All's Well, Ends Well
Reviewed by YTSL
What a stellar cast this Chinese New Year production
boasts! With a list headed by Stephen Chow (Hong Kong's foremost funny
man), Maggie Cheung (who does excel at comedy as well as drama and falling
down stairs), Leslie Cheung (a truly multi-talented performer), Sandra Ng
(another versatile Hong Kong actress), Raymond Wong (who also co-directed
this effort) and Teresa Mo (someone I would like to see more of; who also
appeared in John Woo's last Hong Kong work), it actually is small wonder that
this zany movie was the second -- only to "Justice, My Foot!" -- highest grossing
film at the Hong Kong Box Office(s) in 1992; drawing more crowds and financially
outperforming such esteemed works as "Swordsman II" (8th on that year's list),
"Police Story III: Supercop" (10th), "Dragon Inn" (16th), "Once Upon
a Time in China" I and II (17th and 12th respectively), and "Hard Boiled"
(18th).
In ALL'S WELL, ENDS WELL: Stephen Chow's Foon Foon is a womanizing
deejay, one of whose attempted conquests is a Hollywood movie-mad Miss Hollyok
(played by Maggie Cheung, whose first appearance is in a pointy metal bra
Madonna get-up!); Raymond Wong takes on the role of a man who treats his
wife (regardless of what form she comes in -- that of Sandra Ng or another
actress whose name I do not know) like a servant, preferring to have fun
with his mistress (ditto); while Leslie Cheung is the nice girlish boy-man
who dotes on his ugly duckling sister-in-law (Ng) and chastises his brothers
(Chow and Wong) for their general ill-treatment of women but very much dislikes
a (distant?) female relative of his played by the usually perky Teresa Mo.
Since all three brothers continue to live in the same house with their parents
(a not unusual situation among East Asians), characters meet and stories
do intermingle somewhat.
In a nutshell: This Clifton Ko- and Raymond Wong-helmed work is a
prime example of those thoroughly eager-to-please -- sometimes to the point
of surreal ridiculousness (cf. "The Eagle Shooting Heroes"!) – efforts that
seems to characterize Chinese New Year offerings from the Hong Kong movie
world. If you are the kind of person who is happy to star-gaze, and
to watch people happily acting silly, then this extremely light-hearted movie
will suit you fine. Another factor in this lightweight production's
favor is that while its plot is quite lacking (the film often feels like
a series of loose sketches), it truly is gag-filled. But IMHO, the
true gauge(s) of how you will respond to ALL'S WELL, ENDS WELL may well lie
in whether you find the following -- which REALLY do all take place in this
film -- to be hysterically funny or amusing (or just plain weird):
Scenes of a temporarily insane Stephen Chow being in love with – and (consequently?)
drinking his own urine from -- his bedpan...Chow and Maggie Cheung twice
(thrice? I must confess that my mind was so boggled by then that I
might have forgotten to count!) performing the Double Inverted Eiffel Tower
Kissing Technique...Miss Hollyok and Foon Foon attempting to live -- as well
as act -- out scenes from such Hollywood productions as "Ghost", "Pretty
Woman" and "Misery"...a butch Teresa Mo clashing with -- at one point, using
a baseball bat on – and threatening to rape the father of a truly effeminate-acting
(flower-arranging class teaching, lantern weaving!) Leslie Cheung...and Sandra
Ng playing and transforming from Raymond Wong's homely, parsimonious, Karaoke-croaking
wife into an attractive club girl.
My own feeling is that this movie has both inspired but also lame moments.
It also is undoubtedly so that while ALL'S WELL, ENDS WELL is enjoyable enough,
most -- if not all -- of the individuals involved have done quite a few better
things. As such, I must admit to being somewhat disappointed that this
major box office success -- which has gone on to spawn at least two similarly
titled semi-sequels -- is as uneven as it generally is, even while acknowledging
that there were times when it not unpleasantly made me more feel more light-headed
than I have been for a while...
My rating for the film: 7.
