July Rhapsody
| July Rhapsody 男人四十 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Ann Hui |
| Produced by |
Derek Yee Ann Hui |
| Written by | Ivy Ho |
| Starring |
Jacky Cheung Anita Mui Karena Lam Shaun Tam |
| Music by | Tommy Wai |
| Cinematography | Kwan Pun-leung Thomas Yeung |
| Edited by | Eric Kwong |
|
Production
company |
FilmKo Pictures
|
| Distributed by | FilmKo Pictures Distribution |
|
Release date
|
14 March 2002 |
|
Running time
|
103 minutes |
| Country | Hong Kong |
| Language | Cantonese |
| Box office | HK$4,874,951 |
July Rhapsody (男人四十, lit. Man Forty) is a 2002 Hong Kong drama film produced and directed by Ann Hui. The film follows Lam Yiu-kwok (played by Jacky Cheung), a Hong Kong secondary school teacher, and explores his struggles with midlife crisis, marriage and seduction by a female adolescent student. This was Anita Mui's final film appearance before her death from cervical cancer in 2003.
Jacky Cheung plays Lam Yiu-kwok, a Hong Kong secondary school teacher who is facing a mid-life crisis. While he has only his pride and Chinese poetry to fall back on, his peers are successful businessmen and professionals who flaunt their extravagant lifestyles at reunion dinners. After all these years, Lam is still living in a modest apartment with his wife, Man-ching (Anita Mui) and two teenage sons.
However financial stagnancy is not his only problem. An old flame of Man-ching (who was the couple's former schoolteacher) returns to Hong Kong and uncovers old wounds. Man-ching feels obliged to help her ex-lover.
Meanwhile, Yiu-kwok faces another dilemma: Choi-lam (Karena Lam), a precocious 17 years old student, has a crush on him and the 'forbidden fruit' looks more and more tempting in the light of his wife's 'infidelity'. The two go to Shenzhen, where they celebrate the opening of a friend's nightclub, and spend the night together at a hotel. The film ends with Lam's return to his wife the following morning.
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