petergaribaldi

There are two things that immediately pop out at you when you watch "Dance of a Dream": Anita Mui has always been and will probably always be the leading actress in Hong Kong cinema, and young Cherrie Ying will likely be the next Hong Kong actress to move into starring roles.

Mui is wonderful as the cold rich woman looking for romance and Ying touches your heart as a call girl looking to excel in ballroom dancing.

Andy Lau fans had better beware because there's no gun fights or car chases. Instead this is in the vein of the old Hollywood musical and it even brings the cast together for a wonderful version of "Walking with my Dad" which is a Chinese song sung to the tune of "Never on a Sunday." Quite breathtaking, actually.

When a couple of over-the-hill and down-on-their-luck female private eyes stumble from an art smuggling caper into a kidnap & murder plot, they throw caution (and common sense) to the wind and try to turn a profit instead of solving the crime. Lina Romay is absolutely hilarious as one of the crooked gumshoes. Christy Levin is the pretty member of the duo and she plays the dumb-as-a-doorknob angle just right against Romay's crafty bobo. As with a lot of Franco's recent films, there's a bit of nudity (too much nudity in some cases) but that shouldn't deter you from enjoying the film. It's a One Shot Productions film and that usually means that someone was keeping an eye on Franco to make sure he paid attention to detail and that's a good thing. Even better, One Shot doesn't stop Franco when he wants to go overboard, so when Levin wants to distract a potential witness by showing him she's "number one," you get to see it all in very disturbing detail.

Call now? Yes, Call now! It's a joke. Watch the film and you'll get it.