This film
itself is probably decent at best, but I enjoyed it. A somewhat-tropey action comedy bolstered by
likable performances, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays a rather different role
than was typical of this time in his career.
Hero and
Kit were childhood classmates, but their lives have taken them in very
different directions. Hero does
negotiations for gangsters, while Kit is a hard-working insurance broker. When they run into each other by chance,
however, both are due for a shake-up – a psychic has warned Hero that his job
is a recipe for an early death, and Kit has just found out he has a brain tumor
that could kill him at any moment. Hero
urges Kit to give him a chance at the insurance game, leaving his underworld
business dealings to the newly carpe-diemed Kit.
It’s an
obvious premise – take two guys with opposing personalities and drop them into
one another’s completely-different worlds.
As such, there’s not really anything you wouldn’t expect. Kit nebbishly blunders into a variety of
dangerous situations, survives by the skin of his teeth, and falls in love with
a triad boss’s daughter, which is maybe the most dangerous undertaking of
all. Hero starts out as a rebel in the
insurance company, maddening his uptight boss at every turn, but buckles down
(in an outside-the-box way) when he finds out she doesn’t think he has what it
takes. It all but writes itself.
What
makes it a bit more interesting is its cast.
Andy Lau plays Hero with a rakish charm, a small-time tough with a high
opinion of himself. I like the running
gag of him fancying himself a better fighter than he is, and his interactions
with his new boss Ms. Mui are pretty fun.
Leung,
meanwhile, plays Kit. While I wouldn’t
say Hero is really more the type of character you tend to see from Leung’s
movies of this era, Leung does often play more of the “leader” in a duo, the
“cooler” character who makes the plans and calls the shots. But it seems that, in Leung’s early movies
with Andy Lau, Lau is usually the one to take the lead (see also, Come Fly the Dragon – but not really,
‘cause Come Fly the Dragon is
bad.) Although Kit is the more
intelligent of the two, he’s not really street-smart, and he’s definitely not
cool. Instead, he’s something of a
hapless everyman initially pulled into Hero’s wild life by accident and later
trying to prove he can make it there of his own accord. I like watching him react to situations in
what must be his typical way – timidly – then, remembering that any day could
be his last, force himself to be bold.
While Kit
and Hero are both entertaining to watch in one another’s spheres, they’re at
their best interacting with each other.
Leung and Lau have a fun back-and-forth, bringing a snap and a strong
energy together.
Recommend?
In
General
– Maybe, if you’re in the right mood for it.
It’s an enjoyable-enough mindless comedy.
Tony
Leung Chiu-wai
– I think so. Leung is pretty funny in
this movie, and I like seeing him play against type.
Warnings
Language,
violence, sexual content, drinking/smoking/drug references, some homophobic
jokes, and thematic elements.
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