Wong's World

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Bliss it is not to be young in Hong Kong. Unemployment is at a record high, there are deadly epidemics at your doorstep, and worst of all, there's the nagging sense that everything was better before. In another country, that could be a potent formula for some gritty, nihilistic youth culture. In Hong Kong you get the Twins.

Which makes Barbara Wong's new coming-of-age comedy, Truth or Dare, a bit unusual. Wong is best known for her taboo-teasing 2001 documentary Women's Private Parts, in which Hong Kong women explored their deepest, darkest sexual desires. In Truth or Dare she brings similar realism and sympathy to the tale of a coed group of six twentysomething Hong Kong roommates. They are caricatures who nonetheless ring true: the wild girl (Candy Lo), the dreamy girl (the dreamy Karena Lam), the dork (Roy Chow) who loves the dreamy girl. Too broke to go out, they stay in and play Truth or Dare (though without the tequila I remember being a key part of the game). One night they take a collective dare to achieve a dream in a year's time. Wong follows them as they try and, for the most part, utterly fail.

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Compared with Hong Kong's usually dimwitted comedy fare, Truth or Dare gets credit for aspiring to be more than slapstick. Wrapped in a fog of self-involvement, the kids drink, smoke, party and feud between working lousy jobs. Life's a bitch in Hong Kong, the movie says, but at least you've got friends. It's no Kids, but Truth or Dare shows that in Hong Kong the kids are still all right.