This film is a light-hearted remake of the story based on the well-known Chinese phrase that translates roughly into "Zhong Wu Yen in times of war, Xia Ying Cun in times of peace". The phrase refers to the tendency of the Chinese emperor Qi to favor one of his queens (Xia) over the other (Zhong).

Legend has it that the cowardly, loser of an emperor was lazy with his duties but spent most of his time with beautiful Xia. However whenever his country ran into trouble with other nations, he would beg the capable but perhaps less physically attractive Zhong to bail him out. Here in this movie, the title character Zhong is played by singer Sammi Cheng, and the emperor is played by versatile actress and songstress Anita Mui. Cecilia Cheung plays Xia who, in this remake, is depicted as a fox spirit who loves Zhong and who transforms herself into the beautiful Xia to try to entice the emperor away from Zhong.

This story is told with a modern, twenty-first century twist. It's silly fun most of the time, with conversations among characters alternating between traditional "wu xia" language and contemporary Cantonese slang. There are also segments where Johnny To attempts to have the audience sympathize with the characters as they reach their emotional lows, which work slightly less effectively but provides a nice balance to the (occasionally ridiculous) jokes which span the entire film.

The leads gave solid performances, and the supporting cast (notably the emperor's advisors) also did a great job providing lots of comic relief. One cannot help but wonder, though, why the directors decided to cast Anita Mui as the emperor. Perhaps I was overly sensitive, but personally I found there were some lesbian-esque overtones in the film. What the producers/directors were hoping to accomplish with their choice of casting leaves me completely baffled.

Having gotten the negative comments off my chest, I want to say to those who are thinking about going to watch this film: some of the jokes may be silly and down right stupid at times, but it should be a pretty good two hours' worth of entertainment for those familiar with the Cantonese language.

Overall rating: B