|
Review
by Kozo: |
EEG
singer Joey Yung goes for romantic lead stardom in
the wishfully-titled The Attractive One. Yung
plays Yammie, a goofy dog groomer who longs for her
first love Tim (Jia Zong-Chao, credited in Men
Suddenly in Black as Spirit Blue), who once saved
her life after she fell into a pool. Since then, she's
yearned for his embrace, but being a goofy romantic
lead, she has a fatal flaw. Here it is: a hormonal
imbalance that sometimes leaves her sporting a male
mustache. Oookay. In the meantime, Yammie starts up
a business relationship with uncouth restaurant owner
Hugo (Lau Ching-Wan), but after a couple of minutes
it's clear that Hugo may find her attractive. She
seemingly doesn't return the affection, and when Tim
shows up again, she can suddenly achieve her love
fantasies. Meanwhile, Hugo pines and pouts, and the
audience gets restless.
Immediately, The
Attractive One has an issue: it's interminable.
The film seems promising at first thanks to the absence
of voiceover, a device that appears in four out of
every five Hong Kong romantic comedies ever made.
However, writer-director Matt Chow doesn't compensate
for a lack of tell-all voiceover with anything resembling
cinematic emotions. Hugo and Yammie meet under your
typical comedy-shtick circumstances, and the two grow
close when she turns to him for help finding Tim.
You see, she spies him across the road eating a sandwich,
so she needs Hugo's dog to track down Tim using the
mustard-stained handkerchief he dropped. In the process,
Hugo falls for her. Sounds interesting, right? Wrong.
Unfortunately, all of Hugo's emotions are developed
using lovelorn glances at her reappearing/disappearing
male mustache. Meanwhile, Yammie rambles on and on
about her aspirations, and her desire to meet Tim
again. While supposedly enlightening, Yammie's ramblings
do little more than bore.
Fortunately, there's
a second romantic subplot. Unfortunately, it's worse
than the first one. Chapman To (who still appears
in too many movies) plays Hugo's assistant and BBQ
chef Butt, who develops a thing for shopping plaza/market
manager YY (EEG singer Yumiko Cheng, who deserves
better than this). The bespectacled Butt is a self-styled
philosopher of love, and an aspiring—though questionably
talented—artist to boot. After seeing YY chase
after some kids with an embarrassing display of popstar-type
gyrations, Butt decides she must become a dancer,
and is willing to sell his art to help her achieve
that goal. She only wants money, which likely bothers
him. It's hard to tell because To plays the character
with a smarmy wannabe charm that could rank as the
year's most annoying performance. Butt also gets to
comment on Hugo's ongoing pursuit of Yammie, though
only one or two laughs occur. Note to Chapman To:
take a break.
If it's not already
apparent, then here's the skinny: The Attractive
One is a bad movie made even more disappointing
by who's starring in it. Lau Ching-Wan has long been
one of Hong Kong's most talented and dependable actors,
but his performance here is borderline bothersome.
True, the character is supposed to be a rude dope
who can't communicate well, but the twists and turns
provided by the script only make him seem inconsistent.
Joey Yung fares even worse since her character is
uninteresting and annoyingly wishy-washy. Sometimes
Yammie seems to care for Hugo, and them sometimes
not. It ultimately requires Hugo's plot device mom
(Lee Fung) to delve into these kids' hearts, but the
development of that payoff doesn't make their eventual
pairing interesting or even desirable. The only thing
the characters have going for them is the actors playing
them—which isn't enough. When you consider that
the performances are either sub-par (Lau Ching-Wan),
unconvincing (Joey Yung), or annoying (Chapman To),
The Attractive One appears to have little going
for it.
Director Matt Chow's
last film was Itchy Heart, an unspectacular
but enjoyable romantic comedy about a man experiencing
a mid-life crisis. Lau Ching-Wan also starred, and
that collaboration with Chow promised at least decent
expectations for The Attractive One. Sadly,
those expectations are soundly trashed by whatever
questionable pseudo-creativity Chow musters for The
Attractive One. This movie is bewildering and
unaffecting, such that whatever laughs it elicits
seem more unusual than welcome. Chow uses grand demonstrations
of existential romance to affect, but creates such
little interest that suspension of disbelief is never
created. It's hard to get involved in a film when
the characters don't seem worth caring about, and
that's just what happens here. The best thing about The Attractive One may be a cameo by the overexposed
Charlene Choi, who shows up as the driver of the "Love
Taxi". It's a cheap, cloying bit that nonetheless
amuses because it's brief and perfectly suited for
the chipmunk-cheeked EEG employee. It's also a moment
unworthy of talking about, which is where the ultimate
irony occurs. If a film's main talking point is a
single cameo, then the rest of the film can't be that
good. The Attractive One isn't. (Kozo 2004) |
|
