Papa Loves You
Director: Herman Yau
Year: 2004
Rating: 4.0
One has to wonder
what is going through the mind of Tony Leung Ka-fai – one of the best actors
from Hong Kong over the past twenty-years – when he is playing Dad to the
Twins – in “The Spy Dad” to Gillian Chung and here to the other one, Charlene
Choi. I can imagine a few things that must float around in there such as:
“Is this why I went to acting school?”, “Will I have to return my Best Actor
Award?”, “It pays the bills”, “How come the other Tony works with Wong Kar-wai
and I work with the Twins?”, “Even De Niro was in a film called Meet the
Fockers” - though chances are he is thinking the same as many of us
“I wonder if they would be willing to have a threesome with me”. At
least I was thinking these things as I watched poor Tony frantically trying
to keep this film going like a mouse getting electric shocks every time it
paused. I don’t know about Tony, but I sure felt embarrassed for him.
Tony plays a prissy piano teaching dad to Charlene – who isn’t perhaps “addicted”
to her as the DVD states, but he certainly is overly protective since his
wife died many years back. He constantly worries about her - having
nightmares that she has been run over, become a hooker or been in a triad
machete gang bang – typical dad stuff. Almost daily he gets calls from the
school principal (Paul Chun Pui) to come down to the school because his daughter
is in trouble – beating up someone or coercing a heavy girl to commit suicide
– and he madly runs down – his palms stretched outwards as if he is drying
his nail polish or auditioning for a local production of “The Birdcage”.
He begins to follow her around and spots her shoplifting one day and he intervenes
to save her – all this is more than annoying to his daughter not to mention
to the audience – but then this all changes.
While in a restaurant Tony accidentally saves the life of Father Hung (Eric
Tsang) who is a top triad big shot and this is witnessed by four male classmates
of Charlene (Marco Lok, Steven Cheung, Kenny Kwan and Johnny Lu) who jump
to the conclusion that Tony is actually Misty Hawkins. Hawkins was the bodyguard
to Hung eighteen years ago, but disappeared after killing 108 men single-handedly
– and is famous for his incredibly speedy Shadowless Hands. This rumor comes
in handy as Charlene finds herself in trouble with a few underworld figures
– one played by Charles Heung (who also produced this film) and Blackie Ko
(in one of his last roles) – and they tremble in the presence of the legendary
killer. Of course, the family of the 108 dead men haven’t forgotten Hawkins
either and come looking for revenge.
Most of this film is simply annoying – other parts are just aggravating –
none of it is worth a moment of anyone’s time unless they have to see Charlene
in everything – in other words they are addicted to her! She actually tones
down her typical over the top cuteness but I am not sure if that’s a good
thing or a bad thing. The final ten minutes of the film decides to get overly
melodramatic and soppy – almost painfully so – you want to shout – please
stop Tony – lets start a collection to pay his bills so that he doesn't have
to take work like this. Even worse, perhaps exemplifying the artistically
downward spiral of Hong Kong film is the fact that the director of this tedious
fluff is none other than Herman Yau. Yes, Herman Yau – the director of “The
Untold Story” and “From the Queen to the Chief Executive”. Between this film
and his earlier 2004 effort “Dating Death” which stars some of the Cookies
one has to wonder if he is in hock to the triad or going through a second
adolescence.
