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Review
by Kozo: |
Andy
Lau makes his first 2005 appearance on Hong Kong movie
screens with Wait 'Til You're Older, and fans
should be happy. A variation on the Big and
13 Going on 30 formula, Wait 'Til You're
Older casts Lau as Kwong, the aged version of
a young boy played by Sit Lap-Yin. Kwong wishes to
escape the tyranny of his stepmother Min (Karen Mok),
who was reportedly engaged in an affair with his father
Man (Felix Wong) before the two married. Kwong's mother
(Lee Bing-Bing) committed suicide in protest of the
affair, meaning Kwong has a raging grudge against
both Man and Min, and good cause for wanting emancipation
from his morally-dubious guardians. Thanks to a miracle
growth formula/plot device developed by a local quack
(director Feng Xiaogang in a cameo), Kwong gets his
instant aging wish. Is the life of an adult all its
cracked up to be?
Directed by Teddy Chan
(Downtown Torpedoes), Wait 'Til You're Older is an effective, though still somewhat labored effort
that leans heavily on Andy Lau as its lead actor.
Lau does a fine job - when he isn't upstaged by the
sometimes excellent and sometimes egregious makeup
and visual effects - and manages to translate the
younger Kwong's mouthy, rebellious attitude into adulthood.
For the first hour, the film largely plays as a childhood
fantasy, i.e. what would you do if you were older
and free of adult supervision? In Kwong's case, his
activities include playing a couple of mean-spirited
pranks on his stepmom, solving the problems of his
tubby friend Bear, or spending time with his sexy
teacher Miss Lee (Cherrie Ying). During many scenes,
Lau brings a playfulness and curiosity that's engaging.
That is, when it's not part of some larger plot-driven
need to deliver warm-and-fuzzy messages.
The problem: the need
to deliver messages occurs way too often in Wait
'Til You're Older. Kwong spends time as an adult
interacting with all the people he did as a kid, namely
his father and his teachers, but he does so in frequently
roundabout and manufactured ways. Kwong passes himself
off as his friend's older brother and proceeds to
ingratiate himself into his father's life, such that
he starts learning family secrets, plus gets the full
411 on his father's inner emotions. He also gets an
eyeful of complex adult relationships, as embodied
by Miss Lee and her back-up lover status to assistant-principal
Chow (Gordon Lam). Whether or not he learns from all
the meetings is unknown; what is known is other characters
frequently spill their guts in front of Kwong. The
difficulties of adult life are related to Kwong far
too much - and it's almost always verbally. In growing
older, Kwong should get to experience being an adult,
and not just listen to endless lectures about it.
Overt touchy-feeliness
in Hong Kong Cinema is nothing new. Indeed, many a
local film has been weighed down by too much exposition
about the inner workings of the modern Hong Kong citizen's
soul…or something like that. The difficulty with Wait
'Til You're Older is it features a largely light,
fantastic tone that dovetails quickly into some rather
serious domestic drama. The wild shifts in tone do
work plotwise, especially when it's revealed that
Kwong's instant aging experience is continuous, and
not just a one-time spurt. As revealed heavily by
the film's marketing, Kwong ages from youth to middle
age to his twilight years in an astonishingly fast
time. Such a physical shocker is bound to make some
characters face their mortality, and Kwong's first
true meeting with his father carries a particular
wallop (in more ways than one). But the dispensing
of aged wisdom isn't limited to just Kwong and his
family; everyone dispenses soul-baring wisdom
far too often in the film. Do people in Hong Kong
really receive this much sensitivity training?
This unbalanced storytelling
pretty much falls on screenwriters Susan Chan and
Cheung Chi-Kwong, who should do a little less telling
and a little more showing. Too many Hong Kong films
dispense exposition in dialogue and not in action,
and Wait 'Til You're Older is yet another example.
Gratefully, the film compensates with some finely-timed
comedy, entertaining situations, and effective performances
- especially from Karen Mok as sometimes unsympathetic-seeming
Min. Wait 'Til You're Older works best when
it's exploring Kwong's manchild experiences, and even
when it steers into melodrama it manages some touching
emotions.
Unfortunately, those emotions aren't doled
out sensitively, and are instead dropped on the audience
like a wet futon flung from the 41st floor of a Hong
Kong high rise. The emotional excess turns the film
from a touching tale into an all-out assault for us
to forgive, confess, and live each day to its fullest.
That may be too many lessons for a single film, much
less one that still has the gall to parody The
Matrix (a kitchen confrontation between Kwong
and Min is given the Trinity fly-kick treatment).
In retrospect, there's enough in Wait 'Til You're
Older to charm, entertain, and even affect. However,
the immediate reaction to the script's emotional surplus
may be too much, too quickly. (Kozo 2005) |
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