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What a Hero!


Reviewed by: mrblue
Date: 05/25/2007

In What a Hero, Andy Lau plays Hwa, a cop who is promoted from his hometown beat on Lantau Island to a prestigious assignment in the big city. However, upon his arrival, Hwa finds himself placed with a group of losers led by the scatter-brained Uncle Yi (Michael Chan). Yi's team is ridiculed by the other teams in the department, most notably one led by the cocky Yeung (Roy Cheung).

Hwa's team manages to crack a major case, but Yeung takes the credit, which leads Hwa to become disillusioned and go back home. Wanting to prove his worth to his childhood love, Nan (Maggie Cheung) and his mother (Meg Lam), Hwa heads back to the city to take on Yeung in a taekwando tournament.

It's no secret that many Hong Kong comedies don't translate very well to western audiences. Whether it's pop-culture references or Cantonese puns, a lot of these types of movies simply don't work for English speakers. But the better films in the genre (most notably those starring Stephen Chow) can overcome cultural differences and provide entertainment no matter the viewer's native language.

What a Hero is not a movie like that -- but it's not due to any sort of cultural barrier. It's just simply not a very good movie. The jokes are extremely dopey, even by Hong Kong comedy standards, where the realm of the scatalogical is considered hallowed ground. The proceedings generate a few chuckles along the way, but finding any true laughs here is an exercise in futility.

Director Benny Chan tries to liven things up with some action sequences. You might think that these might help matters, especially since Chan has done some solid action work in movies like Big Bullet. Sadly, that's not the case. The action is exaggerated to the point of being utterly ridiculous. Can the audience really be made to believe that Andy Lau can do 720 degree spinning kicks? Since Lau is so heavily doubled, the film-makers obviously didn't think so, and their attempts at illusion are completely transparent.

What a Hero isn't a total stiff, but it is extremely disappointing, especially considering the cast involved. Star power is sometimes enough to save a movie and make it into something worth watching. But, in this case, it only make this production's shortcomings all that more glaring.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]

Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: ewaffle
Date: 08/19/2006

“What a Hero” has plenty of star power which is almost (but not quite) defeated by a seemingly thrown together script and slapdash direction. Maggie Cheung has only a few scenes and not even many lines. Maggie played Nan, the girl left behind by CID officer Yeun Ta Hwa (Andy Lau) when he is promoted from the backwater of Lantau to a not quite elite squad in Hong Kong. One of the squad members in Saucer played by Anthony Wong who runs away with the movie from the time he first hits the screen. Saucer is supposed to be the buddy, the second male lead, but Wong’s edgy goofiness makes us concentrate on him much more than the other characters. Paul Chun and Meg Lam shine in supporting roles, especially Lam who is perfect as Hwa’s mother. Saucer falls in love with her at first sight and pursues her with a single-minded passion. He is much more diligent in trying to become his partner’s stepfather than he is in pursuing the bad guys.

Which is one of the themes of “What a Hero”—arresting criminals or even just getting in their way is never the most important issue for the CID. Internal squabbling, empire building and jockeying for position in the police hierarchy comes first, romantic entanglements are second, controlling crime is third—if it is thought of at all. The real bad guys are the over officious rival cops who always have their suit jackets buttoned and ties tied and whose boss wants to take over both squads. He is played by Nick Cheung who doesn’t really convince us he is as bad a guy as the role calls for. On the other hand, Nan’s zoot-suited fiancé, to whom she was promised when she was a child, is so slimy and disgusting that you know right away that he will leave empty handed.

There are a few jokes about Lantau and its unsophisticated people—probably many more than I was able to pick up. Shing Fui-On is the local postman who is essentially the town crier—he reads all the important mail before he delivers it and lets everyone on the street know whatever big news he is delivering. At one point Hwa says that Nan can’t accompany him to Hong Kong because she doesn’t speak English or Chinese, meaning, it seems, that the dialect spoken on Lantau can’t be understood anywhere else. The entire neighborhood turns out to wave goodbye to Hwa when he leaves for Hong Kong as if he is going to the other side of the world. Lantau is Staten Island to Hong Kong’s Manhattan, like the suburbs of Paris to the City of Lights. Once again, though, the rubes from the sticks triumph over the sophisticates from the big city. Hwa is as brash and naive as he can be and looks as if he barely had time to comb the hayseeds out of his hair and kick the cow dung from his boots but he defeats Officer Cheung in the big Tae Kwon Do tournament, catches the criminal ringleader and gets the girl.

The action scenes are deliberately overdone. No kick is landed before the kicker spins through the air a few times, occasionally calling out his move—720 degree Typhoon kick, for example. Kicks to the face leave the imprints of tiny feet in red and everything is impossibly acrobatic with time (and everything else) standing still while the combatants tumble and twist on their way to making contact. This conceit is OK at first but soon becomes just another joke that is told too often.

The movie ends with the police department Tae Kwon Do tournament which ties up all the loose ends. The criminals have been apprehended, the right boys are with the right girls and all that remains is for CID Squad 1 to defeat CID Squad 4. There is one last set of countryside vs. city references—when it looks as if Hwa is going down to defeat his neighbors from Lantau begin leaving the stands and telling him not to bother coming back. And when he needs a trick to beat Officer Cheung, who is a much better fighter, his mentor from the old neighborhood comes up with the crafty solution, a set of metal shin pads.

Not a horrible movie but certainly far from a good one.

Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: pjshimmer
Date: 07/06/2005
Summary: Absolute garbage

I think I might be slightly harsh when I say that "What a Hero" does not have any redeeming value. Maggie Cheung, Roy Cheung, and Andy Lau have never been worse than in this piece of crap. It's not outrageous enough to be classified as a classic, and it's not serious enough to be taken seriously. Just a stinker.

[1/10]


Reviewed by: MrBooth
Date: 01/21/2002
Summary: Likeable nonsense

What a completely stooooopid movie! Benny Chan directs, Andy Lau plays a country boy policeman who gets transferred to Hong Kong CID on account of his being "very competent" on the Lantau beat. This may be a reference to his Tae Kwon Do skills, or just a general commendation. In Hong Kong he is assigned to "Team 1" under Raymond Wong... these are the losers of the station - not surprising since the only tactic they seem to have for solving crime is praying to Kwan. He also makes an enemy right away out of Roy Cheung, leader of "Team 4" - the station golden boys and arrogant bastards. Rivalry and conflict ensues. Meanwhile, he leaves Maggie Cheung back in Lantau as his lover-in-waiting, but alas she's been promised since before birth to her cousin in the US, who turns up and proves to be a horrible loud-mouthed loud-suited bastard. More rivalries and conflict! Add to this a very young looking Anthony Wong as Andy's psychic colleague who falls for his mother and Shing Fui On as a goofy postman in short pants and... well, the whole result is quite mind bogglingly daft! Definite mo lei tau comedy, and if Andy had been Stephen Chiau and Raymond Wong or Paul Chun had been Ng Man Tat then this movie would probably be an all-time fan favourite by now. As it is, the cast can't quite carry it off as well as the Chiau/Tat power combo can, and the movie doesn't hold up as well as a result. There are still some great laughs to be had along the way though. The action scenes feature moments of coolness, but are a little cheaply constructed and neither Andy nor Roy have the real skills to be truly impressive - some of the bit players are pretty good though. There's a huge OUATIC influence on the way the scenes are filmed, but obviously less of a budget behind getting them right.

Mildly recommended if you like Andy and you like Stephen Chiau, but if the nonsense doesn't click with you then you'll probably really hate it!

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: AV1979
Date: 12/07/2001
Summary: Andy and TKD - What a Combo!

What a Hero! tells the story of a young Taekwondo champion turned HK police officer. Andy Lau plays the young heroic champ who has some major dilemmas when he loses his first love (Maggie Cheung) to a jerk of a man, and a rival officer (Roy Cheung) takes credit for all of Lau's handiwork. He must settle his love for Maggie and then try to defeat Roy in a police-sponsored taekwondo tournament.

Anthony Wong and Michael Chan are absolutely hysterical as Andy's partner and boss respectively.

What a Hero! - What a Film!


Reviewed by: leh
Date: 12/09/1999

Moderately funny cop comedy. Some good scenes.


Reviewed by: spinali
Date: 12/08/1999
Summary: NULL

Yuen Ta Hwa (Andy Lau) thinks he's good at fu; that is, until he joins the HK police and gets clobbered by his jowly superior Chien Yieng (Roy Cheung). Meanwhile, Hwa's childhood sweetheart (Maggie Cheung) is about to be married off to a clod who wears loud suits, and we have generic baddies and a police Taek Won Do tournament to pad the rest of the story. Good Saturday matinee fare, despite the stamp-pressed plot and generic fight scenes.

(2.5/4)



[Reviewed by Steve Spinali]

Reviewer Score: 6