All's Well, Ends Well (1992)



	All's Well, Ends Well		Return to Review Archive - A
	Year:	1992	Stephen Chow and Maggie Cheung
	Director:	Clifton Ko Chi-Sum
	Producer:	Raymond Wong Bak-Ming
	Cast:	Stephen Chow Sing-Chi, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing, Sandra Ng Kwun-Yu, Raymond Wong Bak-Ming, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Kwan Hoi-San, Money Lo Man-Yi, Sheila Chan Suk-Lan, Loletta Lee Lai-Chun, Tommy Wong Kwong-Leung
	The Skinny:	Your standard Lunar New Year wackiness which gets a lift from the inspired pairing of Stephen Chow and Maggie Cheung.
	Review by Kozo:	Raymond Wong produced this typical Lunar New Year comedy, which features plenty of bad gags, movie parodies and assorted silliness. However, this movie also features an ace cast, including the likes of Maggie Chueng, Leslie Cheung and Stephen Chow. Chow plays Foon, a womanizing radio DJ who gets involved with wacky babe Holli-yok (Maggie Cheung) who’s obsessed with American movies. They wander around doing movie parodies until she catches him with another woman and he gets brain damage. Meanwhile, Foon’s brother (Leslie Cheung) is an effeminate floral arranger who engages in a gender-bending battle of the sexes with his cousin, the butch Teresa Mo. The last coupling features Sandra Ng as a frumpy housewife who undergoes an ugly duckling transformation to spite her husband, third brother Raymond Wong. Then there's hijinks. To properly evaluate the wackiness that director Clifton Ko has conjured up here would be impossible. To say that this movie is crap would be understandable, but it's probably some of the funniest crap around. Really, let's dissect why people see movies like this. It's the Lunar New Year, they're in a good mood, so they all go to the movies. At the movies, they're treated to many big stars acting like complete loons for ninety-some minutes. At that point, all we can ask is the stars be good stars and the lunacy somewhat funny. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Well it works here, and we can give most of the credit to people like Stephen Chow and Maggie Cheung, who have the most enjoyable pairing here. The gags can be tired and the comedy sophomoric, but the two are such engaging performers that we can forgive them the endless parade of movie parodies, from Pretty Woman to Ghost to Terminator 2 to Once Upon a Time in China. We can also forgive the presence of Raymond Wong, who insists that he appear in these films alongside real actors (Sorry, Raymond!). Leslie Cheung and Teresa Mo are amusing, and Sandra Ng turns in another fun comedic performance. This isn't a standout film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's got enough fun stuff among all the flotsam and jetsam to make it a diverting ninety minutes. It really depends on how good the performers are. And here, they're pretty good. (Kozo 1995/1997)
	Availability:	DVD (Hong Kong) Region 0 NTSC Widesight Entertainment Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks English and Chinese Subtitles

		image courtesy of Mei Ah Laser Disc Co., Ltd.
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