Traditional 華麗上班族 Mandarin Huá Lì Shàng Bān Zú | Simplified 华丽上班族 Directed by Johnnie To | |
Cantonese Waa Lai Seong Baan Zeok Produced by Johnnie To
Sylvia Chang | ||
Office is a 2015 Hong Kong-Chinese musical comedy-drama film produced and directed by Johnnie To and starring Chow Yun-fat, Sylvia Chang, Eason Chan and Tang Wei. The film is an adaptation of the 2008 play Design for Living, which was created by and starred Chang. Office premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and was theatrically released on 2 September 2015 in China and 24 September in Hong Kong in 3D.
Contents
Plot
Billion-dollar company Jones & Sunn is going public. Chairman Ho Chung-ping (Chow Yun-fat) has promised CEO Winnie Cheung (Sylvia Chang), who has been his mistress for more than twenty years, to become a major shareholder of the company. As the IPO team enters the company to audit its accounts, a series of inside stories start to be revealed.
Lee Seung (Wang Ziyi), a new hire at Jones & Sunn, brings with him youthful ideals and dreams. Within the neoliberal market, the logic of intrigue rules, complicated by entanglements of love-hate relationships, which weaves a power play and a pathos-laden tragedy inside the office.
Cast
Critical reception
Office have received positive reviews. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times refers it as "One of the best-directed movies that you can see in New York right now". Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave the film a score of B+ praising the film as dazzlingly and director Johnnie To's cutting movement and stunningly composing figures. Tom Huddleston of Time Out gave the film a score of 5 out of 5 stars praising its stylish dance and song sequences, catchy lyrics and its screenplay by Sylvia Chang as a keenly observed, spiky treatise on office politics.
James Marsh of Twitch Film gave the film a mixed review praising the imagination that the staging captures, but criticizes the lack of development of Hong Kong's working development and director To's lack of vision and clear intent. Clarence Tsui of The Hollywood Reporter praises the film's lavish decorations and technical accomplishments, but criticizes its simplistic screenplay and being unfocused, with little development of the relationships between the characters.