Movie Review: Break Up Club/分手說愛你

Disclaimer: The director of this film is an alivenotdead.com artist. Also, I will most likely be sharing a stage with Fiona next month since she’s doing a concert with Dear Jane. So as I write this disclaimer the morning of the day I see the film, I am already filled with trepidation. Not so much for the film, since frankly my expectations are low. I am trepidacious (!) about how far I may be forced to go in terms of my review. But fear not, I’ll only go where I am driven.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to age gracefully.

It’s difficult to doanything gracefully when youre 6’4″/193cm and 265#/120kg.

Because the simple incontrovertible fact is I’ll be 44 in less than two months. According to the cultural norms I grew up in, I should have children who are at least teenagers by now. I should be bracing for grand-parenthood.

As a consequence, I am, as it were, excused from certain activities on the basis of age alone.

I’ve never read any Harry Potter or seen any of the movies. It’s no big deal of that’s your thing, but it’s not mine.

Which is a much easier argument at a childless 44 than 14.

I’ve never seen any of the Twilightmovies, and frankly never will. But no one hols that against me.

No one holdsanything against me. Unless I pay them first.

This concept has pertinence to my review, I promise.

The age thing, not the rented friendship thing…

I’m not going to write a review of Heiward Mak’s Exeven though I’ve seen it. It was well-acted. It was, occasionally, well-directed.

But it was populated by people I frankly couldn’t care about, much less like. They were irritating, selfish, dumb, and self-absorbed.

I.e. typical Hong Kong young adults.

That movie wasn’t supposed to appeal to me.

And it didn’t.

I wouldn’t have watched it’s American counterpart, but because I am a Hong Kong film fan, I went to see it.

Well, the same thing can be said for Break Up Club/分手說愛你.

The acting was good. Fiona Sit did a very good job at seeming real, even crying in such a way that made her look utterly unattractive.  Jaycee Chan did a good job as a pretty average guy, which, as well know, he isn’t, hasn’t been, and never will be.

Young people in Hong Kong are a bunch of irritating dingbats, if the movies are to be believed. Petulant, immature, whiny, stubborn and wishy-washy. I couldn’t stand either of them and disliked them and hoped they would die.

If these people got hit by a bus at the film’s end, I’d have cheered.

In a sense, you have to say that dislike for them is evidence of their acting skill, since they mademe hate them.

Yeah, they brought it on themselves… yeah…

But these characters inhabited a world too unreal and poorly constructed to believe.

A lowly assistant and her dullard boyfriend who serially quits part-time jobs live in a flat from where you can see The Center less than 200m away.

They lived a lot closer to it than this.

Yeah. Sure they do.

But the weakness of logic had company. The structure of the film was weak, the plot meandering here and there and getting, of course, absolutely nowhere. At the end ofthe film, nothing had really changed.

Except a bunch of things happening that in real life would have consequences and repercussions. But hey, its a movie, right?

The the product placement, including the director herself, was enough to make Andy Lau gag.

Considering the plot is about a director who gets a guy to make a movie about his girlfriend, and the director of the real movie plays the director of the unreal movie, and one of the (other real) people in the movie says to the (un?) real director “Oh, people are going to love this movie,” it makes you wonder just how stupid and insulted you’re supposed to feel. Because the movie is such a self-conscious mess that there’s no clear solution.

When the director of a film plays herself as a director of a film that uses regular actors, the effect is more negative than positive.

At least Dennis Law  had someone play him rather than do it himself.

Don’t get me wrong. This film has some good moments, and some wit. Sadly, it squanders all of it with a series of missteps that ruin whatever positive momentum the film has.

I know movies are fiction. But a little plausibility would be nice. If someone trashes a computer in an internet cafe, the staf fwould do something, wouldn’t they? Films in general often have people do the most illogical, implausible crap, and all it does is make the film worse. Only in a movie can you trash $10,000 worth of stuff and never get so much as scolded, much less arrested.

Spare me.

The ‘other man’ is named Mr. Lies, seeing as how he is modeled on a real-life graffiti artist (?) named L1es One.

But the filmmakers decided to make him Japanese. Hey, maybe it’s the film’s way of stuffing the China C*ck down its own throat, because you know that Japanese people are bad. So bad they are named bad behavīors.

性交は非常に.

A reveal that goes on waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long had me praying for the end credits.

And thinking of Murderer.

Shame on you.

The film itself is 2 hours. It should be no more than 1.5. That would make it bearable, but probably still not good.

The highlight for me?

Patrick Tang goes totally Eric Kot Man Fai and chews up his scenery like Bruce (the shark) from Jaws. It’s awful, but its awfully entertaining, and it’s refreshing to watch some horridness that’s not trying to pass itself off as anything but.

So I can say that because of the content, this film wasn’t for me. I’m not interested in 20-somethings and their solipsism and ignorance.

I’ll say that because of the film’s execution, I’m not sure if it’s for you either.

It can be a good comedy, if you enjoy laughing at other people’s emotional pain, stupidity, selfishness and ineptitude.

That’s me all over, but maybe some of you have faith in humanity, so your mileage may vary.