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.