Hidden Heroes
Directed: Joe Ma; Cheang Pou-soi
Year: 2004
Rating: 5.5
So this is Ronald
Cheng. His name has been floating through the Hong Kong film stratosphere
of late, but I wasn’t really at all sure who he was. For some reason I had
been avoiding his previous films under the assumption that he was yet another
fluffy idol being pushed by a PR machine with hoards of Benetton wearing
teenagers latching on to the latest craze. Not exactly. He could be mistaken
for an upside down mop with tattoos or a scruffy scarecrow left in the field
for too long. His face is oddly formless – like an oblong bland pudding with
Mr. Potato parts stuck on for his eyes, mouth and nose - but his characterless
features allow him to take on different looks very easily with added facial
hair, glasses or off-beat expressions. And he definitely isn’t just out of
diapers as so many of today’s current “actors” appear to be – in his early
thirties he has been around for a while – first as a singer/songwriter (a
protégé of Jacky Cheung) and then in a number of TVB series
beginning in the late 1990’s. He made a number of forgettable (at least by
me!) appearances in films as well – Bullets of Love, Dance of a Dream, Twelve
Nights and My Wife is 18. I saw all of those but can’t even vaguely recall
who he was in them.
While this was going on he also gained some notoriety off screen – a relationship
with Miriam Yeung that has been off and on and rumors of liaisons with other
actresses – Cecilia Cheung, Stephanie Che and even with one of those crumbling
Cookies - as well as an imbroglio on Eva Airlines in which he got drunk and
had to be subdued by the pilot with a flashlight! Then he hit the comedic
jackpot in 2003 with Dragon Loaded and followed this with Super Model – both
were hits at the box office and the buzz was that he was the successor to
Stephen Chow. Of course, the same thing was said a few years ago regarding
Nick Cheung and when was the last time any one went out of their way to see
one of his movies – while Chow is still turning out blockbuster films. After
seeing this film, my guess is that Cheng will go the way of the Cheung –
he is a bit wearing to watch and one doesn’t feel any particular affection
towards him. At the same time there are parts of this film that are quite
funny – though whether that is due to the script or the actor I am not sure
– and other reviews of the film indicate that this is a step down from both
Dragon Loaded and Super Model – so perhaps those are both worth checking out
at some point.
Hidden Heroes is a fairly silly parody of The Terminator that is much too
long for its own good – 112 minutes – has a raggedy narrative and some major
dead spots – but has a few scenes that are fairly amusing. Cheng is a cowardly
cop – avoiding danger whenever possible – in one instance he hears a shot
and so tells a witness to run away so that he can chase them and get out
of harm’s way. He also has a Japanese girlfriend (Asuka Higuchi – who has
managed to get in a number of Hong Kong productions) who confesses to him
that she was a Geisha at one time though her Geisha dance more resembles
something you might see in a skid row strip club. His life takes a radical
turn when a robot from the future comes to pay him a visit. This robot comes
in the form of Charlene Choi – showing perhaps that people in the future
have lost their minds – I would want the Gillian version myself – who is
programmed to always smile like a Moonie asking for your money and to have
no emotions.
She gives Cheng a good news/bad news message. She will keep him alive until
the 15th of the month – and then make sure he dies on that day. This has
to be done because . . . because – well it’s way too confusing to say,
but I guess the salvation of mankind must be at stake. Other complications
arise – he is arrested falsely by an oily corrupt Raymond Wong but is able
to escape by taking another officer (Qin Hailu) hostage – and telling the
surrounding officers to lay down their guns, take five steps back and hug
each other. To get a phony passport he is told to find Ling – who turns out
to be yet another Charlene Choi look-alike – oh oh – the prediction of his
death seems to be coming true. Not to worry though – part of it involves
a genius brother and he doesn’t have one – until his mother (Bonnie Wong)
tells him she shacked up with Yuen Wah and they have an eight-year old son
(Li Ting-fung – the kid from Three and every other movie that has a boy in
it these days) who is a mega smartie pants.
None of this really matters though – partly because so little of it makes
sense but mainly because what matters is whether you find the various set
pieces amusing or not and the ratio for me was about 30/70 – there is just
something funny to me about a grown man disguising himself as a schoolboy
in a school uniform or the little brother taking diners hostage with a vegetable
or Charlene inserting a tracking device up Ronald's rear end. None
of it is inspired like so many classic Stephen Chow routines – but it certainly
is better than most of the recent stuff coming from Wong Jing or Cheng’s
ex-girlfriend Miriam Yeung. Charlene who can often grate like a cheerful
dentist is very likable here in her dual roles – as cute as a marshmallow
as the ever-smiling robot and teddy bear sweet as the tough talking Ling.