My First of May movie review: Aaron Kwok, Natalie Hsu can't save hokey family tear-jerker
In My First of May, a former star athlete sidelined by an old career-ending injury must emerge from his despair to care for the disabled teenage daughter he has long ignored.
This gentle effort by James Hung Ling-ching (The Seventh Lie), the latest in a long line of Hong Kong films in the past decade to look to home for bittersweet sentiment, is a warm-hearted but clichéd family drama that makes little attempt to conceal its calculated moves to wring tears from its viewers.
The writer-director has his trio of leading performers –
Aaron Kwok Fu-shing , Natalie Hsu En-yi and Nina Paw Hee-ching – to thank for keeping the paper-thin plot watchable.
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Kwok plays Tang Suk-yin, a three-time Hong Kong squash champion who has fallen on hard times since retiring after a leg injury more than a decade ago. Around the same time, Tang's marriage to Elaine (
Gigi Leung Wing-kei ) crumpled under pressure after their baby daughter was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.
Fast forward to today and Tang lives alone in an illegal rooftop unit in an industrial building, scalping tickets for sports facilities to earn a meagre living. He is urged by his elderly mother, Suen Yau-mui (Paw), to move back into the family's public estate flat and assume responsibility for his now adolescent daughter, Chi (Hsu).
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