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Review
by Kozo: |
Don't let the crappy knockoff English title fool you
- The China's Next Top Princess is not a comedy.
It does possess its funny parts, but it's more of a
drama than a comedy. Sadly, that drama is of the ultra-light,
afterschool special variety, which is odd given the
fact that the film is more Dallas-in-the-Palace
than a costume version of Beverly Hills 90210.
To use Chinese references, The China's Next Top Princess
is like a watered down cross between Lover of the
Last Empress and Raise the Red Lantern. It's
also much crappier, and doesn't feature Gong Li or even
her modern knockoff Zhang Ziyi. But fans of the Hong
Kong edition of Maxim Magazine needn't fret: this movie
has 2R.
Pearl (Race Wong) and
Yuen-Yang (Rosanne Wong) are two wannabe princesses
who answer an Imperial edict to report to the palace
and take part in a princess competition. Basically,
the winner gets to be a new court lady and bedmate for
the Emperor (Edwin Siu). The losers become servants
at the palace, and must wait upon their competitor until
the end of time. Luckily, the two girls came from the
same village, so they become instant pals. Sadly, that
friendship is threatened with destruction by the winner-takes-all
competition between the potential princesses. Their
main competitors include your standard types, including
bitchy rich girl Isabel Chan, who will engage in chicanery
to better her chances. But there's an even tougher,
more dangerous player here: Pearl. Once Pearl catches
on to the (dirty) rules of the game, not even Yuen-Yang
may be safe from her scheming.
If you choose not to see this
movie, nobody will ever blame you for it. While better
than one might expect, The China's Next Top Princess is still too lightweight to register as a serious film
- which is weird, because the subject matter is ripe
for your expected commentary about femme vs. femme scheming
in Ancient Chinese society. Specifically, this tale
of corrupt cute girls could have meant more than two
sisters playing strangers-turned-friends who let some
dopey Emperor get in the way of their magical friendship.
Sadly, the film doesn't accomplish more than that, and
seems content to go about its could-be sordid tale in
a light and blithely charming fashion. The result can
be mindlessly pleasing, like flipping through an issue
of Yes! and looking at the pictures. The girls
are largely cute, and Race Wong continues her streak
of capable, better-than-average acting jobs in movies
that nobody ever sees. Rosanne Wong is fetching as the
pure-hearted one of the pair, and puts on a knees-weakening
shy girl act that's a fine counterpoint to her tougher-seeming
- and arguably more attractive - sister. We're easy
to please over here.
Debating the acting and/or
photogenic talents of 2R doesn't qualify as hard-edged
film criticism, but The China's Next Top Princess
doesn't inspire anything beyond a dismissive "That's
nice." This is not a film worth mentioning, and
its eventual relegation to the bargain DVD bin is not
a fate worth wringing your hands over. If anything,
we should just be glad that director Steve Cheng managed
to make another movie after the near-criminal Where's
Mama's Boy, and exec-producer/writer Lee Lik-Chee
actually still works post-Stephen Chow. One would hope
the actual film possessed more than a passing resemblance
to substantial filmmaking, but that might be asking
too much. In today's Hong Kong Cinema world, we should
just be glad that a movie doesn't all-out suck. The
China's Next Top Princess doesn't all-out suck.
However, calling it a good film would be a mistake too.
(Kozo 2006) |
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