PACIFIC RIM : What’s Playing at the Sino-Plex? : Just ask critic Paul Fonoroff, whose American style and fluency in Chinese have made him Hong Kong’s ‘Mr. Film’

“There’s always that threat of violence,” says Paul Fonoroff somewhat matter-of-factly about the occupational hazards that come with being one of Hong Kong’s most prominent film critics. Known around the territory as “Mr. Film,” the 39-year-old native of Cleveland reviews Cantonese-language films for the English-language newspaper the South China Morning Post and RTKH, the No. 1 Cantonese radio station. He also serves as host of three Asian Television--World programs about Chinese and Western film.

“Among the Chinese, the concept of face is very important, so you have to be careful that you’re not insulting anyone personally,” Fonoroff says. “What’s more, the people here are very money-oriented, so if they feel you’re somehow affecting their box-office intake . . . “

Fonoroff’s voice trails off, as he contemplates the risks of his profession. During an interview at his crowded flat, which is perched on the rooftop of a crumbling Chinese walk-up, he cites some examples: Last year, a Molotov cocktail exploded at the office of one of Hong Kong’s top producer-directors, Tsui Hark (he survived). Recently, two Hong Kong film producers were shot and killed by alleged mobsters who had hoped to make their way in the Hong Kong film industry.

In an industry that has long been reputed to be run by the ruthless triad societies, Fonoroff has had, as the Chinese themselves might say, quite a lot of good joss (luck). “There have been complaints about some of my reviews,” he acknowledges. “But the most that’s ever happened is that I haven’t been allowed to go to certain screenings.”

Fonoroff “can get on your nerves sometimes--he writes what he really feels,” says Lawrence Ah Mon, the South African-born Chinese director of such Hong Kong films as “Gangs” and “Queen of Temple Street.”

“If he were a Chinese, he wouldn’t feel as free to say what he does.”

“He is very impactful,” adds Catherine Chau, who coordinates the annual Hong Kong Film Awards. “Most film critics in Hong Kong know film companies or public relations people so they get rid of all the bad remarks in their columns. Paul is one of the only film critics I respect.”

Fonoroff’s weekly reviews for the South China Morning Post, while astute and knowledgeable, characteristically go for the jugular. About “Life on a String,” the 1992 film by Chen Kaige--the director’s film “Farewell to My Concubine” won the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival--Fonoroff had this to say: “It would be hard to find a movie more pretentious . . . (than this) self-conscious allegory whose chief concern appears to be making pseudo-profound statements about the human condition.”

“Hopefully, being a foreigner gives you a little more license in this community,” Fonoroff says. “I think people allow me to be honest in my opinion.”

It’s a strategy that has worked to Fonoroff’s advantage. Rather than being shut out of a closed and ethnocentric community, he’s earned respect. Earlier this year, Next, the most widely read Cantonese tabloid, ranked Fonoroff as one of the 100 most powerful people in film. “I was one of only two critics to make the list,” he says proudly.

To the average citizen in Hong Kong, a British territory in which East and West are still at angry odds, Fonoroff has also emerged as a promising symbol. For the local Chinese, Fonoroff, who is fluent in both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese dialects, is a “good foreigner,” Chau says. “Hong Kong people like that he speaks Chinese and that he appreciates Hong Kong culture.”

“There is a lot of resentment toward gweilos (foreigners),” says Fonoroff, who is also known as Fong Baolah (the Chinese transliteration of his name). “It’s not the political fear that Chinese people in Beijing have. But there’s this view that gweilos are in Hong Kong just for the short term--to make money and then go home to England or the States.

“But my Mandarin is better than a lot of Cantonese people’s, and so I will say that for the expatriate community, I do present a good image. Yes, we can learn the language. Yes, we can become a part of Hong Kong life.”

Fonoroff cites “Flower Drum Song,” the 1961 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical about a Chinese-American family living in San Francisco’s Chinatown, which he first saw as a child, as “pivotal.”

“Looking back on the film now,” he says, “it was just the hokiest. Talk about Asian stereotypes.” And yet, in part, it fueled his initial fascination for the language, which he studied at Brown University in the late ‘70s, and his passion for film. He received a master of fine arts degree from USC’s film school in 1980.

That year, he won a two-year fellowship to research Chinese film at Peking University. He became the film critic for the Post after he moved from China to Hong Kong in 1982, churning out four movie reviews every week, two of them focusing on Chinese films and the others on Western movies.

“But I found I wasn’t so interested in writing Hollywood film reviews,” Fonoroff says. “One of the challenges of writing reviews comes when you’re one of the first people to see (the films). You really have to go out on a limb because you don’t have anyone else’s opinion to back you up. But by the time ‘Thelma & Louise’ gets to Hong Kong, I can only add to the discussion.

“Besides, I’ve spent all these years researching Chinese films, and I would like to think that by now I’ve earned a certain credibility.”

For the typical Hong Kong expatriate who lives out a sojourn without learning more than a dozen Cantonese words, Fonoroff also offers entrance to a world that would otherwise be out of reach. “He’s one of the few critics writing in English about Hong Kong films, so he’s a bridge for the English-speaking community to the Chinese film community,” says director Ah Mon. “In general, he knows more about Hong Kong film than anybody else.”

While his English-language program “Movie World” regularly presents Hollywood box-office figures and occasionally runs clips from the latest American block-busters, the weekly half-hour show primarily focuses on films coming out of Hong Kong.

Throughout Southeast Asia, in countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, which zealously import the territory’s movies for their own screens, Hong Kong has long been known as Dongfang Haolaiwu (Hollywood of the East). The Hong Kong film industry responds to this demand by working at a frenetic pace, cranking out one full-length feature film every two days. In Hong Kong, 75% of box-office sales come from screens showing Hong Kong movies.

“Hi! Seen any good movies lately?” is Fonoroff’s signature opener, and from there, the program moves into a dizzying display of crazy, noisy scenes from the week’s latest local films--urban ghost stories, Mo Ley Tow (Makes No Sense) comedies, triad kung fu dramas, Cantonese romances, costumed historical epics and the like--made accessible to the non-Chinese-speaking viewer by Fonoroff’s running commentary.

For every show, Fonoroff also meticulously researches and produces historical segments--”Hong Kong Teen Idols of the 1960s,” “The Image of Japanese in Chinese Films of the 1940s” and “Hong Kong Suicide Stars” take their place among the series’ most memorable--by rummaging through the more than 5,000 Chinese movie magazines he’s collected from adoring fans (“They just send packages to the station care of ‘Paul Fong,’ ” he says with a laugh), junk shops and even rubbish bins.

But the even more unusual segments come from Fonoroff’s set visits and interviews with local actors, directors and other filmmakers.

Often he and the Asian Television crew show up just in time to catch kung fu master Jackie Chan scaling a 20-foot brick wall using only his hands and feet, or Taiwanese actress Joey Wang in full period costume flying through the air during the filming of one of the ghost pictures that are popular in the region.

After 10 years in Hong Kong, Fonoroff is established enough to expect access to the biggest stars. In fact, just about every major film industry figure has made an appearance on “Movie World,” from actor John Lone (the star of “The Last Emperor” and “Year of the Dragon” is “difficult--he yelled at all the crew members for all their imagined infractions,” Fonoroff says) to Zhang Yimou (the mainland director of “Raise the Red Lantern” and “The Story of Qiu Ju,” whom Fonoroff finds “brilliant--he definitely ranks up there with the world’s best directors”). Even a vacationing Bob Hope showed up (“He’s also from Cleveland, so we had a lot in common”).

First-time “Movie World” viewers are more than surprised to catch sight of this red-haired, third-generation Jewish-American conducting interviews in perfect Chinese. Fonoroff airs such segments in Cantonese, without dubbing the voices. Instead, he says, “I just write the English subtitles myself.”

Of Hollywood’s latest love affair with Hong Kong films, Fonoroff says: “I think it’s a misguided enthusiasm. Usually, if you had to come up with a list of 10 good Cantonese films every year it would be hard. I think American critics are bending over backward to let Hong Kong filmmakers get away with stuff they would never allow American directors to get away with.

“Many films here are purely commercial ventures--sometimes directors will start shooting a film without a completed script and just make up lines later in the dubbing booth. They also throw action scenes everywhere, whether they’re appropriate or not.”

In particular, about John Woo (“Hard Target,” “The Killer”), Hollywood’s director of the moment, Fonoroff says: “His scripts have been weak, and there’s this sentimental streak that I just don’t like. Everyone in America is raving about all those fantastic John Woo movies. But if you ask me, I still haven’t seen one.”

Even as he looks ahead to 1997 and the threat of the Chinese communist takeover when the British withdraw from Hong Kong, Fonoroff says that if he can continue his work, he would like to stay.

“Movies are a part of everything, the history, the politics, everything,” he says. “The people in Hong Kong don’t have an awareness of their own film culture, and sometimes it does take a foreigner, someone from outside the culture to point things out. Besides,” he says, grinning, “I like movies.”