A Little TLC(w): Don’t Fool Me! (1991)

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.