Now You See Love... Now You Don't
Ng Shan-Shui: Chow Yun-Fat
"Firefly" Kwok: Carol "DoDo" Cheng Yu-Ling
Susan Chong: Carina Lau
Dotty: Teresa Mo
Dunno: Anthony Wong
directed by: Law Kai Yui
IMDb link: IMDb link: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0105831
other links:
Version reviewed: VCD
Ratings:
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VCD Audio: 9 of 10
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VCD Video: 9 of 10
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Subtitles: none
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Story: 10 of 10
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Performances: 10 of 10
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CYF: 10 of 10
"You have to pay to ride the horsey, so you might as well enjoy the ride".
Recounting a little bit of wisdom learned from a childhood experience, Ng Shan-Shui
seems to indeed be enjoying the ride. The headman of his rural
village, Ng has a house, a piece of land, three cows, three fishponds, 1000 chickens
and a four door Mercedes. He also has a girlfriend, "Firefly" Kwok, who is about to
come back home after three years in England. Everything seems just hunkey dorey and
Ng lies basking in the sun and his self-importance as he recounts his accomplishments
in the opening of Now You See Love... Now You Don't.
A cloud appears on the horizon pretty quickly though, and it's shaped like a big
Firefly. When she left for England, Firefly was a sweet girl who doted on Shan-Shui
and looked forward to nothing but being his wife and doing pretty much what all of
the other women of the village had done before her - working from sunup to sundown
while her man played dominoes with his buddies. Her trip abroad changed
Firefly in a number of ways though, and the shy and retiring girl in a sweatshirt printed
with puppies has turned into a Cockney-swearing permed-hair punk rocker-wannabe
who has a tendency to use the word "wanker" a lot. Needless to say, this transformation
doesn't exactly fit in with Shan-Shui's view of just what the perfect woman is like
and their long-awaited romantic reunion gets off to a rocky (and utterly hilarious)
start.
After a particularly bizarre incident involving Jess, a dachsund, Firely has just had
enough of the village in general and Shan-Shui in particular. Everyone and everything
connected to the village and Shan-Shui are just too provincial, so she takes up the
offer of her friend Dotty (Teresa Mo) to get her a job in downtown Hong Kong and
off she goes, causing a little bit of a gender war as she does so.
Life in Hong Kong isn't as fun as Firefly had hoped. Against her will she misses
Shan-Shui and though Dotty gives her various pieces of sharp-edged advice about
being a modern woman, she still dreams of the house Shan-Shui had promised to
build for her. Remembering what goes along with that house though keeps
her in Hong Kong, working as an aria-belting waitress in The Singing Restaurant
and trying to find a suitable replacement for Shan-Shui in her affections. Dotty
assures her it couldn't be too hard to find a replacment for such a bumpkin. "Men
are all alike," Dotty tells Firefly, "only their neckties are different."
Shan-Shui meanwhile is having a hard time balancing his need to be the self-confident
village Big Man while pining after Firefly. After a disasterous visit to see her at The Singing
Restaurant, Shan-Shui decides during a drinking bout with his sidekick Dunno (Anthony
Wong) that their lives are too isolated, they have to get with the '90s and
move to Hong Kong and acquire a veneer of sophistication. Shan-Shui is certain
that in a short period of time he'll be as big in Hong Kong as Sir Run Run Shaw -
after all, Shan-Shui has the natural advantage of starting out as a village headman,
so he already has one up on Sir Run Run.
So the two do open a shop - right across the street from the flat where Firefly
lives - and Shan-Shui embarks on his course of self-improvement. Struggling
with English is a lot easier than finding a new girlfriend though; enduring a string of
bubble-heads and conceited fast-talkers, Shan-Shui concludes that he would be
better off concentrating his energies on his new business. Joining a Japanese-style
City Warriors training class, he rises at dawn to shout success slogans at the
top of his lungs and, as fate would have it, this is where he meets his new girlfriend
Susan (Carina Lau), a fundamentalist Christian who is just about as wacky as
they come.
In true "you don't know what you got 'til it's gone" fashion, Shan-Shui and
Firefly don't really begin to see how much they belong together until they
see each other with horribly mismatched dates. Add to this mix the brainless
but well-meaning Dunno and the acidic Dotty as their overly 'helpful'
friends and you get a wonderful mix of sweet romance, silly comedy and some
razor-honed observations about life as we watch six people bumble along in the
world as best they can, learning about just what it takes to really be happy.
To make the film complete is a surprise
ending which is fantastic in all senses of the word. Usually you can see the
outcome of such "surprises'" a mile away, but this one really did catch
me off guard. (There aren't any spoilers in the picture gallery, by the
way.)
With a script as sharp as a knife and a wonderful cast, this is another of
my favorite Chow Yun-Fat films. I will admit that Carol Cheng Yu-Ling is not my
favorite actress, but in this film she absolutely shines as "Firefly" Kwok and does
a comedic duet with CYF which is perfectly timed, tuned and turned out. Teresa Mo
shows that she's capable of a lot more than just being Stephen Chow's sidekick and
shows a depth to Dotty, even in her brief appearances, that is quite satisfying. It's
also nice to see Anthony Wong in a role which isn't a psycho of one sort or another; he's
actually quite charming in this film.
"Small" films are often overlooked when picking favorites. Now You See Love... Now
You Don't deserves to be seen by anyone who is interested in the career of CYF
outside his action roles (not one single bullet in this one, folks - a couple of firecrackers,
and that's it). Witty, poignant, bright and a fun ride from beginning to end,
Now You See Love... Now You Don't is one of my Top Ten CYF Films.
This film was also released on laserdisc by Golden Cinema City Video (English subs, Cantonese/Mandarin bilingual disc)
and on videotape by TaiSeng (English subs, Cantonese language). Unfortunately both of these subtitled
releases are out of print. The only version currently in print is the VCD by Mei Ah, re-released in
1999, which does not have subtitles, either English or Chinese. The subtitled versions, which
can be found now and again in shops or online auctions, are both excellent.
p.s.: Pay special attention to the portraits hanging in Shan-Shui's house. =)
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