Director: Derek Yee

These ingredients make ‘C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri’ a real treat to watch and create an enchanting ambience that draws the viewer in.

Despite a few criticisms, Yee has crafted a capable film with a tender heart, something not easy to achieve in the cynical world of film-making.

With characterisation so strongly emphasised in the film, it’s encouraging to see that both of the pivotal figures are empathetic enough to make Derek Yee’s goal successful.

In Derek Yee though, the film has an impressive craftsmen who layers the tension until the film’s ultimately downbeat conclusion.

A gripping and often uncompromising look at the Hong Kong drug trade from the seller’s and user’s side, Derek Yee’s ‘Protégé’ is one of the finest dramas to come out of Hong Kong in recent years.

There’s some very powerful visual displays of violence that pepper the film throughout, showing us that if you turn to the dark side you really will become slave to its master.

In a relatively short time Yee creates a fascinating martial world every bit as involving as the visions that Chor Yuen used to put together years before.

Though ‘The Great Magician’ recalls films like ‘The Prestige’ and ‘The Illusionist’, Derek Yee’s offering is much lighter in tone.

This film has no happy endings or easy ways out; it grips on to its audience and just refuses to let go.