|
Review
by Kozo: |
When was the last time Hong Kong Cinema made a movie
for kids? It's been years since those excreble "Shaolin
Popey" films and nowadays, what passes for kiddie
fare is anything starring the Twins. Enter the 2006
release Superkid, which seems like an obvious
kid flick because it actually stars two kids. Daichi
Harashima of Lost in Time is the eponymous Superkid;
he plays Si Zhe, a super genius tyke who became so thanks
to years of eating "Super Baby", a miracle
children's food that may not be FDA-approved. Plenty
of adults protest the chemically-enhanced benefits of
Super Baby, but that won't stop Super Baby president
Chloe (Crystal Tin, channeling Glenn Close from 101
Dalmatians) from trying to make a big deal with
a US corporation to get Super Baby distributed in Walmarts
worldwide. With her exagerrated hairdo and comic attire,
Chloe is obviously a "bad" adult. That's Lesson
#1 for the kids.
Lesson #2 is that even
the good adults lie. Si Zhe decides to take a break
from being a super genius, and escapes the Super Baby
headquarters for a non-sanctioned furlough. Without
a place to stay, he goes to meet his net friend Xin
Tong, played by Cho Jeong-Eun. Cho played the young
Lee Young-Ae in the megahit Korean drama Dae Jang
Geum, meaning that Cho is obviously dubbed. It doesn't
matter, because Daichi Harashima is dubbed too - even
though he knows Cantonese. The likely reason that the
kids are dubbed is because multiple takes with kid actors
is probably an expense that your typical Hong Kong production
cannot afford. What bearing this has on the overall
film: not much at all. The kids still charm even though
they're dubbed, though their acting is far from subtle.
But again, they're kids, and Superkid is just
a title. All things considered, both Harashima and Cho
do a decent job.
Back to the lesson. Xin
Tong lives with her single parent dad, Tian Ji (Gordon
Lam), who treats her so lovingly that the two are constant
competitors in the "One Parent Happy Family"
contest. It's just a facade though; the father-daughter
team keep more secrets from one another than a married
couple. Chief among these deceptions is the truth about
Xin Tong's mom. Xin Tong works at being good so that
she can finally get a chance to meet her mom, but Tian
Ji may not be telilng the whole story about his ex-wife's
whereabouts. Meanwhile, Si Zhe treats his stay with
the family as kind of a personal experiment, meaning
he basically grouses and insults the pair using his
intelligence and obviously undeveloped social skills.
Ultimately Chloe and her goons come chasing after Si
Zhe, but not before Tian Ji and Xin Tong have a minor
falling out over their dishonest relationship and Si
Zhe begins to pout incessantly about non-super people.
After extended exposure to this one-parent family, Si
Zhe becomes bitter, anti-social, and generally annoyed
about how regular humans are not picture-perfect. His
negativity is due for some sort of readjustment, but
will it be before he gets killed?
Yes, Si Zhe could get
killed. Apparently, he needs the Super Baby formula
or he'll turn a sickly ashen grey and get carted off
to Superkid heaven. Or, he may fall prey to the omnipresent
hypodermic needles of Super Baby Corp., who shoot up
the kids assembly line-style to make them "super".
They also use needles to help dispose of any "faulty"
kids, a detail which is sure to leave some younger viewers
with scarred psyches. This scandalous info sounds like
it should be the part of some somber whistle blower
film, but Superkid is largely light stuff, with
slapstick action and kid-friendly emotions. The lessons
learned are your standard afterschool special variety,
including "people make mistakes", "don't
rat on your friends", and "always tell the
truth." There are also some questionably happy
lessons, including "even parents will betray their
kids", and "violence is okay as long as it
happens to bad people". Factor in too many scenes
of kids getting threatened with hypodermic needles,
and you may ask yourself: are these really things that
kids should see?
Then again, if you're
reading this you're probably not a kid, in which case Superkid can entertain in the same way the
Home Alone movies do, though with less comedy, violence,
and syrupy stuff. Again, some of the stuff presented
does not seem very kid-friendly. The idea of kids as
lab rats is not very wholesome, plus there's even a
reference in the subtitles to the notorious (and banned
in several countries) 1988 gorefest Men Behind the
Sun! Director Cha Yuen-Yee (who once did the very
good Once Upon a Time in Triad Society movies)
occasionally portrays things in an oddly dark manner,
and the film manages to subvert many of its expectations - but don't worry, the bad guys do get theirs. All
told, Superkid is really a mixed bag, but as
it surpasses its kiddie flick expectations we'll give
it a thumbs up. The situations do prove occasionally
moving, and the kids aren't annoying - at least, most
of the time they aren't. For any film starring two kids,
that's already a recommendation. (Kozo 2006) |
|
