Movie Review: Love in Space/全球熱戀

Angelababy’s navel is only on the poster, not in the film. Dammit.

I really enjoyed Hot Summer Days. So I was looking forward to this sequel.

I didn’t know anything about it, just that it recycled some of the actors from the first film.

It’s reasonably well-made, but the story suffers a lot from some significant shortcomings.

The entire space subplot could be lost and we’d only benefit. First, Aaron Kwok must have a terminal disease and has decided to do as much acting as he can in whatever movie he’s in. His overacting is intrusive, bad, and not even slightly entertaining.

Rene Liu, whose image I would happily tattoo on the inside of my eyelids so even when I was sleeping I could look at her, is forced to play a character so odd and poorly written that it makes me want to scream. Her petulant, childish behavīor is bad enough.

But when she has an (inevitable for these kinds of movies) breakdown and starts screaming that all she wants is to be a wife and mother and take care of her husband, it’s nauseating and insulting to every woman astronaut on earth.  Whiny women like that don’t ever become astronauts. That’s not how astronauts are.

You may as well make a movie where a Hong Kong person is quiet, polite, doesn’t care about money and appreciates quality in film. Because its just a movie.

One of the worst aspects of the space segment is the utter failure to capture the weightless nature of an environment free from gravity.

Quite frankly, it sucks.

It’s inconsistent, poorly executed, and often blows logic and intelligence out the airlock like so may Ripley-threatening aliens.

The only thing worse than that is the film’s hackneyed, ham-fisted ‘homage’ to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It looked likeSpaceballs.

The other storyline involves Angelababy as a movie star (hardly a stretch) and her love interest who works in a coffee shop. She likes him because he always shows a lot of balls.

What did you think I meant???

The story was cute, though overly so, and the plausibility meter blew up about 5 minutes into the story.

But what annoyed me most about this story was that it contains two of the worst examples of what are for (overly opinionated) me totally inexcusable filmmaking.

First, there is a scene where the young man is driving a pedicart (imagine a bicycle powered El Camino) while Angelababy sits in back. She is on the left side of the vehicle and has a headphone in her right ear. The other headphone is in the man’s left ear.

We are looking at them from his 11 o’clock, so to speak. Like this:

That’s cute, right?

What’s not cute is that a few shots later, when they arrive at their destination, she’s on the right side of the cart and they’ve both switched ears. Like this:

F@#$ you too.

If you try to say its style, it’s still a failure.

If its a mistake, someone needs to take your camera away.

This is simply unacceptable.

As is the other major gaffe that may or may not be intentional.

How about this: These two have an argument. Naturally, we have to have a flashback about it.

Because people may have forgotten about it in 20 minutes.

During the flashback, there’s an extra line of dialogue that wasn’t in the argument.

Because, according to someone who knows, the line had been cut from the first scene but apparently no one thought to be thorough.

Or they were trying to be hip.

Either way, NO.

In the third story, involving Eason Chan and Gooey (or Guey) Kwai Lun Mei (I am NOT making that up), he’s a garbage man and she’s got OCD about germs.

Happens all the time.

Don’t ask me how I know this, but women with OCD and other mental challenges tend to make for pretty difficult (though exciting and optioned-scrīpt worthy) relationships.

The best part about that subplot is the appearance of Grace Huang in a role that, as per usual, should be larger.

But fear not, because in the end, everything works out and everyone’s happy and no one gets laid, because this film is made for China and that means the only action is the loud slurping of the China Market C*ck.

To quote the New York Post (thanks to Kozo Chen for the link): “ Love in Space is just what movie fans have been waiting for: a romantic comedy from Communist China.”

The film is just as good as that makes it sound.