Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, Gigi Leung Wing-Kei, Chapman To Man-Chat, Xie Na, Stanley Fung Shui-Fan, Bau Hei-Jing, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Sandra Ng Kwun-Yu, Lin Maoke, Michelle Hu, Guo Degang, Liu Yiwei, Gong Xinliang, Natalie Meng Yao, Wen Chao, Tin Kai-Man, Lam Chi-Chung, Fung Min-Hun, Lee Kin-Yan, Jacqueline Chong Si-Man, Liu Yan

Wong Jing aims squarely at the China market with Marrying Mr, Perfect and the results are as tepid as you’d expect. A cheap and sloppy romantic comedy of which Wong claims writer-producer-director credit, the film stars Ronald Cheng as Baby Koo, a Hong Kong playboy billionaire who comes into ownership of mainland brokerage film D.O.G. after it’s bought up by his lackey Whizkid Sing (Wen Chao, again aping Stephen Chow). After firing Whizkid with prejudice, Sing heads to D.O.G. to check out his new acquisition, but fears for his life when he spies a burly hitman. Thinking Whizkid Sing is calling for his death, Baby Koo has his best bud Ryan (Chapman To) take his identity while he pretends to be his own bodyguard. Can Baby Koo stay alive while handling his new company in a responsible, meaningful manner?

Hardly. Apparently, owning a company merely gives you license to engage in all sorts of questionable moral activity, including sexual favors (Ryan has liaisons with some buxom staff) and blackmail (Baby Koo takes money from a couple of employees when he catches them making out on the roof). This being a SARFT-approved comedy, most corruption is implied or offscreen, though the blackmail part is pretty obvious. I guess if you’re the owner of a company, it’s okay to take money from your rule-breaking staff, even when you’re abusing your power by pretending not to be the owner of your company and making your friend do it instead. Were this a responsible film, one would expect the hitman plotline to come to the fore and Baby Koo to get some sort of comeuppance for his crappy ways. But this is a shallow commercial comedy, so you can forget that happening.

Marrying Mr. Perfect is a sanitized version of Wong Jing’s old Crazy Companies formula, i.e., a screwball office comedy without the risqué jokes or corrupt baddies. Everything here is recycled but toned down to the boring basics. Baby Koo’s identity switcheroo never results in a major payoff, as the whole thing turns into familiar romcom. D.O.G. employee and single sweetheart Winnie (Gigi Leung) is dumped publicly and involved in minor rivalries with her bitchy office colleagues. Somehow she connects with Baby Koo and the two fall in love, meaning now Baby Koo must tell her the truth that he’s super-rich and wants to marry her. Conveniently, she hates people who lie to her, so she'll reject a billionaire. Also, Ryan falls in love with Winnie’s colleague Nikki (Xie Na), leading to double the recycled romcom tricks. If you’ve fallen asleep, join the club.

Marrying Mr. Perfect isn’t completely terrible, but that’s only because expectations for co-produced Hong Kong filmmaking couldn’t be lower. As Wong Jing is a smart businessman and China is a place where budgets are bigger, the film is loaded with familiar faces in small, unimportant roles. Eric Tsang and Sandra Ng play Gigi Leung’s brother and sister-in-law, while Stanley Fung is Ronald Cheng’s uncle and Bau Hei-Jing is his mom. Stephen Chow luminaries Fung Min-Hun, Lam Tze-Chung and Tin Kai-Man appear for about three minutes, while Lee Kin-Yan again crossdresses for even more recycled Chow gags. “Jing girls” new and old appear, and mainland personalities get their time too. Art direction is a step up from similar Hong Kong fare, meaning a party scene looks like a real party, plus a decent amount of extras show up for crowd scenes. These are good points, mind you.

There’s product placement too, most prominently for online retailer Junmei.com, whose pink shipping boxes get ample screentime. Also, given the many times characters answer or check out their iPhones, the film doubles as a commercial for Apple – you know, like nearly every other film made nowadays. Very little else can be said about Marrying Mr. Perfect. A few gags do amuse, with unintentional laughs also a bonus. One of D.O.G.’s employees in an inept Caucasian actor, and the subtitles include sparklers like “You are such a buzzkill. You have hired someone to kill me.” This is a cable TV fodder and nothing more, so if it shows up and you’re bored, be our guest and check it out. Otherwise, you know the drill: you own a better DVD, a better book and also a better iPhone app. Your time can be better spent there. (Kozo 2012)