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Review
by Kozo: |
Are
Hong Kong drinking games really worthy of a full-length
feature film? Who the hell really knows, but they
made a movie about them anyway. Deal with it. Nothing
is Impossible is the gambling film-like tale of
a drinking game zero (Cherrie Ying) who graduates
to fists-flying hero. However, the fists in question
seldom land on someone else, and instead are used
to outsmart, redirect, or just plain annoy people.
Called "Speed Fists" in the subtitles (or
Cai Mui in Cantonese), these drinking games
require players to use hands, fingers, body movements,
and plenty of yelling to one-up their opponents. The
loser downs a pint or fifteen, while the winner gloats
and gets to insult the loser with all the snarky Cantonese
insults they can muster. Woohoo! Obviously, everyone's
competitive juices must be flowing after that description.
There'll be a sign up sheet later.
Trying to fool us into believing
that anyone would desire supremacy at Speed Fists
is a stretch, so the filmmakers hand us a plot instead.
Vivian Siu (Cherrie Ying) is a successful professional
tutor, who sells her lessons - as well as her photogenic
wares - to Hong Kong's in-need-of-education youth.
The background: in Hong Kong, professional tutors
have a strange form of celebrity that gets their Photoshopped
mugs splashed onto billboards and the sides of buses.
The practice is sometimes dubious, as some tutors
are more known for their physical qualities rather
than their ability to help kids make the grade. Nothing
is Impossible could have gone for some satire
on this subject, especially since Cherrie Ying is
photogenic enough to ensure heavy enrollment in such
pay-for-education courses. However, the film doesn't
go there, opting out of any satire for its wannabe
inspirational gambling film plotline.
But I digress. Back
to the plot: Vivian gets dragged into the world of
Speed Fists when she finds her boyfriend Jason (Andy
On) cavorting with the local Speed Fists champion
Mango (leggy Debbie Goh). After getting humiliated
by Mango in a game of 15-20 (the most common drinking
game), Vivian joins up with Mango's former partner
Turtle (Dayo Wong), proprietor of Turtle Castle bar,
and a former Speed Fists champ himself. Vivian wants
Turtle to train her into a Speed Fist expert in order
to show up Mango, but Turtle has plenty of issues
that get in the way, including a crappy ex-wife, a
wayward son, and mounting bills on Turtle Castle.
Vivian has zero issues initially, but because she's
so adamant about becoming a Speed Fists queen, she
takes up a second job in Turtle's bar, thereby risking
her regular job (they aren't too keen on one of their
tutors slinging drinks on the side), plus possibly
disappointing her father (Leung Ka-Yan). With the
next championship approaching, will Vivian become
skilled enough to take down Mango, win back her boyfriend,
and presumably keep her teaching job?
The answer to that last
question may be irrelevant, because in the process
of working at Turtle's bar, Vivian discovers the "joy"
of Speed Fists. Quantifying that joy is hard to do
without sounding silly, but basically, Vivian learns
to love the game. She becomes so absorbed in the world
of Speed Fists that it becomes her obsession. Before
long, she's throwing herself into the high-stakes
world of professional Speed Fists with every inch
of her body - including her soon-to-be-in-danger
liver. Yes, there are tough lessons that Vivian must
learn on the way to Speed Fist supremacy, including
how to deal with the stress of too much alcohol, as
well as the threat of public ridicule for dumping
a teaching job for a life of binge drinking in a navel-baring
waitress outfit. Cue expected message about how dropping
respectable jobs for irresponsible alcohol-imbibing
competitions is a poor career choice.
However, that message belongs
in another, less commercial film. Director Lam Wah-Cheun
once made the interesting, though thematically simplistic
Runaway Pistol, which chronicled the journey
of a used firearm in sometimes absurd fashion. Despite
its one-note lesson, Runaway Pistol contained
a genuine attempt at a social message. Here, there
is no social message, merely another variation on
the gambling film/martial arts parody that typifies
many works from Wong Jing. True to those genres, there
are varying levels of Speed Fist technique, sometimes
practiced by hidden masters in rural areas of Hong
Kong. Seeing Vivian meet and learn from these masters
can be amusing stuff, and there's even an odd fascination
in seeing the drinking games in action - though that
may be because they're so fast and furious that the
uninitiated are probably racking their brains trying
to decipher what these games are all about. Either
that, or they're marveling at the parade of Hong Kong
Cinema bit players, including some who haven't been
seen in years. And if those things don't prove interesting,
there's always Cherrie Ying's naked navel to gawk
at. There's something for everyone here.
What isn't here is a movie
necessarily worth recommending. Nothing is Impossible is a mix of standard commercial clichés and
parodies, including a perfunctory romance between
Dayo Wong and Cherrie Ying, plus the Top Gun-like
moment where a character feels like quitting because
their talent may have resulted in a fatality. Yes,
someone manages to kill someone through a drinking
game, which could actually be interesting if the film
weren't so throwaway. In the end, everyone comes together
for the big drinking competition, which manages to
solve personal, professional, financial, and possibly
even legal issues in a 20-minute marathon of fists-flying
Speed Fists games - which, amusingly enough, is covered
like the World Cup on every television in Hong Kong.
The ridiculousness of that is too huge to mention,
so it may be better just to sum things up this way: Nothing is Impossible is mildly amusing stuff
that warrants a skip from anyone expecting challenging,
affecting, or possibly even average-quality cinema.
It's not blindingly bad, but it's definitely unnecessary.
On the positive end, the
film does present another chance for Cherrie Ying
to expand on her comic repertoire. The Johnnie To
regular is a likable comedic performer who can bring
charm, wit, and sex appeal to even a film as uninspired
as Kung Fu Mahjong 2, and she's in fine form
here. Debbie Goh and Andy On also provide eye candy,
though the dubbed On has the unfortunate task of playing
a character that makes next to no sense. Fans of Dayo
Wong should be happy to know that he's his usual snarky
self, turning in a performance that is neither offensive
nor noteworthy. That description could easily apply
to the whole film, as Nothing is Impossible glides by so quickly that even its 100 minute running
time doesn't seem that long. By the time it's all
over, the prevailing thought may be, "Well, it
could have been worse." Considering the fact
that 2006 has given us Dating a Vampire and Love Undercover 3, I wholeheartedly agree with
that assessment. (Kozo 2006) |
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