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Review
by Kozo: |
In their fifth collaboration since 2000, Johnnie To
and Sammi Cheng show some signs of tiring. Their previous
commercial hits were funny and enjoyable, but also possessed
some surprisingly affecting emotions beneath the mugging
and pratfalls. Love For All Seasons stacks up
pretty well when compared to the usual star-filled Lunar
New Year nonsense, and is easily better than its direct
competitor, My Lucky Star. But when compared
to Needing You, Love on a Diet or even
My Left Eye Sees Ghosts, this latest effort falls
woefully short.
Louis Koo is Tiger, Hong
Kong's most notorious playboy. His shenanigans have
caused many a broken heart, as can be evidenced by the
film's over-the-top opening sequence where numerous
women—including the police negotiator, officer-in-charge
and the fire chief—threaten to jump off the building
due to his philandering. Fittingly, his activities have
also left him with some serious health issues, which
have left him plugged up in the restroom and generally
grouchy, to boot. He ends up seeking help from the Omei
Clan, an all-female martial arts school located in the
Mainland. There, he meets May (Sammi Cheng), the temporary
headmistress of the school, who sets about curing him
through wacky Eastern medical means. She also spends
a good deal of time doling out discomfort and sly payback
for Tiger's womanizing ways. The Omei Clan may be a
legitimate martial arts school, but apparently they
aren't above a little mischief themselves.
Unfortunately, Omei has
its own share of problems. Their previous headmistress
(Lee Bing-Bing) returns after being driven mad due to
rejection by a male. She resolves to kill all of Omei
and then herself unless May can best her in a one-on-one
duel. To do so, May needs to learn the "Broken
Heart" stance, which can only be obtained if May
actually experiences a broken heart herself. She travels
to Hong Kong and searches out Tiger, because he seems
to be the only one that can help her. He resolves to
do so because after all, May was his "savior."
Still, she has rules: no kissing, hugging or sleeping
together. You'd think genuine rejection would be impossible
without the above, but Tiger views this as a true challenge
for his refined lothario ways. And, as you'd expect
from a fluffy Lunar New Year flick, love blossoms along
the way.
Or so we're supposed to
believe. The setup for this is Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai's
most strained since 2000's Help!!!, and while Love For All Seasons isn't as egregiously frenetic
as that film, it does have its share of alienating factors.
For one thing, the acting and direction are cartoony
to distraction. My Left Eye Sees Ghosts possessed
the same eager-to-please wackiness that plagues this
film, but its strong characters and hidden emotions
made it a genuinely enjoyable flick.
Love For All Seasons attempts the same sort of hidden emotions with the character
of Tiger, who's supposed to be helping May by breaking
her heart. Is he doing it because he really cares for
her? Or does he desire payback for all the crappy things
she did to him while he was on the mend? It would have
been smart for the filmmakers to make the situations
a tad more opaque, but as it is Tiger swings between
"false" wooing and obnoxious insulting of
May—while never letting us forget that he actually
likes her too. The contrast makes for the occasional
good moment (such as when Tiger finally kicks May out),
but the constant flip-flopping grows tiresome and repetitive.
Even more repetitive is
Sammi Cheng's performance, which is trademark silly
and winning, but also rather old hat by now. May is
delightfully virginal and amusingly animated, but she
lacks the hidden depths that Cheng managed to bring
to her characters in Needing You and My Left
Eye Sees Ghosts. She still fares better than Koo,
who's a fun comic actor, but also a rather undisciplined
one. It's great that he can make fun of himself in ways
that the Aaron Kwok/Leon Lai types cannot, but his hyperactive
mugging can be overbearing. He also might want to have
his tanning bed checked; his trademark perma-tan seems
to have gone from lightly roasted to burnt.
Johnnie To does manage
a few surprising emotional moments, and the zippy pace
and ultra-light tone make this suitable Lunar New Year
fare. Still, one has to wonder if that's enough anymore.
After Hong Kong's stellar Christmas box office, it might
be smart to put a rein on the silly quickies that have
defined Hong Kong Cinema for too long. Even though there's
some amusing creativity here, no amount of media-massaging
can mask what a film like this is: crap. This isn't
a knock on Johnnie To, who's essentially giving the
audience the pre-packaged commercial fare that they've
supported since 2000, but his iron directorial hand
has started to lose its way. We can forgive him—and
by extension, Sammi Cheng—for this less-than-inspired
effort as both have earned the right to occasionally
flounder. However, if this keeps up, our tolerance level
may start to decline. (Kozo 2003) |
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