Funny Family

 

Director: Kevin Chun Yen-ping
Year: 1985
Rating: 6.0

This Taiwanese comedy is quite sweet and amusing at times if not particularly sophisticated. It also has a few action scenes that are comedic in nature but still display some wonderful fight choreography.

Somewhere in the boonies of Taiwan two families live right next to each other. In fact the houses are adjoined and they share the same bathroom. One family has a daughter and mother and the other one a son and father. In true Shakespearean fashion the father and mother hate one another, while the kids are a bit in love. One other oddity about these families – everyone is a kung fu expert. The parents constantly harass one another such as the mother killing a pigeon flying overhead with a throw of her chopsticks and times it so that the bird falls into the father’s soup.


Simultaneously, both parents decide to send their kids to Taipei to get them away from the other one. The mother has a great line – “that boy is a toad lusting after swan meat”. The kids travel together – get to Taiwan and are taken for the country bumpkins they are and are soon set upon by a gang of ruffians. Big mistake. The other half of their parents live in Taipei and the kids go to meet them.
 
It turns out their parents are living together and the father has an ongoing feud with a business competitor. The competitor challenges the kids to some games – with their respective stores being at stake. Big mistake. We get a little kung-fu bowling, kung-fu football and kung-fu tennis. Some fairly funny stuff.
 

Finally, the bad guy brings in a ringer – Yukari Oshima. Who would have thought Yukari’s serve is as vicious as her kick. Later though we get to see the kick as well in a tag team boxing match. Yukari is probably on the screen for no more than 10 minutes. My newest fantasy is to play Yukari in a two out of three set tennis match ! Tthe boxing match between Yukari and the daughter in the ring is short but amazing.
 

I watched this one only because Yukari was suppose to be in it – I had no idea how small her role was – but even so it turned out to be a reasonably fun if silly film. The son and daughter are played by Pauline LanI Hsin-mei and Hu Kus.  They both co-starred with Yukari in A Book of Heroes. This film is often referred to as A Book of Heroes II.