A Hearty Response
Ho Ting Pon: Chow Yun-Fat
Kwong Sun: Joey Wong
IMDb link: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0092260
other links:
Version reviewed: DVD
Ratings:
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;
DVD Audio: 6 of 10
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;
DVD Video: 6 of 10
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;
Subtitles: 6 of 10
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;
Story: 4 of 10
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;
Performances: 5 of 10
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;
CYF: 5 of 10
A crime melodrama about a cop and an illegal immigrant from Taiwan,
pretty much a waste of Chow Yun-Fat and Joey Wong though they do have
a good screen chemistry (and Ms. Wong is beautiful as usual).
We have the usual cast of characters here - the cop, the cop's buddy, the
cop's mean girlfriend and the good girl who eventually wins the cop's heart.
There you have the storyline in a nutshell, except for the somewhat lurid parts which
involve the mishaps that befall the good girl as an illegal immigrant. The
opening scenes are rather dramatic, flashed between the credits; we see
a male and a female figure, obviously fugitives, trying to evade the
police and only the female eluding the search. After that we see Joey Wong,
terrified at the hands of a man trying to take advantage of her illegal
status, who tortures her by putting a live snake down her blouse and tries
to rape her. Un-funny stuff, and with a violent outcoming.
It's only then that we meet CYF, who plays Ho Ting Pon, the laziest cop
in his precinct, a sometime male model with a rich girlfriend who wants
him off the force since it's such a tacky job to be a cop. The humor
is pretty heavy-handed, and continues to be so as we meet his superior
officer and Ho Tin Pon's new partner (played by Lui Hong). There are
some quasi-humorous exchanges between the two men, but both CYF
and Lui Hong look a bit tired and don't seem very interested in the
banter.
A strange and somewhat uneasy mix of character introductions - from
brutal attempted rape to the "silly cops" routine - make this not
the most auspicious of beginnings to a film in any case, especially not
this one produced by Alan Tang. This was never intended to be Art-With-A-Capital-A,
and it certainly isn't, though it does have some interesting moments.
While on a stakeout, Pon and his partner accidentally injure Kwong
Sun (Joey Wong). An illegal immigrant into Hong Kong, Kwong Sun fakes
amnesia after the accident, insisting that the only thing she
remembers is that Pon is her husband, Wai Hung. Feeling guilty for
causing her supposed amnesia, Pon takes Kwong Sun under his wing and
tries to help her regain her memory, but soon figures out that she's
faking it. The scene in which he tricks Kwong Sun into admitting
that she's not his wife has a little bit of warmth and life to it
(and features CYF smirking out "don't think of me as your
husband, think of me as AN ANIMAL!") with Joey Wong apparently
trying to smother some out-of-character giggles as she and CYF tussle around on a bed.
As to be expected, Kwong Sun and Pon are starting to fall for
one another, and the fact that Pon's mother dotes on Kwong Sun
(there are some excellent scenes between these two characters,
probably the best in the film) as such a Nice Girl foreshadows
what was inevitable anyway.
Before that though, Kwong Sun manages to fall afoul of an evil mobster who kidnaps,
tortures, tattoos and rapes her before the film is finished. In a
weak attempt at a 'surprise ending', we get to see Pon bleed all
over a discotheque after going on a rampage to avenge Kwong Sun. Poor
Lui Fong isn't given much to work with, but he does manage to convey
a little feeling as Pon's partner who has gone past his rampant
misogyny in the beginning of the film to become a person who cares
about the plight of the poor immigrant girl and most of all his
new partner.
This film has its share of short jokes, tittering references to sex,
people drinking themselves stupid and some slapstick routines as
light as a basket of yesterday's dim sum. Some scenes do stand
out as warm and alive, but they are rather few and far between. Knowing
the output of the two main stars at the time, this film might have
been one of four or five they were working on simultaneously; not
that this material is exactly fresh and brilliant anyway.
References to CYF's personal image pop up now and then (at one point
Pon has a conversation about being a male model - all the while
dressed in blue pants, a yellow shirt, a "Miami Vice" white jacket
and green sunglasses), as well as such devices as characters
thinking out loud (in case you didn't get the point that someone
isn't at home when the apartment is empty) or self-referential
"jokes" such as "in the movies, amnesia can be cured with a good
fright".
There are a couple of interesting scenes; the interplay between
Kwong Sun and Pon's mother are cute, there are a few touching
moments when the normally snotty Pon actually shows some compassion
for Kwong Sun. The bloody and almost-tragic ending could have been
better if it hadn't been played, like almost everything else in this
film, for low comedy.
The over-the-top acting of some of the secondary roles and the
low-key performances of CYF and Joey Wong, who both look pale and fatigued in
this film, are a jarring contrast. The brutal and unnecessarily
lengthy rape scene leaves one numb (especially as contrasted to the
tasteful treatment of the same horrifying subject in
Hong Kong 1941) and some of the comments after the fact seem
callous. It's not just the tattoo that makes Kwong Sun "marked for
life" - but Pon still loves her, anyway. After all of the nasty
anti-female remarks at the beginning of the film these last sentiments,
although delivered as if everything is okay since the hero will take
her even though she's been raped, one gets the feeling that this
story was tossed off after a particularly bad weekend at the scriptwriter's
house.
This isn't a romance because the two leads are never really "romantic"
with one another. It's not really a comedy because the lives of
all these people are rather tragic - a lazy male model, a rich bitchy girlfriend,
an illegal immigrant, a rapist, and a silly young cop. While the two policemen
have supposedly grown to be as close as brothers under the skin (and
a nice thick skin it is, too) we never really feel as if there is all
that much there.
This film was released in 1986, one of those years in which there were
10 CYF films released, including Dream Lovers and A Better
Tomorrow. Obviously films such as this one and Seventh
Curse were made for money - and while that's understandable,
he's been paid already so don't feel obligated. Unless you're
interested in the action sequences for their own sake or just have to see everything
with CYF in it then skip this turkey and settle down with one of his
other films from 1986 and feast on fine pheasant instead.
go to the image gallery for this film
nbsp;
go to film review index
nbsp;
return to top page
email the page maintainer