Sister Cupid
Director: Guy Lai Ying-chau
Year: 1987
Rating: 3.5
Though most Maggie
Cheung fans have a real fondness for her early silly but sweet comedies,
Maggie has made mention a few times that she looks back on them with a bit
of scorn due to her lack of acting skills at the time. If that is the case,
I have no doubt that Maggie would love to see this 1987 film buried deep
down in the Nevada desert along with radioactive waste. She giggles, grins
and pouts her way through this film like the Energizer Bunny on power jolt
caffeine and displays not even a hint of acting ability – and yet every
time she is in a scene you can’t take your eyes off of her. The Magster
just has that effect on you.
Even with Maggie acting like a runaway-bouncing ball that has inhaled a
large dose of laughing gas, this film has very little going for it. The excellent
cast of Maggie, Jacky Cheung, Do Do Cheng and Pat Ha have absolutely no material
to work with and one almost begins to feel sorry for them as they flounder
around trying to grab onto something substantial. The plot is aimless, the
comedy falls woefully short of being funny and I am still trying to figure
out what the hell the ending was all about.
It is a simple story – Jacky and Pat Ha have been in love with each for
years, but Jacky is completely dominated by his tough witchy sister, Do Do
Cheng, who doesn’t want the couple together. In fact, Do Do and Jackie’s
relationship comes very close to being on the edge of perversity – and the
film certainly would have been more interesting if it had explored this angle
a little deeper – as Do Do won’t let her brother go free and Jackie can’t
break away. In an effort to break up the couple, Do Do invites Maggie who
she meets at a party thrown by Dan Bik to stay with them. Do Do makes sure
that Pat and her cousin Natalis Chan are aware of what is going on.
Maggie is a bit of a strange girl though – extremely immature, afraid of
hot things, able to seemingly disappear at will, takes baths with ice cubes
in it and can stick her tongue out very very far. Yes, Maggie is a ghost.
She died in an accident when she was just a child and though she has grown
up physically, her mental outlook is still that of a child. Pat and Natalis
realize this first and do their best to convince Do Do that even Pat is a
more desirable sister-in-law than a ghost. Jacky on the other hand does his
best to keep his eyes open during the film as he constantly looks in danger
of falling into a comatose state. I was fairly close to falling into one myself
– and only the occasional injections of Maggie madness kept me from going
down for the count.
