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Review
by Kozo: |
If you've looked forward to a new McDull movie (and
I know I have), then you're about to get half - or maybe
less - of your wish. The animated, low-IQ pig partially
returns for the 2006 Lunar New Year release McDull,
The Alumni. Produced by Peter Chan's Applause Pictures,
McDull, The Alumni features all-new animation
of McDull and his Springfield Kindergarten brethren
(including cousin McMug, turtle Fai, cat Darby, cow
May, etc.), but they're only featured in interspersed
vignettes that amount to possibly 25% of the entire
picture. The rest of the film is live-action, and made
up of over 40 Hong Kong (and some non-Hong Kong) entertainment
"names", including such heavy hitters as Ronald
Cheng, Kelly Chen, Sandra Ng, Eric Tsang, Anthony Wong,
and even cinematographer Christopher Doyle.
A sort of "what will
I be when I grow up" satire, McDull, The Alumni hits its stride early as we witness the animated barnyard
tykes talking about their future goals. Each aspires
to be a "pillar" of society, but these pillars
include such hallowed jobs as candy salesperson, BBQ
butcher, chicken feet de-boner, plus more staples of
urban Hong Kong living. Chief among these occupations
is the office lady (OL), which McDull desires to become
because it doesn't require wearing any pants. Flash-forward
to adulthood, and three office ladies (played by Kelly
Chen, Josie Ho, and Zhou Bichang, runner-up of China's
blockbuster "Super Girl" singing contest)
muddle through their uninspiring daily lives. Filled
with boring meetings, distressingly similar lunch choices,
and general office shenanigans, these vignettes of daily
life are silly but metaphorical. On one hand, they exist
as minor gags, but each also attempts to reveal something
about contemporary urban Hong Kong life.
That sort of satire is easily
the heart of the entire McDull film franchise. Though
the cute character designs seem kid-oriented, the animated
precursors to Alumni found rich material in their
metaphorical journey through changing Hong Kong, and
succeeded at conveying Hong Kong's unique and sometimes
absurd characteristics better than any films in recent
memory. The combo of 2-D and 3-D animation allowed for
flights of lyrical fancy, plus universal observations
on the depressing and wondrously pathetic realities
of modern life - or, to be specific, modern Hong Kong
life. My Life as McDull and McDull, Prince
de la Bun didn't make much sense, but they were
imaginative films that succeeded on multiple levels,
revealing facets of Hong Kong-specific culture while
confusing, charming, and ultimately touching the audience.
One wishes live-action Hong Kong movies could be as
good.
Actually, some live-action
Hong Kong movies are as good as the animated McDull
films. Unfortunately, McDull, The Alumni isn't
one of them. The film does accomplish some of the same
stuff as its predecessors, finding moments of amusing
weirdness in mundane and lowbrow stuff like eating meals
or a person's bowel movements. Plenty of screentime
is devoted to Hong Kong's local restaurant culture,
where BBQ pork and combinations of [insert ingredient
here] over rice are the daily staple. A freshly-minted
BBQ butcher (Isabella Leong) joins her new boss (Christopher
Doyle) in a musical number about the existence of soy-based
meat substitute (called VBQ in the subtitles), while
an orchestra musician (Ronald Cheng, in one of three
roles) finds time during a rehearsal to chow down on
Chinese takeout. Cheng also plays a harried office worker
who suffers from brain damage and wanders aimlessly
into sometimes the wrong workplaces. Some of the material
finds a kind of tragic, pathetic poignancy (the monotonous
plight of Cheng's office worker will not be lost on
anyone who works a 9 to 5 job), but other stuff just
exists as minor, disconnected gags.
The big connector is supposed
to be Springfield Kindergarten. The framing story of McDull, The Alumni is a hostage crisis at an
office building, where everyone - including the criminals
- are graduates of Springfield Kindergarten. The connection
has its uses (its implied that some characters may be
grown-up variations of the McDull menagerie), but the
device never becomes anything more than an amusing contrivance.
Like the other McDull films, Alumni starts and
stops, sometimes connecting with the audience and sometimes
not. However, unlike the previous films, Alumni can't find a defining metaphor behind its disconnected
vignettes. It's definitely about Hong Kong and its ever-resilient
people, but its connection to the audience isn't so
strong. Director Samson Chiu also directed the Golden
Chicken movies, which found poignancy through its
actors and an affectionate look at recent Hong Kong
history. Alumni manages similar emotions, but
without a central character to lean on, the film's uneven
nature eventually becomes too much.
There's still stuff to
enjoy in McDull, The Alumni, especially if one
is familiar with Hong Kong. Alumni's Hong Kong-specific
satire is amusing, if not exceptionally sharp, plus
there are plenty of stars to gawk at. There's literally
a star a second here, and when there isn't, you get
the long-missed sight of the animated McDull and pals,
talking about eating, crapping, and their still-gestating
dreams of adulthood. Too bad there's not enough of them.
It's hard to define what doesn't work about Alumni,
but more animated sequences would have been a big plus.
Somehow, it's easier to take attempted universal metaphor
when watching a bunch of animated barnyard critters;
live-action actors are simply not as cuddly or innately
identifiable as an innocent and slowwitted little pig. McDull, The Alumni does amuse, but when the
credits roll, no strong emotions seem to be present.
The film is simply not as good as its predecessors,
though given their barely coherent nature, it's hard
to argue that the earlier McDull films really accomplished
that much more. But they sure seemed to. (Kozo 2006) |
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