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Review
by Kozo: |
Raymond Wong's Mandarin Films jumps back into the Lunar
New Year fray with In-Laws, Out-Laws, an ensemble
comedy which recalls the Lunar New Year flicks of years
past. Like some of the other flicks Wong had his name on
(Eighth Happiness, All's Well Ends Well),
In-Laws, Out-Laws centers on family hijinks, and
is generally steeped in cultural mores which may lose some
Western audiences. However, unlike those films, In-Laws,
Out-Laws has extra source material: it was based on
a hit Guangzhou television show, which means an extra layer
of cultural specificity which might make the film even more
inaccessible to Western audiences. Another major difference:
most of the cast members of this film are generally not
"names" in the Hong Kong entertainment circle.
Also, the movie is really not very good, though that's not
really a function of the above-named differences. It's just
the way things are.
Lydia Shum stars as the matriarch
of the Hong family, a patchwork family consisting of three
sons, one of which has a wife and fat young kid. When the
tubby grandson discovers a hidden cavern beneath their residence,
the family discovers that they're due to become millionaires.
The cavern supposedly containes ancient Chinese relics,
so they'll be able to sell off the artifacts and retire
fat, wealthy and without a care. However, her long-delinquent
husband (Eric Tsang) makes a comeback, bringing youngest
son Joe (Shawn Yue) with him. Minor sparks are created by
the return of the money-grubbing dad, but Mom decides to
handle the divvying of the inheritance in her own inimitable,
screechy way. She decides to split the money four ways among
her four sons, with only married couples getting the money.
That's where the big problems
occur. The one married couple is looking to divorce, a fact
they want kept secret from Mom because no marriage equals
no inheritance. The eldest son is smitten with his dentist's
assistant, and wants her to marry him, but she's a Mainland
immigrant and her atrocious handle on Cantonese leads to
all sorts of wacky wordplay completely ununderstandable
by those who aren't Cantonese wordplay experts. Furthermore,
the third son is in love with a car show model who's also
a Mainland immigrant. In an attempt to bamboozle Mom, they
copy the plot of her favorite Korean drama and pretend that
the girl is a tragic mute who's also unrealistically sweet
and kind. And finally, Joe falls for a half-Korean kung-fu
artist (smoking hot model Coco Chiang Yi), but her dad (James
Wong) decides to have a duel with Joe's dad to settle...something.
Or maybe not. In any case, some sort of competition is required,
which evolves from a kung-fu battle into a televised game
show where James Wong and Eric Tsang try to outfox each
other as ancient scholars trying to stay awake before a
big exam. Surely, their plight is one shared by anyone who
paid to see this film.
In-Laws, Out-Laws was directed
by Clifton Ko Chi-Sum, a man whose filmography has been
alternately literate and culturally fascinating (The
Umbrella Story, The Mad Phoenix), and strangely
lazy and even cheap (Ninth Happiness, Love Paradox).
In-Laws, Out-Laws errs closer towards lazy and cheap,
and basing a film on a Guangzhou television show is nothing
like mining the plays of Raymond To Kwok-Wai (a frequent
inspiration of Clifton Ko's films). Furthermore, the antics
on display are tired and not worth a second glance. Yes,
there appear to be initial conflicts, but everyone reveals
themselves to have a heart of gold and an understanding,
tolerant mind, just like every other family-based Lunar
New Year comedy in existence. If you saw All's Well Ends
Well (also directed by Clifton Ko), you'll know that
whatever conflicts that exist will be eclipsed by unearned
changes of heart that are passed off as warm and fuzzy epiphanies.
It was unconvincing then, and it's unconvincing now.
However, what made stuff like
All's Well Ends Well tolerable and even winning was
the fact that you had big name stars acting like complete
loons—and seemingly having a ball while doing it. All's
Well Ends Well had Leslie Cheung, Stephen Chow, Maggie
Cheung, Teresa Mo, and Sandra Ng, among others. In-Laws,
Out-Laws has Eric Tsang, Lydia Shum, Shawn Yue, Coco
Chiang, Cyrus Wong (Baldy Jr. from the Aces Go Places
flicks!), and a bunch of unknown actors to compensate. The
result: not much superstar hijinks worth checking out. True,
the hijinks themselves are not necessarily worse than anything
seen in other films of its ilk, but when the most charismatic
actor onscreen is Shawn Yue, the average Western HK film
fan is hard-pressed to care.
To be fair, In-Laws, Out-Laws
is not for Western consumption, it's for an audience that
finds the contents of a shot-on-video Guangzhou television
show entertaining. Maybe those viewers will find something
in this largely uninspiring comedy worth glomming onto,
but those not counted among them will likely be lost. At
the very least, Coco Chiang is fine eye candy, and Shawn Yue has surprisingly likable dopey comic charm. Also, there's
a minor parody of Hero, and some unconvincing fighting
sequences. Fans of Eric Tsang can go hogwild because Eric
Tsang is in the picture. And, if you didn't get enough of
Cyrus Wong in Nine Girls and a Ghost and Feel
100% 2003, you can now get an extra helping of Baldy
Jr.'s adult variation here. Plus there's Cantonese wordplay,
and a negative reference to the phenomenon that is Juno
Mak. And yes, we're starting to stretch the perceived positives
of this film. Watch something else, like dust settling on
your television set. (Kozo 2004)
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