Movie (Premiere) Review: Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人

Where’s that finger going???Last Tuesday, around 6 in the evening, I got a call from  Yu Yung Yung. She asked me if I wanted to go to the premiere of the new Barbara Wong film,  Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人,  with her.Hmmmmm… Would I like to go to a movie premiere… with an actress… who has a small role in the film… oh, and have dinner first… in public, where people will see me with the actress…Women are funny, aren’t they?Since this was last week, I still had no running water at my new OFFICE SPACE. So I went back to my old flat, clean clothes in hand. I bathed scrupulously, changed, and met Yung Yung in TST.Since this was the premiere, we got to hob-nob with the celebrities. It was fun in its own, odd way.

I met Lawrence Cheng, who produced and co-wrote the film. “I hope you like the movie,” he said.

“Me too,” I responded.

Because there was always an outside chance that I might enjoy Barbara Wong’s latest film.

There was an outside chance that Kate Tsui, who walked past me, might have taken one look at me and demandedto have sex with me.

But that chance was (also) pretty far outside, and we were up a few stories, so that chance probably ended up suffering a fatal dose of Deceleration Trauma/Cement Poisoning.

For the record, please let me say that Kate Tsui has a magnificent ass.

My saying that is no more inappropriate than the pants she was wearing at the premiere. They were stretched over (and therefore in essence featuring) her rump tighter than God ever intended.

And I thank Him for his leniency.

Hey Kate: Don’t want people to talk about your ass? Don’t make it impossible for them notto.

I also saw Chrissie Chau ( 周秀娜), who looks about as good in person as I do.

I still can’t see what’s so attractive about her from the neck up.

But more on those later.

I was, for a moment anyway, the envy of a large percentage of Hong Kong women when I ended up standing next to Raymond Lam Fung (林峰).

He was being fawned over by a pair of flaming metrosexuals, who fussed over his hair and makeup as if these things had any importance in the real world.

I couldn’t resist taunting them by saying “You missed a spot… no, over… up… there.”

Jerkoffs.

But my high point of the Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人 premiere festidity (!) was meeting one of my favorite actresses.

One of the few good things about being 193cm/123kg is that people don’t impede your way, much less f@#$ with you.

I am sure that being white helps too.

When I spotted Miriam Yeung doing interviews, I began moving towards her.

It would be dumb to say I was sneaking, since behemoths sneaketh not.

I asked Yung Yung to help me take a photo, and she did.

Hee hee hee.

Soon enough, it was time to go upstairs and watch this… film.

I don’t know why I should sound so reticent. After all, Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人 is a TVB co-production.

Oooohhhh, the mark of cinematic excellence!

In fairness, it was also a Shaw Brothers co-production, but I try not to mention them because I have a profound respect for the Shaw Brothers catalog.

From the 60s, 70, and 80s.

Still, it is always a thrill to see that logo and hear that musical flourish.

Too bad it was followed by the TVB logo.

It’s like getting a kiss from your grandmother.

Who then slips you some tongue.

According to a Wall Street Journal interview with Ms. Wong, ”When I write a scrīpt I hate to make up something that doesn’t exist in reality.”

Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人is the story of a woman who was jilted at the altar several years ago, but who also happens to be Hong Kong’s #1 wedding planner.

Happens all the time…

One night in a bar, she is drunk and meets a younger man drinking wine and reading Dan Brown.

You know, The Da Vinci CodeDan Brown. The guy who writes novels as popular as they are poorly written.

Oooh, my panties are wet.

She goes home with him and has sex with him.

The next day, they end up working together at a wedding.

Romance, hilarity, and drama ensue.

If you have a significant head injury.

Othe rwise, you might just find yourself gnashing your teeth.

In the same interview, Barbara Wong was asked the following:

Q: Would you describe your films as uniquely Hong Kong?

A. I wouldn’t. Since my films are very much into the psychology of the characters, I feel like even Westerners understand. They laugh and cry the same way as the Hong Kong audience.

We just do it at opposite times.

I will concede that it was refreshing in a Hong Kong film to see Chinese people get drunk and f@#$ strangers.

Since usually they never even kisseach other in the movies.

The asexuality of local cinema is as disturbing as it is constant.

Since I am sure that in real life, lots of Chinese people get drunk and f@#$ each other.

Hell, some of them probably don’t even get drunk first.

But why bother with reality in films?

If you decide to take Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人 as a light, comic farce, a piece of fluff, then you’ll have no problems. Because it is utterly without weight, or, frankly, cinematic merit.

Well, maybe there is a little.

One of the problems that arises in this film is that the general fluffy, disposable, nature of  Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人.

It is constantly ruined (in a very good way) by Miriam Yeung’s acting. She seems like a real human dropped into the middle of a  TVB (i.e. bad) drama.

She acts well, and believably, and engagingly.

She is alone in this, however.

Well, maybe not alwaysalone. I occasionally believed Raymond Lam.

But it was hard to maintain one’s engagement with these actors when the film was constantly being derailed by other characters whose total lack of any pretense of dramatic behavīor brought the proceedings to a screeching halt.

Teresa Mo, Kate Tsui, Bernice Liu and [some utterly indistinguishable television actress] show up at odd intervals to inject an unhealthy dose of TV into a cinematic film.

The shameless mugging, scenery chewing and general narrative repugnance of this quartet of TVB-tards (!) had me thinking, shockingly, that at least there are only two I Love You Boyz.

***Chrissie Chau (* 周秀娜) sets a new low for not acting. It is actually fascinating.**

*It was also fascinating to note that her nose at the premiere looked suspiciously unlike the nose she has in the film, which was filmed… before the premiere. It’s a symptom of Joey Yung Disease, I think.*

At one point Yung Yung was laughing during a non-comedic scene involving Chrissie Chau. I asked her why, and she said “Look at her ‘acting.’”

Chau has virtually nodramatic skills. But then again, she has no need of them. She has all that she needs to su cceed in HK’s vapid, shameless entertainment industry.

So too, apparently, does Barbara Wong, who includes the now de riguer ‘career line’ (local media slang for cleavage) shot of “ Boobs” Chau ( “胸部” 周) during a love scene .

I turned to Yung Yung and said “Look at her acting.”

I looked at both of them.

Who needs feminism when you have t*ts, right?

But such shameless exploitation and market-pandering is hardly new to Barbara Wong.

She is after all, the director of Wonder Women, a film that mixes overbearing melodramatic exploitation of Hong Kong’s first post-Handover decade with embarrassingly plentiful Osim product placements.

Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人is in the same fashion a virtual advertisement for a local spa. It is the  preferred hango ut of the TVB-tards and, apparently, so meaningful to one couple that they wanted to be married there, wearing their spa robes which just happen to prominently feature the spa’s logo.

In a slightly more understandable product placement, a local jewelry franchise gets a lot of onscreen logo shots. This is, after all, a film about weddings.

Besides,  films don’t pay for themselves.

Maybe Barbra Wong’s next film should be called  True Women Directors For Sale – if she whores her films out to product placement any more they’ll have to be qualified as infomercials.

And she’ll go to jail for pimping.

From that same WSJ interview:

Q. Are you interested in directing films outside of Hong Kong?

A. If there is a chance, I would like to make Hollywood films because I think I can bring some Chinese elements to it—our sensitivity, our culture. If I make films in mainland China, I can bring some Western sensibilities.

Crass commercialism obviously being one of them. Character development, narrative coherence, style, pacing, and substance… not.

But let me switch gears; I am 44 and the refractory period for my spleen is not as short as it used to be…

The onl y thing more fun than watching a movie with an actress is watching a movie with an actress who is inthe film. Because they will squirm uncomfortably, make noises, and cover their eyes as if it were a horror film.

Note to self: try to watch horror film with participating actress to check for differentiation of response.

It has always fascinated me how unattractive or otherwise deficient attractive, capable people think themselves to be, especially those who seek public attention/appraisal of their appearance and/or skills. Like actresses.

If you were that bad you wouldn’t get the part, okay? You did, so you are.

Yung Yung’s part is small, and she plays a Dan Brown fan.

Proof of her acting ability lies in the fact that she could keep a straight face while expressing admiration for that hack.

*****Her appearance got a reaction from the crowd, and it was probably her appearance. She filmed her role shortly after having shaved her head, and so she has very short hair.*

Hong Kong being a center of Aesthetic Fascism, such variation, normal as it may be in the rest of the world, was somehow striking to this audience of people from the so-called World City.

Women have short hair. Get over yourselves.

Its not that high a climb.

Of course, in Hon g Kong, image is everything.

A sentence I am using simply as a means of transitioning. The next sentence you read will make it clear and probably make you lose respect for me.

*****In doing some image (!) se* arching for this review, I came upon an articlewhich accuses Perfect Wedding/抱抱俏佳人 of what might be called promotional plagiarism:

Photographic proof that “Boobs”Chau (“胸部”周)is a pig. The nose was a dead giveaway.

This is, in a nutshell, one of the things I see wrong with the local film industry, on both an industrial and conceptual level.

God forbid someone put a little thought, energy, creativity, or money (never!) into this poster.

It’s good enough this way. And it’s finished!

A local expression conveys much the same meaning: Gau dim/搞掂.

I’m all for accomplishing things. But I’d rather accomplish themwell.

This is not a very prevalent attitude in Hong Kong movies, I am afraid.

Why bother trying hard when you can just cut corners or be lazy? 搞掂!

Why spend money ‘unnecessarily’? 搞掂!

Why try hard to make a good movie? 搞掂!

Why try to use actorsinstead of celebrities in a movie? 搞掂!

That’s all well and good, but don’t get uppity when the same attitude gets turned around on you.

Why should I care about your movie?

Why should I think its good?

Why should I give your movie 90 irreplaceable minutes of my life?

Why should I try hard to like a movie?

Why should I have totry so motherf@#$ing hard to say something positive about a movie?

搞掂?

住你老味粗口.

*****Jiu lei lo mei cho hau.*

Which means “Do your mother’s foul language.”

I know it’s not  reallyCantonese, so there’s no reason to leave a comment to that effect.

But it sounds like a very, very nasty (but common) Cantonese phrase.

I’m just trying to be polite.