Movie Review: 72 Tenants of Prosperity/72家租客

In an effort to be more timely and potentially helpful/supportive of local films and the people making them, I will try to get my reviews done faster. As a consequence, they will be somewhat shorter.

Unless it's a movie that sucks and I don't want you to watch it. Then I'll take lots of time and energy to thoroughly and meticulously disparage it.

But on to the new review format!

This was the second half of the 2010 Movie Night Lunar New Year Double Feature.

This film had more star cameos than I could count, especially since I missed most of them.

I don't watch television in any language. So the panoply of TVB stars running through this film were basically unknowns to me. But for those of you who do, you'll spend half the movie saying "Oh, there's _______."

Just like the 該死的陰莖面 behind me kept doing.

他媽的孔.

Ye gods, I guess I need to change my Spleenex pad.

I recognized a lot of the faces, though, including Ryan Hui, Denise Ho, Linda Chung, Justin Lo, and a few other AnD artists.

Opening with an homage/parody of the Shaw classic House of 72 Tenants, this film moves briskly along for its entire running time, throwing out jokes, gags, and plot turns with speed and dexterity.

The film can do so because of its utter dearth of narrative weight, but this is a New Year movie, so it isn't supposed to haveany.

Don't think I didn't enjoy myself, because I did. It's a fun, entertaining New Year movie, its well-made, and there's really not much to dislike.

In the spirit of New Year happiness and generosity, let me tell you what I liked:

The opening of the movie: the Shaw Brothers logo and musical flourish. I wanted to pump my fists in the air but was afraid my friends would laugh at me. When I looked over, they were already doing it!

I liked the way that Sai Yeung Choi St. was recreated with a set. I am sure they did this because filming daylight scenes on that street is impossible.

But I liked the way it evoked the utterly false but cinematically charming sets the Shaw Brothers used in all those classic films. One of the good things about movies being not-real is that they allow for the creation of what I like to call 'fake reality.'

The horror films made by Britain's Hammer Studios are classics to a great extent because of the sets; impossibly Gothic castles, moors, and dungeons. They looked great and were the perfect background. They were also as fake as a pair of 36E t*ts in Hong Kong.

So it was nice to watch familiar actors in 'familiar' settings that were at once totally unconvincing and yet very appealing. 'Sai Yeung Choi St.' was even better than Sai Yeung Choi St.

Besides, there were enough real exteriors used that it actually lent the SYC set a kind of ethereal, stage-like quality.

The characters, and the acting, were veryenjoyable.

Watching Justin Lo imitate Eric Tsang's voice was priceless, as was seeing hi m without a baseball hat.

He was wearing a wig.I was surprised and very entertained watching Prudence Lau reprise her role as黑牙咧嘴 from True Women for Sale.I reallyenjoyed watching Linda Chung kick the sh*t out of Wong Cho Lam. He's so metrosexual they ought to name an MTR station after him.

Oh, and the station would be his rectum.

I enjoyed watching Kate Tsui. Not just because she's my roommate.

Just because.

I probably also enjoyed the fact that she was playing a very Jo Koo-esque character; the seemingly mousy assistant with hidden passions that inevitably flare. Heyyyyy baby...Jacky Cheung and Eric Tsang were funny, especially when Jacky takes the p*ss out of himself.

I know she's on TV, but it was really, really, reallygreat to see Anita Yuen on the big screen again.

Because she's Anita Yuen.

And that's morethan enough.Have a happy Chinese New Year.

If you go watch 72 Tenants of Prosperity/72家租客 you definitely will have a happy new year.