All About Women
Director: Tsui Hark
Year: 2008
Rating: 5.0
While
Tsui Hark was putting this film together with the assistance of My Sassy
Girl director Kwak Jae-yong, it was whispered into the media world that it
was going to be an updated version of Peking Opera Blues. I am not sure if
that idea would have been a good one - Peking Opera Blues is a near perfect
film - but other than having three females as the focus, this has no resemblance
to that classic film. But of the many differences, what it is mainly missing
is heart. The comradeship and adventures between the three women in POB moved
you, uplifted you, made you laugh. This film is a narrative chaotic mess
which did none of that. In the 1980s and 90's there was no more an influential
figure than Tsui Hark but the new century has not treated him as kindly.
After the terrific Time and Tide in 2000, Tsui seems to have lost his footing.
He has become more interested in the technical aspects of filmmaking rather
than the narrative. He has taken up CGI and slick visuals like a mantra.
But by doing so, he has left the soul out of his films that had made so many
of his earlier films so special. One might surmise that having to co-operate
with the Mainland has had some effect on him. This film is set in Beijing
instead of Hong Kong and at the beginning of the film there is this strange
scene in a restaurant where the staff are happy Uyghurs. Really?
This film is filled with visual imagination,
movement, energy and wit but perhaps too much of it. It is constantly busy
with graphics, CGI, split screens and quick editing. It is as if Tsui is
worried that the audience will get bored if there isn't something constantly
grabbing your attention on the screen. Like babies with glistening baubles
to keep them fascinated. And I admit, I stayed with this film primarily
because it looked so cool at times, but the actual story underneath the visuals
was bankrupt of emotion. Tsui gives us no reason to care about our three
female protagonists and their romantic escapades. None of it feels real.
It gets buried beneath the hyper screen visuals that seem to have attention
deficit syndrome. Stop it Tsui - slow down - make us care what happens to
them. The Chinese title translates to "Women Aren't Bad" which perhaps better
describes the attitude of the film. Because all three of these females are
basically crazy. And clearly, Tsui seems to know nothing about women.
Fanfan (Zhou Xun) looking like a modern
version of Josephine Siao's Plain Jane character Lam Ah Chun with her thick
glasses and short hair encapsulating her head like a helmet is a 27-year-old
who wants to land a man but has had zero success. Zhou Xun is brilliant
in this - slapstick and her oddball expressions are adorable. Miss Tang (Kitty
Zhang) is a manipulative business executive who literally has to fight off
men who fall in love with her like instant coffee. The third in this trio
of females unlucky in love is Tie Ling (Kwai Lun-mei) who is nineteen and
has an imaginary lover that she talks to and thinks is with her. He happens
to be a famous singer. She boxes to get her frustrations out and hits like
a fly and drops at the slightest contact.
Fanfan is a scientist and, in her resolve
to find love, experiments with Pheromones that will make men sexually attracted
to her. After a series of failures, she hits the jackpot with a Xiao-gang
(Stephen Fung) and he is sexually besotted with her. For the next 90-minutes
in this two-hour film, these Pheromones play havoc with the love lives of
these women as they work their magic on men. But the comedy falls flat and
the romance is fabricated. So, what is Tsui trying to say? I have no idea
really. That love is based on sex which is based on chemistry? If you step
back a bit, his attitude towards women in the film is less than complimentary.
Yet, I have seen a few reviews that think this was one of the very best romantic
comedies to come out of Hong Kong/China in recent years. Well, maybe but
those film Pheromones didn't get to me.
