Leglessbird leisure guide

French, Causeway Bay

6/F 33 Sharp Street East, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong 25060133
My rating: 4
Food: 4
Service: 3
Atmosphere: 2
Price per person: HKD250-300

The interior design looks like a typical French restaurant. As the name suggests, steak is its specialty. But it is quite pricy...

Cuisine: French in Causeway Bay
My rating: 4
Food: 5
Service: 4
Atmosphere: 4
Price per person: HK$ 251-300

Le Marron
12/F, Ying Kong Mansion, 2-6 Yee Wo Street
28816662
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Cuisine: French
Location: Causeway Bay
Posted by Dominic (on or modified on 09/21/2006 17:00)

Review: This is an upstair private kitchen type of French restaurant. The rooms are flexibly arranged, partition with curtains and thin old Hong Kong housing estate style plank. Soft lighting that goes with the Marron (brown colour). Each room has long table, full of old European style decoration. Friendly staff. A variety of choice on a 6-course menu, the portion is pretty big for each course, I suggest you really go there with an empty stomach. We had seafood soup, crab soup, foie gras, canard duck, crab, escargot, lamb, desserts, tea and much more. We came here for friends' engagement party and everyone had a great time! With such good quality of food and in such big portion too. It was very good value for money.

Joanne's update:
Some items on the 6-course menu require extra cost, depending on your choice, your bill ranges from $298 - 400. Weekend is always booked for party. If you want quiet atmosphere, go on weekday.

Farinelli (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, Italy 1994

Director:G?rard Corbiau

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Stefano Dionisi .... Farinelli/Carlo Broschi
Enrico Lo Verso .... Riccardo Broschi
Elsa Zylberstein .... Alexandra

Story:
Farinelli, is the artistic name of Carlo Broschi, a young singer in Haendel times. He was castrated in his childhood in order to preserve his voice. During his life he becomes to be a very famous opera singer, managed by his mediocre brother (Riccardo).

My review:
I first got to know about this film during a Digital Signal Processing conference, during which a French research team presented their work of morphing two singers' voices into one voice. Why would they do that? They did it for this film. Farinelli, a castrated singer could sing a really wide range, in fact, it is so wide that no one on earth alive today can replicate that. So they had to rely on modern science to come up with a way to reproduce the voice in the movie.

Back to the movie, Farinelli is a fascinating character. The director also paid attention to a lot of details. The scenes are grand and the music is simply magnificent.

Posted by Ryoko

Bad Education (Original Uncut NC-17 Edition) (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, Spain 2004

Director:Pedro Almodovar

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Gael Garcia Bernal: Angel/Juan/Zahara
Fele Martinez: Enrique Goded
Javier Camara: Paquito
Daniel Gimenez Cacho: Father Manolo
Lluis Homar: Berenguer

Story:
Ignacio and Enrique were students at a religious school and they loved each other. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, disturbed their love because Ignacio was the very special student for him.
After the next few decades, Enrique got famed as a movie director. One day Ignacio came to his office suddenly. Enrique was surprised at this visit, however, he felt something incongruous and could not believe the man was Ignacio.
Each life of Ignacio, Enrique, and Father Manolo was changed and destined unexpectedly by the reunion.

My review:
After my friend and I watched this film at a theater last year, we got excited with this screenplay and the acting by Gael Garcia Bernal: we kept talking about this movie at a cafe until nearly midnight at that time.
It was hard to predict (read ahead) how this story would be going on while I was watching this movie. Gael played 3 characters, and one of them was a drag queen (Zahara). When he was singing `Quizas,quizas,quizas'as Zahara, he looked decadent but mysterious and fascinating to me. Surely his performance was GREAT. I don?t know any other young and good-looking players in Japan (at least) that can act great like Gael did.
Here is my rating: story = 4 stars, acting = 4 stars (nearly 5stars), direction = 5 stars, visual = 4 stars, and my conclusion in total = 5 stars.

Fidelity (Fidelite) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ] (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, France 2000

Director:Andrzej Zulawski

My rating: 3

Key actors/actresses:
Sophie Marceau .... Cl?lia
Pascal Greggory .... Cl?ve
Guillaume Canet .... N?mo
Michel Subor .... Rupert MacRoi
Magali No?l .... La m?re de cl?lia

Story:
Clelia is a young photographer with her own style. Her photos are all blur, it reflects how she perceives the world. She met Cleve, son of a book publishing business, they got married but she is attracted to another guy, she isn't unfaithful but she cannot resist either. Life around her is complicated and so are the people...

My review:
Not my type of movie, many characters that inter-connected with Clelia very unsure about how she feels and her boyfriend messes up with some gangsters which bring a very strange angle to the entire stories.

Queen Margot (La Reine Margot) (buy from Amazon)

ype: Drama, France 1994

Director:Patrice Ch閞eau

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Isabelle Adjani .... Margot
Daniel Auteuil .... Henri of Navarre
Jean-Hugues Anglade .... Charles IX
Vincent Perez .... La M鬺e

Story:
Aka Reine Margot, La
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew in France happened on the evening of 24 Aug 1572, a bloody religious war. A pre-arranged wedding between Margot de Valois, sister of the immature Catholic King Charles IX, and the Hugenot King Henri of Navarre was supposed to ensure peace. The inevitable finally happened

My review:
A very powerful recount of a terrible historical event. The ugly side of power struggle and religious conflict. The killing scenes are very vivid...

March of the Penguins (Widescreen Edition) (buy from Amazon)
Posted by Irene

Type: Documentary, France 2005

Director:Luc Jacquet

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
The Emperor Penguins

Story:
A story of penguins' life in Antarctica from winter to summer.

My review:
The beautiful scenery in Antarctica and lovely penguins are valuable and attractive. I like to imagine how the penguins live, give birth and bring up their babies in difficult situations. Quite inspiring!

Posted by Ryoko

The Fabulous Baker Boys (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, USA 1989

Director:Steven Kloves

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Jeff Bridges: Jack Baker
Beau Bridges: Frank Baker
Michelle Pfeiffer: Susie Diamond
Jennifer Tilly: Monica Moran

Story:
Frank and Jack Baker were professional musicians who played the piano at small clubs.
One day they auditioned female singers and decided on Susie Diamond.
After Susie joined this piano duo, they got good fame and re-evaluation; however, some kinds of discord among them came out to the surface.

My review:
I was a student at university when I watched this film for the first time by the recommendation from my boyfriend of those days. At that time I thought this was just a romantic movie, however, now I think it is not just a love story but a drama about persons who tried standing on their own feet.
Michelle Pfeiffer is beautiful and charming in this film. And sexy. Her performance is so vivid. Moreover, she?s a good singer: I really like her singing?More than you know?, ?Ten cents a dance?, ?Can?t take my eyes off you?, ?Makin' Whoopee?, ?My funny valentine?.