Movie Review: Overheard

I have no idea why I didn't publish this earlier; it's been sitting in my draft folder for a week. Better late than never, I hope...

I had been looking forward to this film for a while. With its cast and crew, it would have been hard for this film to fail. The film largely succeeds, and while not without its flaws, is very entertaining and a lot of fun.When I taught Speech 101, I would always present the bad news first; that way I finished with positives for the student.

In that vein:

My biggest criticism can be expressed allegorically: if pathos were butter, this film would give you a heart attack. It was impossible not to know when something importantwas happening. The music wouldn't allow you to. It became a little off-putting, but then again I admit that melodrama is often in overabundance in HK movies.

A much lesser niggle (!) is the occasional lack of what might be called 'behavioral focus'; people doing things that are so far out of logical bounds that you remember its a movie. A cop engaged in insider trading and a gross breach of both law and ethics is not likely to be standing on a desk leading the cheers of day-trading civilians.

But hey, nobody ever makes movies that make total sense.

One point that I must characterize as ambivalent, i.e. a positive negative or a negative positive, is the film's fairly unobtrusive means to ensure its release 'up above'; the film is very China-friendly, yet avoids any real risk of having the soundtrack album contain big hits by the PRC metal band DidacticA, if you catch my drift.

The story folds up quite neatly yet does so very logically within the narrative's purview, without some Mandarin-speaking cop showing up with a knowing smile and a pair of handcuffs at the tail end of the film.

One last gripe, and it is rather personal: the film needed more Grace Huang. Just because.

Never mind. On to the good bits. Of which there are several.

The casting was perfectfor this film. It was nice to see people who fit their roles very naturally. Hong Kong movies often have castings that are... taxing in terms of suspension of disbelief. Thankfully, that was absent here, as people and their situations were highly believable.

There was one scene, where Lau Ching Wan was laying next to Zhang Jingchu in bed, when I whispered to the Golden Rock "Why is he in bed with hisniece ?", but I was just jealous.

I still am.

I mean as I type this.

Dammit. Michael Wong was great, both in character and just by virtue of being Michael Wong. He makes any film better.

He's a Chinese Luis Guzman.

The film looked very nice, and was edited very well too. Some of the CGI was noticeable, but it was still nothing like Samuel Jackson being a shark treat in Deep Blue Sea.

That shark may neverbe jumped.

Overheardwas well-acted, engaging, entertaining, and certainly worth the time and money (though it could have been more Grace-ful, so to speak).Best of all, none of Koo Tin Lok's kids turned out to be 40.