FanTasia: In absentum

Out of curiosity, I went to check the schedule for FanTasia 2005, one of the foremost movie festivals, themed about Asian and Horror/Fantastic films (thus the name, duh). Of course I checked the HK column (and the Japanese/Korean/rest too), but eh, no recent releases, nor those I'd expect, like last year's Koma, or The Eye 10... There were:

• Breaking News: I saw the VCD at the shop last week, but I instead went to see Infernal Affairs at UA Pacific Place, as they are showing the Top 10 all-time movies (shoot, it's in Chinese only...) (Some English-language press release).
• One Nite in Mongkok: Apparently, Mong Kok is not that scary anymore after they built the Langham Place shopping mall in the middle of this young shopping district. A news report I read had security staff of the Langham Place scout the surroundings with policemen to contribute to public security. Eh? If you are looking for seedy areas, there are plenty of them on the Kowloon side (the Western part of HK Island where I live and hang out is pretty asceptisized in constrast). It has both Daniel Wu and Alex Fong, so teen girls will like this one.
• Love Battlefield: Never heard of that movie, but I bet Faye Wong's song of the same name is on the soundtrack. Anyways, it stars Eason Chan, a well-known rocker/cantopopper who I hear is pretty angsty and rebellious. And down the list, you will also see "Carl Ng". So there were two presentations of Karen Mok's show. On Friday we had Andy Lau performing some of his songs in duet with Karen Mok. On Saturday, they had this Carl Ng performing the same act. But he doesn't sing, and all he does is dance and look pretty. Which is what he does for a living anyways, archetypical male model, plastic face, so metrosexual he *almost* looks like a Westerner...
• Three... Extremes: Saw the VCD at the store and was sure it was going to be in FanTasia! I thought it was Leon Lai on the cover, but he doesn't act in those kinds of movies (it was Tony Leung Ka-Fai - the "other" Tony Leung). No, instead he plays in romantic flicks with Faye Wong and the rest of them, or in stuff like Fallen Angels, which is out of stock and not reprinted and only sells to Westerners on VCD for about 150HKD (that's 25CAD my dears).
• Jewel in the Palace: Noooooooo! 大長金, or roughly, really roughly, translated to "Jewel In The Palace", is the most hit Korean TV drama in HK this year (perhaps the rest of Asia, but I didn't ask). The series finale was in April, the month I arrived in HK, and you had shopping malls emptying up on a freaking Sunday evening (despite the management showing the episode on large projection screens). No idea why it's playing at FanTasia, besides being an attempt to woo Asians who don't exactly like horror flicks. And gosh, it's being played on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons in a "condensed version of three hours each"...
• One Missed Call 2: I failed to go see that one, just because it's the sequel of a teen horror flick?
• Kamikaze Girls: Kamikaze Girls was playing at the Broadway Cinematheque, and might still be. I should go see that one, if not for its Fabuleux Desting d'Amelie Poulain feel, at least for Kyoko Fukada?