|
Review
by Kozo: |
After a three-year hiatus,
director Vincent Kok returns with Marry a Rich Man,
a decidedly fluffy Lunar New Year Comedy starring box-office
queen Sammi Cheng and her Summer Holiday co-star
Richie Ren. Cheng plays Me, a propane delivery girl
whose former classmates show up to brag about their
rich husbands. Not helping matters is her father (Wu
Fung), who constantly says that Me is a princess, and
will marry a rich man and not some low-income bachelor
like the ones that surround their Harmony Village home.
Me's other option seems to be her best friend MT (Candy
Lo), who wears her bisexuality on her sleeve and occasionally
propositions Me.
Thanks to all of these factors,
Me snaps and declares to the heavens (ala Scarlett O'Hara
in Gone with the Wind) that she must marry a
rich man. Cut to Destiny, Inc., a mysterious company
that hears Me's cries via satellite. They decide to
help her out by sending her a missile/package bearing
a book entitled "Glass Slipper." It's a guide
for hooking a rich man, which Me avidly follows. Her
quest involves dressing like a rich person and hanging
out in rich person circles, i.e. golf course, sanitariums
for the rich, and most importantly, first class air
flights to Europe.
It's on a flight to Milan that
Me meets Christmas (Richie Ren), a cute, rich Hong Kong
resident who immediately takes a shine to Me. She thinks
she's hit the jackpot, but as soon as they land the
two are pick-pocketed by a local. Undaunted, they go
on a "poor man's date," making the run of
Milan without a penny. And the two get along famously,
leading Me to the conclusion that her cynical gold-digging
plans have worked.
But that's only half the movie,
and something is bound to happen which will stymie their
materialistic romance. Well, something does, and quite
frankly that's when the film really begins to pick up. Marry a Rich Man really takes its time to get
going. The first half hour plods along with some strained
comedy and too much reliance on Cantonese wordplay.
The only thing it has going for it is Sammi Cheng, who's
winning despite the calculated hijinks put forth in
the script. The movie looks like it's going to be an
overly bouncy, materialistic joyride featuring pretty
people and little else.
Thankfully, that changes when
the second half of the movie arrives. It gives Richie
Ren a chance to show his stuff, which was noticeably
absent in Summer Holiday thanks to his too-loveable
character and Cantonese dubbing. Here, he handles his
own Cantonese dialogue in a funny, game performance
that shows he's not above a little comic embarrassment.
He and Cheng have better chemistry this time out, and
the film gives us better supporting characters, too.
Candy Lo, Cheung Tat-Ming and Wu Feng turn in funny
support, but it's Jan Lam who steals the show as Wilson,
one of Hong Kong's richest men and one of it's strangest,
too. As Me's alternative suitor, he turns in a deadpan,
underplayed supporting role that gives the film a real
lift.
All of the above helps offset
the movie's obvious shortcomings: it's a Lunar New Year
film designed to provide maximum return for an undemanding
audience. Vincent Kok is a better director than Summer
Holiday's Jingle Ma; he manages to sustain interest
without resorting to manufactured pathos or slow-motion
montages. I'm not giving anything away when I say that
it all ends happily. That's what you expect from a movie
like this, and they do their best to give us the super
mega-mega happy ending. Yes, they want our heroes to
be soulful, decent people who'd give up money for love,
but they want them to be obscenely wealthy as well.
How they do all this would
give away the plot (or the plot device, in this case),
but it's not really important. What's important is this:
did you like Sammi? Did you like Richie? Were they cute
together? Was the film even passably funny? The answer
to all the above is yes; this movie can be deemed enjoyable.
That is, unless either performer gives you hives or
you simply HATE Lunar New Year comedies. Then by all
means, avoid this movie like the plague.
But the truth seems to be that
audiences feel otherwise. Marry a Rich Man is
further proof that Sammi Cheng rules the Hong Kong box
office. Pitted against films starring Andy Lau and Tony
Leung Chiu-Wai (her leading men from 2001), her film
scored a decisive victory over both. Marry a Rich
Man was the number one Chinese film this past New
Year. Cheng's death-grip on the viewing public may be
the greatest case of mass hypnosis since everyone went
to see The Ring. (Kozo 2002) |
|
