A Little TLC(w): He Ain’t Heavy… He’s My Father (1994)

This movie… It’s quite something, but I liked it.  It’s a bit Back to the Future meets A Christmas Carol, with just a dash of It’s a Wonderful Life thrown in for good measure.  It’s also pretty darn entertaining and offers a fairly good starring role for Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

Chor Yuen has always had a tough relationship with his father, Feng.  He blames his meager upbringing on Feng’s to-a-fault generosity, the sort of man who cheerfully allowed the family to remain in poverty while giving constant exorbitant loans to neighbors and helping muggers get a leg up in the world.  A wish made during the mid-autumn festival, a night of magic, sends Yuen back in time to the early days of his parents’ relationship.  Knowing that his mother Laura came from a wealthy family who disowned her after her marriage, Yuen schemes to change the past and better his circumstances.  But as he gets to know his parents in their youth and sees life in their struggling but vibrant tenement neighborhood, he begins to understand where his father’s indefatigable “all for one” spirit comes from, realizing that life is about more than success.

For the most part, the film falls into a fairly gentle time-travel dramedy.  The neighborhood feels real and lived-in, and there’s a nice warmth to the relationships, both the ones we see in the community and the ones that develop between Yuen and his young parents.  Much of the humor hits just the right tone – I like the understated comedy of Yuen and Feng getting lost when they meet Laura’s rich parents, and there’s a fun bit of winking contrivance surrounding $50,000.  Tony Leung Ka-fai wonderfully fills the role of Feng the eternal optimist, and Carina Lau plays Laura with a nice blend of class and down-to-earth approachability.

Be warned, there is some weirdness going on here that I don’t like.  I wish they would’ve cast different actors to play Yuen’s parents in the present-day sequences.  The old-age makeup on Tony Leung Ka-fai and Carina Lau looks tacky, and they feel like they’re exaggeratedly playing “old,” a poor contrast to their more relaxed acting in the ‘60s scenes.  Some third-act hijinks requiring disguises get rather tasteless, involving both over-the-top drag and the discomfort of seeing Chinese people “brown up” to pass themselves off as Indian.  Finally, there’s a scene that, while it doesn’t go as far as sex, still gets very unpleasant with how it treats consent.

But onto Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Yuen.  He has a talent for playing unlikable characters you can still root for, and Yuen is one of the more complex example of that type I’ve seen from him so far (he’s no Chow Mo-wan in 2046, but they can’t all be.)  Yuen is jaded and shallow, he’s hung up on what he doesn’t have, and he’s more than a bit of a conniver.  And yet, his better qualities are present often right alongside his more dubious ones.  It’s harsh when Yuen blows up at Feng for being careless with his money and not having made anything of himself, but he’s not saying it soley for himself – he also sees how rough things have been on Laura who feels she can’t stop Feng from being so irresponsible.  Similarly, while Yuen’s selfishness is a definite factor in his attempts to change the past, it also becomes increasingly indicative of how fond he’s growing of young Feng and Laura, reflecting his desire to do them a good turn.

Leung really shines here in Yuen’s gradually-developing relationship with his young parents.  He balances Yuen’s many conflicting emotions so well:  shock at actually seeing Feng and Laura in their youth (his first glimpse of Laura is a hoot,) difficulty recognizing his bickering parents in the in-love couple in front of him, wanting to resist Feng’s good-naturedness because of their fractious relationship in the present but being continually drawn in by Feng’s easy confidence and reassurance, coming to care about them as friends as well as parents, increasing guilt to think of the harsh things he said to Feng in the present.  Leung plays fantastically off of both Carina Lau and Tony Leung Ka-fai, and these are the scenes in which you really root for Yuen to get it together, where you see his potential to become a better person.

Recommend?

In General – I think so.  It’s a very imperfect movie and the start is a little rocky, but it ultimately has a lot to recommend it.  It’s a creative film with a fair amount of heart.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – I would.  Leung does a fine job here and has terrific chemistry with his costars.

Warnings

Sexual references (including references to rape,) language, drinking, and brief violence.