Glamourous Youth

Glamorous Youth is the directorial debut of film critic, Philip Yung

The story begins with Hong (Nelson Yung), an ordinary student in his last year of high school, whose literature teacher (Joey Leung) offers advice and generally keeps the peace between student.s He becomes a great support to Hong, who is yet to think about what he wants to do after school,
Although he has an interest in literature he loses his resolve as his parents and girlfriend encourage him to go into the more stable profession of accounting.



The story then splits up into several parts to tell the story of people loosely connected to Hong.
He's father and his mother who are slowly drifting apart from each other, he's two best friends (Kwok Hiu-fai, Cameron Lau), as one wanders through life doing nothing but smoking, watching porn and visiting mainland prostitutes, and the other who climbs tall building to escape bullies and other sticky situations (thus earning him the nickname - Spiderman)
Also Hong's own love life is a continuing theme, friction from his fickle girlfriend (Louise Wong), and the mainland prostitute he attempts to help.

Glamorous Youth is a film that makes you question whether there is a difference between love and dependence. Are we with  the person were with because we love them or because we are lonely ? Is it because we are used to them, or that we just don't care anymore.
The characters drift through life, remembering the time times in their life when they were truly happy, not just going through the motions.


Exsistence and Kafka's The Metamorphosis, are also recuring themes, cleverly placed in for those in the know.
For those of you un familiar with The metamorphosis, it is the story of a young man (Gregor Samsa) who does nothing but work, he works to pay off his parents debts, to send his sister to school, and does exactly as he is told in every aspect of his life. One morning Gregor wakes up to find he has become a hideous giant beetle, he's family (despite all he has done for them) can barely look at him, let alone try and help him.

Much like Gregor, Hong eventually gets a job, and like Gregor lives day to day for his job and other mundane events. The metamorphosis holds some great memories for me, which is probably why I enjoyed this film as much as I did. The feeling of losing ones self, in anything that they have no interest in can drive a person crazy, or leave them dead inside, immune to anything life has to offer.

Honestly, this film is not for everyone, however, if you'll watch anything once (or at least watch the first 30 mins) this film may surprise you. If you have the attention span of a gold fish and require an explosion or spartan style kick every 10 to 15 minutes to keep your interests up, then maybe this isn't for you. :)

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, although some random scenes that till the end made me wonder why they were even there, and sometime lack of a soundtrack. (I'm a sucker for a good soundtrack) means I'll give this film

7.5/10

Below is a talk with director on the need for more realistic films coming out of Hong Kong.