Romantic Dream
Director: Lee Lik-chi
Year: 1995
Rating: 7.0
This relatively obscure
1995 Cheung Man production starring a very unstylish (at times) Lau Ching-wan
and a very sleek Cheung Man turned out to be a fairly amusing tongue in cheek
romantic comedy. Though the action taking place on the screen often veers
between farce and parody, the actors play it completely straight up which
adds to the absurdity and humor of it all. The film takes turns poking fun
at a number of subjects from Japanese soaps to male bonding films.
During his acting career, Lau Ching-wan
has gone through a number of image changes and has looked very different
from time to time – whether it be his recent more elegant appearance, to
his often rumpled everyman look, to the menacingly bald specter of The Longest
Nite – but rarely has he sported a style as unattractive and downright goofy
looking as he does here. It’s amazing what a hair-do (or hopefully in this
case a wig) can do to make someone look better or in this case so much worse.
This wig – which appears to be pilfered from a French peasant leading some
Marquis to the guillotine during the French Revolution – simply envelops
him like an alien infestation. I suppose one should applaud an actor for
being willing to look so ridiculous, but it’s hard for the viewer to concentrate
on anything but Lau’s hairpiece. Fortunately, about one third of the way
through the film he undergoes a style change.
In the meantime of course we do have Cheung Man to stare at. I’ve always
appreciated her cool icy distant beauty but I have never really warmed up
to her as an actress. Her lively, long thick eyebrows that seemingly ride
herd over her lovely cheekbones, deep set eyes and slightly cruel mouth are
always worth keeping track of in a film – but one never senses that she ever
really gives herself to a role. She is an interesting and unusual female
in the HK film scene. At one time she was Stephen Chow’s favorite leading
lady until they had a falling out and apparently her curt manner has put
off a number of other people as well. She is one of the few HK actresses
that I can think of though that has attempted (without great success) to
push her way into the nearly male preserve of producing and directing.
Lau Ching-wan and his friend Lawrence Cheng are garage mechanic slacker types
– but Lau has a hidden genius for engineering. All it takes is Cheung Man
and a broken heart to bring it out. He accidentally meets her and is immediately
smitten and tries to court her by growing a field of roses. Her wealthy parents
though move away and Lau can’t locate her. So he becomes amazingly rich by
developing a new type of car engine, changes his hair style, buys some new
suits and tries to track her down. When he does though, she is married to
the very sleazy Michael Wong. Wong is clearly up to no good – but it seems
as if Lau perhaps will only be able to find love in dreams provided by a
magician.
None of this sounds particularly funny I must admit – but the film is constantly
full of sight gags, parodies, pratfalls and so forth – and the cast manages
to keep a straight face throughout. This film is far from fall down funny
– but I found it consistently amusing and charming.
