A Little TLC(w): Great Pretenders (1991)

An amusing enough little comedy – more than a bit hokey in places and nothing you haven’t seen before, but the likable performances make it decently enjoyable.

Wai is a small-time con man.  He sets his sights on a new mark, a young widow who inherited a bundle from her late husband, and enlists some friends to help him out.  They try an assortment of schemes, but as an even bigger fish comes along, they realize they may be better off recruiting her than conning her.

As I said, really none of this is new.  All the beats are familiar:  the charming hustler, the botched con, the big score, the cheap disguises, the unexpected snafus, the mark trying to turn the tables.  Any movie about conning is of course going to incorporate some “unexpected” twists, and Great Pretenders’s unpredictability is fairly, well, predictable, largely zigging and zagging at the moments when you think it will.

Still, most of the characters are fun enough.  I like that it’s not just Wai – while he has nothing close to a well-assembled crew, he has a few friends with particular specialties, and they frequently team up to run jobs together.  I especially enjoy Mei-mei, an expert mahjong cheat.  Also, I appreciate that Susan, the widow, isn’t as easy a target as Wai expects.  Yes, he definitely gets one over on her at various points – it wouldn’t be a con movie if he didn’t – but she’s more than just a dupe.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai is fun as Wai.  It’s the sort of role that’s right up his alley (when I was first introduced to Leung in movies like Hero and Infernal Affairs, I would’ve never guessed that he played so many likable crooks in the ‘90s,) and while it’s well-trod ground at this point, it’s still enjoyable.  It’s fun to watch Wai improvise on the spot and try to talk his way out of tight situations.  I will say that this role probably leans a little broader than average, so it’s not exactly an acting master-class situation.

Before I go, I unfortunately have to mention the movie’s biggest detriment, an extended sequence that relies on some really homophobic tropes.  It’s actively ugly, and I cringed.  Good on Happy Together for being as nuanced as it is, because I’ve found plenty of other Chinese movies made within several years of it that treat gay characters really offensively.

Recommend?

In General – Probably not.  I don’t know if I’d quite call it bad, but I don’t feel it makes it all the way to “good.”

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – A soft maybe.  It’s an enjoyable performance, but you can definitely find better examples of Leung playing this type.

Warnings

Drinking/smoking, sexual content, language, homophobic “humor,” violence, and thematic elements.