CNY Movie Review: All’s Well Ends Well 2011/最強囍事

This was the second CNY film I watched, and thank goodness it didn’t turn out to be #2. ******** The history of the AWEWfranchise has been… uneven. The 2009 iteration (gotta make the student loans worth something…) was horrendous, even with a head full of cough syrup.

The 2010 version, supposedly co-directed by Raymond Wong and Herman Yau, was much better. Considering how much time Mr. Wong spent in front of the camera, I’d suspect that the co-direction was a far from equal split, and we were all the beneficiaries.

Herman Yau kicks more ass than a kung fu tournament for donkeys. He’s good like that.

So going into All’s Well Ends Well 2011/最強囍事, you can understand why I felt a little like I was gambling. I might enjoy myself, or I might want to pull my own teeth out. Hard to say, really.

Well, thankfully for me (if not you), I didn’t hate this film. It is, naturally, utterly disposable CNY fluff, but that’s what CNY movies are supposed to be; light entertainment to make people laugh.

A concept thatTwins Mission failed to grasp on a huge number of levels. But never mind.

Louis Koo plays a top makeup consultant/stylist who pretends he’s gay because he feels it is a necessary part of maintaining his success.

You know, like Cantopop stars have to pretend they’re not gay, or not married, or not in a relationship, or not smoking cigarettes, or have no genitalia. How utterly f@#$ing creepy.

So there is at least a marginal excuse for his horrifically overblown (!) caricature of a gay man.

His nemesis is Donnie Yen, a makeup artist of, well, Donnie-esque skill who chooses to live and work humbly in a small makeup shop, maintaining his integrity as well as near-poverty. Because he’s about the make-up, not the money.

Carina Lau plays a novelist who used to date Donnie and now spends all her time trying to find the formula for a successful novel.

And drinking.

Raymond Wong plays a businessman whose long-suffering girlfriend, a shrew from the Big 6, manipulates Louis into working for her, where he meets the lowly assistant played by Cecilia Cheung.

Open statement to Ms. Cheung: YOU NEED TO EAT. My forearms are bigger than your thighs. It’s not pretty. It’s pretty f@#$ing gross.

Where were we?

Ah yes… Chapman To plays an obscenely rich man searching for the woman of his dreams while trying to keep out of the clutches of his ex-girlfriend, a shrew from the Big 6 (Hong Kong people love their stereotypes, especially at holidays).

Machinations and manipulations ensue.  As they should.

But I found myself oddly engaged and entertained. Partially, it had to do with the talent onscreen. Louis Koo is becoming a very good comic actor, and he plays his part with some suprising (if relative) finesse.

Cecilia Cheung does well, managing t o embody a character obviously very unlike her real self. I found her character so likable that I didn’t even mind her voice.

Carina Lau makes the most of a small role, adding some much needed (and very useful) heft to an otherwise fluffy film.

But the film belongs to Chapman To and Donnie Yen. Chapman’s spoiled rich kid is a great act to watch, and his cross-dressing turn provides not only some great laughs but at least one great subtitle as well.

I’m not usually a fan of Donnie Yen. I find his overacting overbearing, and his recent spate of “China up, Japan down” films have really turned me off.

So it was wildly refreshing to watch Mr. Yen take the p*ss for almost the entire film. Parodying Ip Man, Wong Kar Wai, and himself, Donnie shows off some pretty martial comic skills, and makes his character very human, funny, and believable.

The rest of the cast, i.e. Raymond Wong and the two shrews, are less impressive, but what do you expect? If nothing else, they are at least not in the way that often and help to remind us that CNY movies should not ever be confused with serious filmmaking.

So my CNY experiences were 2/2 on the plus side, which surprised me as much as anyone else.