- not least for having put her and her elder sister Ann to work when they were children (Anita Mui began her showbiz career at the age of 4 years) -- and who did such as fight triad involvement in the Hong Kong film industry and help Chinese dissidents being hunted down after the Tiananmen Square Massacre to flee into exile.  In addition, there's the Bad Girl persona that she cultivated, with "Bad Girl" being the title of a 1985 hit of hers with pretty sexually suggestive lyrics, and her pushing gender barriers and becoming a gay icon thanks to her androgynous costumes and image.   

 

With film censorship laws now in place in Hong Kong (as well as a national security law), any coverage in the film of Anita Mui's political activism would have been cut, at "best", or got the whole film banned from being screened in Hong Kong, never mind Mainland China.  So we knew better than to expect to see mention of it in Anita.  (This also explains Anita Mui's protege, Denise Ho's relegation to the shadows in favor of other talents nurtured by Anita Mui, such as the members of Grasshopper.)  As for the other aspects of the lives discussed in the previous paragraph: they're not entirely omitted from the film but often more implied rather than explicitly addressed.

 

To be fair, Anita Mui's life really was so colorful and chequered than even a movie that's lengthier than the Hong Kong norm could never really do its justice.  Also, Anita is not a documentary.  And in view of its leading actress being an acting neophyte, its helmer far more well known for crime actioners than biographical dramas and it having been necessary to recreate a good part of the Hong Kong that was around in Anita Mui's lifetime, it could be said to be already quite the triumph that so much of her life was able to be put on screen via this 137-minute-length movie.

 

Lest there be any doubt, a good number of Anita Mui's songs also make it into Anita.  And, for the record, I think it significant indeed that great prominence is given to the theme song of A Better Tomorrow 3.  Entitled the Song of Sunset, it's a bittersweet ballad at the best of times.  Listening to it in Hong Kong, 2021, it's heartbreaking.  Consider, after all, that its lyrics include lines such as the following: "The road is so long ahead, but the light is getting dimmer";  "Joy lasts so short and will never return"; and  "I think of returning, but [it's] already too late".  Anita, we miss (as well as remember) you -- and your Hong Kong too!

 

My rating for this film: 7.0