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Review
by Kozo: |
A
couple of Cookies lead the way to the Hong Kong Cinema
hall of shame in director Herman Yau's Dating Death.
Lily (Stephy Tang) and Sophie (Theresa Fu) are the
only two girls in group of seven friends, who are
all spending some downtime at Sophie's palatial island
villa. The gang plays a game of Truth or Dare where
they ask the all-important question, "Who do
you like?" Well, four out of five dentists choose
Sophie, which causes the ignored Lily to stick out
her lower lip like it's the end of the world. But
Sophie admits to liking fifth guy Ken (Don Li), who
returns the declaration of affection when pressed.
Bad idea. Ken actually has a relationship going with
Lily and is too embarrassed to reject Sophie publicly.
Lily gets upset, the other four guys start fuming
like 2004 New York Yankees fans, and the next morning
Ken is dead, having apparently been thrown out the
window.
Oddly, the murder of
a friend by possibly one of their own doesn't deter
these kids from hanging out. One year later, the group
gets back together and all the remaining guys still
love Sophie. Lily is still upset over being ignored,
and thinks one of the guys—or possibly even Sophie
herself—may have offed Ken. Sophie, being the
most completely oblivious girl in the history of the
world, thinks Ken died carrying a torch for her. Tension
is high, and only increases when they all get invitations
supposedly sent by Ken to come back to the villa for
a weekend of old acquaintances. They agree, and soon
the six "friends" are back at the scene
of the crime, along with the villa caretaker Uncle
Liu (Tats Lau, who has never slummed lower than this
film). Before you know it, people start freaking and
sooner or later someone gets offed. Plus they're trapped
on the island. Who didn't see that coming?
When the first of the kids
get killed, the immediate reaction could be this:
about damn time! Dating Death contains possibly
the most unlikable group of "attractive youngsters"
in the history of Hong Kong Cinema, and those that
haven't shut off the film by the half-hour mark will
likely be yelling "YEAH!" every time someone
meets a grisly fate. Aside from being petulant and
annoying, this group of youngsters are questionably
even friends. As soon as the guys harangue Ken after
his ill-timed confession of love towards Sophie, any
smart person would say, "What kind of friends
are these? Screw these guys!" Ostensibly, the
guys' adherence to this shoddy support group is because
they all dig Sophie, which is totally and absolutely
unbelievable. Lily is far more attractive than Sophie,
though that's mainly because she doesn't appear to
be a brain-dead pillow case with the personality of
a dry twig. Lily also has Stephy Tang's cuddly-sweet
features going for her, but Tang spends most of Dating
Death emoting poorly. Theresa Fu is a total cipher,
and of the guys, only Edwin Siu doesn't come off as
a total waste.
Still, a total waste
is exactly what Dating Death is. Herman Yau
has proven himself time and time again to be an effective
director of low-budget genre exercises, but for some
reason he completely drops the ball here. Instead
of attention to character, or subtle moments mixed
with shock horror cues, Dating Death is composed
mainly of obvious "make 'em jump" filmmaking
technique, and an overblown sense of tension that
becomes laughable. As soon as the kids start running
after each other and rolling down the stairs in a
huge mass of limbs, a laugh is all but guaranteed,
especially since there's supposed be be something
dangerous going on. Add this to cheesy CGI involving
the weather patterns and one character's "magic
powers", and you have a front-runner for "Worst
Hong Kong Film of 2004". It might be a little
mean to attach such a title to a teenybopper slasher-wannabe
like Dating Death, but this is one terrible
motion picture that should never have been made. Herman
Yau has certainly done better, and even these vapid
and criminally annoying young actors deserve better.
You deserve better too...so watch something else.
(Kozo 2004)
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