THE BANQUET: Another Tsui Hark comedy about food, although not really a lot of food in this one. Jackie Cheung is a freelance entrepreneur who tries to play Eric Tsang and Sammo Hung off each other in a plot to win a billion dollar contract to rebuild Kuwait from a Kuwaiti prince. In order to convince the prince he's the man, Eric Tsang has to pretend to be a doting son... despite the fact he hasn't visited his father (Richard Ng) in 10 years. The film was made as a charity piece to raise money for the Chinese flood disaster fund, and according to Andy Lau's intro speech it set new standards for rush film-making. By HK standards that probably means it was made in about 3 days :-) The overall effect is a bit disjointed as every HK star ever makes a cameo appearance somewhere or other, but the main story line actually hangs together fine through this - it's so simple it would have to! It's quite a nice story and there's some good comedy moments. Not a grand production, but recommended for star-spotting if nothing else.