Maniacal Night
Director: Leong Tak-sam
Year: 2001
Rating: 6.5
My Kingdom for a condom. A low budget affectionate look at Hong Kong. At
times the camera just pans the city – the neon lights, the skyline, the hustle
and bustle of a city that is alive with flavors and sounds and optimism.
The camera is basically just saying look at this city. Isn’t it great. In
the end one of the characters simply says Hong Kong is Heaven. Because of
the title and poster I expected this was going to be a slasher or violent
film. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a gentle amusing comedy
directed by Sam Leong, who after this went on to a few good films – one of
my favorites is the insanely absurd The Stewardess. This has a bit of the
feel of Scorsese’s comic film After Hours in which a night gets progressively
worse and funnier as everything goes wrong. This has a similar framework
and I found myself amused throughout. It also has a few of my favorite character
actors but no big stars. At least in Hong Kong. The main character is a Japanese
ex-pat played by Taguchi Hiromasa who back in Japan is a well-known comic
and TV personality. He is great here starting with the opening credits in
which he does a humorous frantic routine of getting ready for the big night
on his birthday with his Rising Sun underwear. Sort of a grinning pudgy Tom
Cruise in Risky Business.
It is the day of the Handover in 1997 and in a small lower-class restaurant
three men are sitting at a table talking about what now? One asks are you
going to Canada to which the other replies I would but I would miss the egg
tarts and the coffee-milk tea too much. One of the men sitting there is Miki,
a Japanese ex-pat working at a corporation where he is basically ignored
by everyone because he can’t speak Cantonese. This inability to do so plays
havoc with his night. But one of the men at the table speaks Japanese and
asks him – “So you want Joey” to which Miki nods furiously. Yes. Joey. It
is an assignation with a high class hooker – or at least an expensive one
– HKD 50,000. But she has to leave at midnight to see the fireworks. Still
that is four hours of fun on Miki’s birthday. What could go wrong?
Well, everything. He gets to the room, she is dressed seductively as she
lays in bed and he has a smile on his face as wide as a football field. “You
have condom?”, “No don’t you?” “No” “50,000 HKD and you didn’t bring a condom”.
“No. Go get one”. And the night from hell begins. He gets mugged and the
condoms he just bought stolen along with all his money. He goes back to the
7-11 and begs for one more condom. “No money, no happy” the clerk says. He
begins to go berserk and steal money from the donation box. I just need HKD10!
By the end of the night he has started a triad gang war, broken up a party
of people waiting for UFOs to arrive, got beaten up by Mainlanders from Shanghai
who hate the Japanese, gone to a brothel to borrow a few condoms and had
the police raid it, got caught in the closet of a love hotel by the triads
and accused of doing a threesome, pulled a gun on the cops, have his picture
on TV as a Japanese terrorist and become the object of gamblers in that coffee
shop as to whether he would be caught by midnight. And he just wanted to
get laid on his 30th birthday. He keeps looking at his watch to see how much
time he has left with his escort before the witching hour and time is slipping
away. It all takes place in Kowloon.
Showing up as well is Chin Kar-lok as a hyper dedicated cop chasing after
Miki and who refuses to take down the picture of the Queen till midnight.
Alfred Cheung runs the restaurant. Law Kar-ying is the waiter in the coffee
shop with a hideous toupee and gets the betting going. Lam Suet gets
caught up with the raid on the brothel and goes running with Miki. Tats Lau
plays the unmerciful 7-11 clerk who won’t give him a condom. Tiffany Lee
is the cute interpreter at the end. Not a great film but nicely done. An
unexpected pleasure.
