Movie Review: All’s Well Ends Well 2012/八星抱喜

This was the other Chinese New Year film for 2012. It’s a quartet of (mostly) love stories, one of which barely (but not quite) escapes being a dramatization of the real-life romance of  a famous filmmaker and a much much younger Asian woman.

Because it’s a New Year film, it is of course light on the heavyness and heavy on the silliness. But as I always say, it’s all right, because that’s how New Year films are supposed to be and so its not a surprise when they are. 

The four love stories play out with all the drama, tension and style we’ve come to expect from Raymond Wong films.

I.e. none.

But as I said, he gets a holiday pass, so that this inane cluster of celluloid is nowhere near as grating or degrading (!) as Magic to Win/開心魔法.

Neither, thank God, is the segment in which Raymond stars with Yang Mi.

Who takes her makeup much too seriously.

Given their multi-generational age difference, it was both refreshing and relieving that theirs is a plationic relationship based on a kind of proxy parenthood: Bad father Raymond atones by helping his new friend choose a husband. 

And again, I literally thanked God it didn’t turn out to be him.

Are you listening, Andy Lau?

This segment’s flirtation with creepiness was so prevalent that even an apparently harmless hug still seems… wrong:

She must want to be famous really, really badly.

The next pairing is Chapman To and Lynn Hung, who play a popular (if publicly anonymous) novelist and a blind girl.

Naturally, love would have to be blind for a woman to fall for Chapman To.

No, love would have to be in a coma.

Luckily for him, Lynn Hung’s character is blind, so she can only judge him by his intellect and caring.

  See? That was even funny to them.

Speaking of intellect, there is a baffling conflation of blindness with mental incapacity.

Lynn’s character occasionally displays an absolute dearth of even the most cursory intelligence or reasoning skill, not to mention a rather odd capacity for putting herself into life-threatening situations.

Yes, blind people are apparently impulsive, clumsy, and retarded in the bargain, and no, I cannot explain or understand how or why they made that leap.

 But following that logic, I can therefore say that scrīpt writer Chan Hing-ka is very likely blind.

The third story casts Louis Koo as a construction worker and Kelly Chen as a photographer. I enjoyed this story because Lam Suet played one of Louis’ colleagues and managed, as he usually does, to elevate the proceedings whenever he was on screen. 

Lam Suet is so great this photo doesn’t even make me mad:

The story of the photographer who fools her subject into falling in love with her naturally develops into a story where lies become truth and love conquers all.

Well, not really. If you’re going to make a movie where love conquers all, you have to cast Lam Suet as the male lead. And a woman with a really strong stomach as the female lead.

This segment of  All’s Well Ends Well 2012/八星抱喜 unfolds with humor, flirting, and a CGI snake.

愛不能說出它的名字.

It’s amusing to watch Louis Koo hamming it up in an afro. His comic chops have really improved in the last few years, and its always fun to watch movie stars take gentle (or not-so-gentle) stabs at themselves. 

It’s also nice to see Kelly Chen back on the big screen. This movie is light and disposable, but then heavy drama was never really Kelly’s forte, was it? Still, it’s nice to see her up there.

Edison Chen joke (note object in background). 

The fourth and final pairing is Donnie Yen and Sandra Ng, as a pair of over-the-hill never-weres who may or may not find love while searching for musical redemption.

Some of the things I really enjoyed about this segment were the vicious send-up of the Twins as well as TVB’s incestuous award system. It was nice to see the New Year film franchise rivalry get some teeth, and it made me giggle.

I was less amused, however, by a flashback scene wherein Donnie Yen donned (!) an Afro wig and… ugh, I hate to even say it… blackface.

This kind of thing is retrogressive, insensitive, and really, really needs to be retired. 

As I’ve said before: If you want to get upset about Rosie O’Donnell’s insensitivity, it does you no good to continue doing it yourself.

It’s especially wrong because it sends up (albeit affectionately) the 1970s show Soul Train, whose founder, Don Cornelius, took his life earlier this week.

Obviously no one knew it would happen, but it still taints this film (and this industry and culture) indelibly.

It’s wrong, it’s ugly, it’s unnecessary and it’s not funny.

None of which, I am sure, matters a whit to the film’s makers or intended audience.

Reached earlier this week for comment, African American comedian Katt Williams had this to say:

Other than that,  All’s Well Ends Well 2012/八星抱喜 is harmless New Year fun. It’s not the worst Raymond Wong film in the world (though that’s not really saying much). 

I was glad to be able to see New Year films in cinemas in Hong Kong; its one of the (rare) rewards for literally devoting my life to the city whose films I admire(d).

It was, for that matter, a rare treat to see two good films in a row as well, as well as their being Hong Kong films.

It’s a rare treat that is likely to remain a once-a-year, holiday phenomenon, unfortunately.