Before he created Milkyway Image, Johnnie To teamed with producer Raymond Wong to bring us this typical piece of New Year fluff. Bearing the usual three guy/three girl formula, Eighth Happiness is your standard break-up/make-up/all-out wackiness flick that packed movie houses back in the eighties. Chow Yun-Fat stars as a player who acts gay to score with the chicks. Raymond Wong and Jacky Cheung are the brothers. The women are Dodo Cheng, Fung Bo-Bo, and Fennie Yuen. I won’t bother with the plot. They all want each other, but obstacles arise that make things difficult. In ninety minutes, it’ll all be solved.

Besides the presence of Chow Yun-Fat, there’s also the surprising Cherie Chung, who plays the “Beauty of the Department Store.” Chow proves that he can do it all - his manic energy is actually quite amusing. Too bad the movie is run of the mill HK New Year fluff. Director To and producer Wong serve up average hijinks with more than a few good laughs thrown in. The film ends with a huge Cantonese Opera sequence. Loads of fun for undemanding audiences, this flick ranks up there with All’s Well, Ends Well ‘97. See it if you dig that stuff. (Kozo 1999)

image courtesy of Universe Laser & Video Co., Ltd.