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Review
by Kozo: |
Wong
Jing had something to do with Super Fans -
his Jing's Productions company gets a screen credit
- but we won't be blaming the film's resulting lack
of quality on him. We won't even blame the film on
director Eric Kot, though he should obviously shoulder
some of the responsiblity. And blaming the mess that
is Super Fans on Charlene Choi would be wrong
because A) it'd earn us the ire of her rabid fan base,
and B) she's actually okay in the movie. No, we have
a new candidate for scapegoat here: Neway, one of
Hong Kong's leading karaoke chains, who've decided
to throw their hat into the cinema production ring
with Super Fans. We're talking about a company
whose bread and butter is getting people to sing along
to innocuous, manufactured pop songs. A company like
Neway probably wants a safe motion picture. With Super
Fans, they got safe. They also got bad.
Taller Twin Charlene Choi
stars as Sussie, a toothy Hong Kong girl who's a mega
fan of dancer/singer Sum Lee (a smarmy Sammy). She's
such a super supporter of Sum that she'll even disguise
herself to sic cockroaches on rival singer Yee (TVB
star Kevin Cheng) during a shopping mall concert.
Yee is competing with Sum for the "Kowloon Award",
a fancy name for a fake award meant to represent one
of the trillion awards given to pop stars on a yearly
basis. Through a series of wacky circumstances, Sussie
is able to join Sum's team as an assistant, meaning
she can gaze at her number one idol all the time.
However, as you'd expect, Sum is a complete bastard.
He's a preening, egotistical star who isn't above
cheating to come out on top. Sum is also a massive
horndog; he has his way with his manager and even
a rival female popstar. One day, when Sussie is left
alone with Sum, the expected happens. You know what
we mean: he's horny, she's super-cute, plus she idolizes
the guy. Wouldn't you expect Sum to try to have his
way with Sussie? And wouldn't you expect a rabid groupie
like Sussie to give in?
Sorry, that might happen
in a more edgy or realistic motion picture, which
Super Fans most definitely is not. Sussie manages
to get away from Sum's annoying embrace and swears
never to be a fan again, which could qualify as a
plot twist if the film actually had a real plot. Not
surprisingly, the paper-thin story that comprises Super Fans is hackneyed and - there's that
word again - safe. Super Fans is a complete
snoozer of a movie, possessing a storyline that's
only interesting if you close your eyes and imagine
another film entirely. Nothing challenging occurs
in the film; bad guys act like jerks and get their
comeuppance, and good guys get rewarded for their
decency and kindness. Sum is a creep who deserves
to be smacked around, while rival Yee is a victimized
sweetheart, whose only detriment is that he's kind
of boring. Sussie eventually befriends Yee in an entirely
unrealistic manner. In order to make amends, she delivers
his favorite dessert to his flat, whereupon he lets
her in and they bond over tasty Hong Kong desserts.
Did you get that? She walks into his building and
is immediately invited into his home. Wow. In the
world of Super Fans, a screaming fan can simply
walk up to a star and become their instant buddy.
Besides being a comedy, Super Fans is apparently
a fantasy too.
A fantasy may be what director
Eric Kot had in mind, because Super Fans is
the furthest from reality one can get. Besides fantastic
notions like giving fans instant access to pop stars,
there's also the issue of the film's set pieces, which
are played in such a broad, unrealistic manner that
it seems Eric Kot doesn't give a crap about them.
Early in the film, there's an incident at a shopping
mall that's shot in fake slow motion (the actors pretend
they're moving slowly, instead of the filmmakers overcranking
the film), and even ends in a couple of comic and
completely glossed over deaths. There's also a lame
fight scene that's startling in its sarcastic irony.
These scenes are supposedly integral to the plot,
but Eric Kot seems uninterested in the film's story,
and employs sarcastic gimmicks just to get those scenes
overwith. Kot seems more concerned with the film's
central love story, between Sussie and longtime friend
Shui (Leo Koo), who dotes on her unconditionally despite
her disturbing fan-mania. Director Kot actually manages
to wring some familiar emotion out of these scenes.
Leo Koo makes a decent lovelorn dope, and Charlene
Choi manages to project some genuine-seeming emotion
beneath the omnipresent spunk and cuteness. There's
some recognizable, and even welcome emotion on display
in Choi and Koo's numerous scenes together.
However, the scenes between
Choi and Koo are also quite dull, leading to inevitable
boredom and the ultimate feeling that one could care
less if these two got together. Mix that with the
uninteresting popstar storyline and you have a film
that's as disposable, inconsequential and unnecessary
as could possibly be. Super Fans is manufactured
tripe, and whatever minor effort Eric Kot and company
inject into the proceedings isn't enough. A few throwaway
gags are amusing, and there's definitely ripe territory
here for satire. But nobody seems to want to do anything
besides play it safe; nothing in Super Fans offends, disturbs, challenges or affects. It's like
someone decided to make a film about a potentially
disturbing topic - extreme idol worship - and then
decided to neuter it completely, turning it into a
predictable and rather mundane romance with pretty
people in the leads. The kicker to all of this is
the fact that Super Fans was released around
the same time as the alarming Andy Lau fan brouhaha,
where one single girl's 16-year obsession with Andy
Lau resulted in her family's bankruptcy and ultimately
her father's suicide. Ouch. When compared to that
sobering reality, Super Fans is practically
insulting in its complete lack of edge. Asking the
film to channel some real-life harshness may be a
tad much, but the alternative - a film that's cloying
and utterly weightless - is hardly preferable. As
it is, Super Fans is simple, safe and completely
superfluous. (Kozo 2007) |
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