Ninety minutes of interminable stillness
permeates this supposed comedy from two guys who should have
known better. Director Cheung Chi-Sing has given us lots of
uneven filmmaking in the past, but at least he's shown care
for his material. And Dante Lam is one of Hong Kong's most
promising directors. With that under their belts, you have
to wonder why U-Man turned out just as bad as it did.
Anthony Wong stars as Jesus, a really
weird cop who gets teamed with "God of Undercover"
Ken (Sam Lee). The two are involved in a botched sting on
thief Skinny (Lam Suet) and the money gets lost. To find it,
they go undercover at a local girls school. Jesus pretends
to be Father Gum, a Catholic priest. And Ken pretends to be
May, a crippled girl who's equally homely. Their
targets are Miss Cool (model Rachel Fu) and Candy (adorable
Gillian Chung of the girl group Twins), but how they single
these women out is kind of a mystery. As is everything else
that occurs onscreen.
What Cheung Chi-Sing (who also wrote
the script) was thinking when he made this film would be a
damn fine movie in itself. After the opening comedy sequence
(featuring Sam Lee dressed up like Osama Bin Laden), the film
settles down into a Fight Back to School/Young Policemen
in Love clone. Except it isn't. Is this film supposed
to be a cop comedy or a coming-of-age story? What's with the
lesbian subplots? Is this Memento Mori? And why is
Anthony Wong's acting so incredibly poor? What was going on
with all the giggling between Ken and Jesus? Were they deliberately
trying to mimic Beavis and Butthead? And why do multiple
girls fall for May, who's actually Sam Lee in drag? This means
that not only were they lesbian, but they actually find Sam
Lee as a crippled girl attractive. Oh, what were they thinking?
It's really impossible to start talking
about what's wrong with this movie. I could go on and on,
but I'll narrow it down to one singular problem: U-Man is boring as all hell. Most of the time you wonder where they're
going with this. The frustration while watching this movie
can become tangible. You can almost imagine frustration sitting
next to you, taunting you. It's sad that so many Hong Kong
film awards were behind this (I count four among the principals),
and it's mystifying that so much proven talent could churn
out such an incredible turkey. The U-Man experience
comes down to this: it's not whether or not the film is good,
it's whether or not you'll be able to finish it. (Kozo 2002) |
