		Year: 1996 Director: Ann Hui Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Sammo Hung, Meng Hoi Genre: Drama/Romance Literal title translation: 'Ah Kam's Story'

Michelle Yeoh plays Ah Kam. A stuntwoman who finds herself working under the direction of Sammo Hung in the local film industry. However, he finds himself on the wrong side of a triad run part of the industry. The narrative follows Ah Kam as she joins the team, falls in love and then has to face up to her responsibilities.

With a premise such as this mixed with a more than capable cast and director this film had the makings of a classic. However, hampered with Miss Yeoh sustaining a very bad back injury early on in production the film takes a more dramatic angle with doesn't quite work. The film is split in to three halves each documenting a different period in Ah Kam's life. The main problem here is that Michelle Yeoh is playing a stunt double, but when she performs any fights or stunts herself is quite obviously doubled. Therefore the verisimilitude that the film is trying to create is completely shattered. This is a shame as Michelle Yeoh and Sammo Hung are both very good in their parts but there are too few really engaging sequences to keep the audiences interest.The Hong Kong film industry is here shown to be a very stark and cold method of filmmaking where neither the director of actors enjoy what the are doing. We never really get to see what exactly goes on behind the scenes and the short sections shown are quite basic and predictable. Also, the film itself is sometimes more unrealistic than the films within it.

There are some potentially good dramatic moments here. The problem is the lack of engaging set-pieces and that the characters are not particularly likable. The most engaging moment comes over the end credits when we see the outtake of Yeoh injuring herself. By comparison the rest of the film is made to look very false and these are by far the most affecting moments. It is a shame that this is the case because Ah Kam had the opportunity to be a great movie.