CNY Movie Review: I Love Hong Kong/我愛HK開心萬歲

I saw this movie on New Year’s Day at the Dynasty.

I had pretty low hopes for it, since I don’t watch TV, let alone TVB.  Last year’s 72 Tenants of Prosperity was good, but a lot of the entertainment value of the film was lost on me since I was not, like 95% of the rest of the audience, constantly saying “Oh, there’s So-and-So from Such-and Such.”

But so what? 72 Tenantswas a fun, disposable New Year film, and I got to watch Linda Chung repeatedly kick the sh*t out of Wong Cho Lam, whose name means Excruciatingly Metrosexual in English.

Wong makes an appearance here as well, though it is thankfully a low-key role. He plays the 70s version of Eric Tsang, and frankly I thought Justin Lo did it much better last year.

The main story of I Love Hong Kong is simple; due to a financial setback, a formerly (somewhat) wealthy family must move in with the husband’s father in a public housing estate. Old friends, rivals, and romantic partners come face-to-face with one another for he first time in decades, and new friendships are forged amid old conflicts.

Shenanigans and revelations ensue.

So I was surprised, frankly, that I liked the film as much as I did, but at least I know why. Chinese New Year movies often tend to celebrate and/or venerate our fair city and the people who live here. They also tap into people’s holiday sense of nostalgia, for the past in both family and social terms.

At one point, Eric Tsang does a monologue about the vanishing reality of estate living, about what it was like and the kind of people it both nurtured and produced. I found myself really, really enjoying it.

Hong Kong is often so fixated on the future that such reflection is all too rare in local film. One of my favorite things about New Year movies (the good ones, anyway) is that they often do just that; stop for a moment and look back.

In that spirit, it was great, as it always was and will be, to see Anita Yuen on the big screen. Many of the cast are HK film veterans, and it is a lot of fun to watch them obviously enjoy themselves and yet still manage to lend some real weight to their roles.

One of my greatest joys of living here is watching New Year films in the city they are made for. It is fun to be able to get so many of the gags or laugh at product placement, and at least in ILHK they make some kind of sense: During a festive scene, Eric Tsang offers all and sundry some delicacies from Kee Wah Bakery, whose wares he pimps in real life.

But the best product placement/cameo/joke comes from Jo Koo, She Who Raises Temperatures, a woman who is, by necessity, no stranger to brassieres and is now a dessert-shop owner.

And married. Dammit.

Her cameo is practically documentary; she plays a dessert-shop owner who brings treats for everyone during a party.

Eric Tsang, in a none- too-quiet aside, asserts that she “is famous for her milk.”

Ain’t that the truth…

So my first Chinese New Year film viewing, which I had approached as “Let’s get this over with,” turned out to be something I really enjoyed. I was very glad, and I will be buying this DVD when it comes out to watch again in the coming years, along with Fat Choi Spirit and 9th Happiness.