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SCMP Reporter

A life-affirming film featuring two icons of Hong Kong comedy films playing against type, and the opening movies of an annual festival of Jewish cinema await those venturing to cinemas in the city this weekend.
For those seeking in-home entertainment, there is an epic film about the highs and lows of cinema’s golden age, a prestige Taiwanese drama about the promise and perils of show business for women, and a stylish thriller series set in the most glamorous neighbourhood in South Korea’s capital, Seoul.
1. The Last Dance
The intricacies of family ties and the burden of traditional customs weigh heavily on the protagonists of The Last Dance.
This life-affirming gem of a film is set around Hong Kong’s funeral trade and features two comedy icons, Dayo Wong Tze-wah and Michael Hui Koon-man, in purely dramatic roles.


Wong plays Dominic, an out-of-work wedding planner who has been in serious debt after his company was sunk by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Upon taking over the Hung Hom shop of a retiring funeral agent as a last resort to stay afloat, Dominic is not just unnerved by the morbid enterprise – which often involves handling the departed’s remains – but also struggles to win over his new business partner, Master Man (Hui), a stern Taoist priest in his eighties.
The Last Dance does an excellent job in posing numerous existential questions, from the limits of family responsibility to the meaning of life itself, without ever sliding into outright sentimentality. Read our full review
The Last Dance opens in cinemas on November 9.
2. Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival
Now in its 25th edition, the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival (HKJFF) this year features 25 films from around the world – from dramas and documentaries to comedies – that celebrate Jewish culture and identity.
Opening the festival is Running on Sand, an uplifting comedy of errors centred on Aumari, an Eritrean refugee facing deportation from Israel.
Other highlights include Between the Temples, a US comedy-drama starring Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane; The Most Precious of Cargoes, an animation set during World War II from Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius; and The Stronghold, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Read our full preview
The HKJFF runs from November 9-20 at the Golden Scene Cinema in Kennedy Town.
3. Babylon


Recreating the unbridled hedonism of early Hollywood in a heady cocktail of sex, drugs and iconic roles, Damien Chazelle’s indulgent three-hour epic Babylon (2022) is both a love letter to, and cautionary tale of, the excesses of cinema’s golden age.
Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie headline a sprawling ensemble cast, as the Oscar-winning director of La La Land charts the fluctuating fortunes of a handful of industry players against a backdrop of endless bacchanalia.
Lavishly staged and utterly bewitched by its subject matter – even as it exposes its least attractive qualities – Babylon remains, however, a story that has been told countless times before. Read our full review
Babylon is streaming on Netflix.
4. Born for the Spotlight


Show business is portrayed as a hostile work environment for women yet again in Born for the Spotlight, Netflix’s latest prestige drama series from Taiwan.
It is written and directed by actress Yen Yi-wen, who won a Golden Bell award for her previous series, The Making of an Ordinary Woman.
Hsieh Ying-xuan, Cheryl Yang Chin-hua and Chloe Lin Ting-yi headline the 12-part series, which examines the lives of a number of women at various stages in their careers, all of whom remain seduced by the allure of fame and fortune, even as the industry threatens to consume them.
It is not all doom and gloom, however. The rivalries, rejections, heartbreak and harassment are interspersed by celebratory moments of humour and romance, while the overwhelming message is one of resilience and unity, as these women find strength and solidarity within and between one another. Read our full review
Born for the Spotlight is streaming on Netflix.
5. Gangnam B-Side


The underbelly of Seoul’s Gangnam neighbourhood is exposed in the stylish cops-and-clubbers thriller Gangnam B-Side.
Ji Chang-wook has the lead role as a pimp who goes on the run, teaming up with Disney+ and production company Sanai Pictures once again following 2023’s The Worst of Evil, also a Gangnam-set crime thriller.
Jo Woo-jin (Narco-Saints) co-stars as a grizzled police officer battling Gangnam’s drug pushers and corrupt police force.
Considered to be Seoul’s ritziest neighbourhood, Gangnam enjoys a reputation as a playground for the rich, a fashion mecca and a debauched hotbed of drugs, prostitution and corruption. Like many shows and films before it, Gangnam B-Side focuses squarely on the latter. Read our early preview
Gangnam B-Side is streaming on Disney+.
Find this useful? Look out for our recommendations every Thursday online.


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Dayo Wong in a still from The Last Dance. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Dayo Wong (left) and Michelle Wai in a still from The Last Dance, which opens in Hong Kong cinemas on November 9. The film, which also stars Michael Hui, is one of our picks of the best things to watch in Hong Kong this weekend. Photo: Emperor Motion Pictures

Being John Malkovich director told Malkovich ‘John Malkovich wouldn’t do it that way’

John Malkovich, who has been reflecting on his role in 1999 film Being John Malkovich. Photo: Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS

Asked whether he ever asked Being John Malkovich’s creators, “Why me?”, the actor says: “I’m really not very curious about myself or my alleged self.” Photo: Instagram/@the_precious_films

Catherine Keener and John Cusack in a still from Being John Malkovich. Photo: Instagram/@brynmawrfilminstitute

From left: John Malkovich, actresses Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener, and director Spike Jonze at the Venice Film Festival in 1999 where Being John Malkovich was screened. Photo: AP

Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener arrive at the Venice Lido during the 1999 Venice Film Festival. Photo: Reuters

John Malkovich at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. Photo: AFP

John Malkovich in a still from Being John Malkovich. Photo: Universal Studios

John Malkovich in a scene from Being John Malkovich. Photo: AP/Universal Studios

Disney+ K-drama The Judge from Hell review: Park Shin-hye can’t halt death spiral

Park Shin-hye in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Park Shin-hye as Bit-na, a possessed judge, a still from The Judge from Hell. Despite the Korean actresses spirited performance, the legal K-drama sputters towards an anticlimactic end. 

Kim Young-jae as doe-eyed detective Han Da-on in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Lee Kyu-han as construction firm executive Jung Tae-gyu in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Kim Young-jae as Han Da-on in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Before seeing Red One, 10 classics about Santa Claus in peril for Christmas with a twist

JK Simmons (left) as Santa Claus and Dwayne Johnson as Callum Drift in a still from Red One. Before you watch this new film, we have 10 other Christmas films for you. Photo: Frank Masi/Prime Video

What killed Bruce Lee? 4 leading theories medical and martial arts experts proposed after his shock death 50 years ago in July, 1973

Bruce Lee on the set of “The Big Boss”. Lee died two years after the movie’s 1971 release, and in the years since, competing theories have been posited as to what exactly killed the martial arts star.  Photo: Yau Leung

Bruce Lee in a still from “Fist of Fury” (1972).

Lee with Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei. The two spent time together soon before Lee’s death.

Bruce Lee in a still from “Enter the Dragon” (1973). Photo: TNS

 Lee circa 1970. He had “chronic fluid intake” by virtue of his alcohol- and juice-based diet. Photo: Getty Images

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Film & TV

New Hong Kong cinema release The Last Dance, Netflix film Babylon and Disney+ Korean drama series Gangnam B-Side all make our list this week


New Hong Kong cinema release The Last Dance, Netflix film Babylon and Disney+ Korean drama series Gangnam B-Side all make our list this week.
