You are currently displaying Big5
愛鬥大 (2008)
See You in You Tube


Reviewed by: Brian Thibodeau
Date: 10/17/2008

Improbably smitten with a handsome, unemployed film grad (Him Law) who's also a petty thief, friendly lifelong rivals Elanne Kong and Janice Man enroll in his amateur film course, wherein they lead two teams of classmates through a series of increasingly dangerous FEAR FACTOR-style challenges that Law and his oddball partner Sam Wong plan to turn into a feature film, presumably because telling an actual story would require too much effort. Punchy but extremely uneven and underplotted exercise in Film School 101 concocted, not surprisingly, by a septet of film students and rookies under the aegis of producer Oxide Pang (who also took a turn behind the camera). The concept is commendable in light of the dismal state of the Hong Kong industry at the time of production, but the result, perhaps understandably, is episodic and lacks dramatic momentum, and the attractive cast of pan-media creations provides nearly zero characterization (though burgeoning pop vocalist Siu Fei might do well to parlay his gangly mannerisms and unconventional looks into the kind of career enjoyed by Jordan Chan). Specific sequences early on show germinal promise on the part of whomever made them: a martial arts duel between Gladys Fung and Jazk Tse achieves a decent blend of modest choreography, editing, location and humor, while a jewelry store sequence is a tense example of the shoot-and-run guerilla street filmmaking that has become a defining feature of Hong Kong cinema over the years. Similar sequences in a mahjong parlor and a restaurant repeat the idea to lesser effect. Conversely, the film violates its own logic in a lengthy graveyard contest (shot entirely with night vision lenses) captured via second-person camerawork despite "directors" Law and Wong sitting on the sidelines and none of the "players" carrying cameras. Thus, when Kong and Man discover the footage has been uploaded to the video sharing web site You Tube (title check!), it's the footage we've been watching rather than the footage Law and Wong supposedly shot. Casting of Hong Kong millionaire, part-time pop singer and "Prince of White Flower Oil" Stephen Gan, arrested in 2007 and convicted in 2008 for drunkenly groping two male cab drivers, as Tommy Yuen's fruit-hurling father is . . . interesting, to say the least!

Reviewer Score: 5