Reviewed by: Hyomil Date: 04/07/2011 Reviewer Score: 1

Reviewed by: j.crawford Date: 05/14/2006 Summary: an intelligent, amazing piece I purchased a VCD of Wu Yen when it came out shortly after the Lunar New Year in 2001. This film is the third directorial collaboration of Johnnie To Kei-Fung and Wai Ka-Fai. I had certainly enjoyed their previous work together, the romantic comedy Needing You ... (2000) and the satirical Help!!! (2000) quite a bit. With this film, I fell asleep before the first disk played out. As time went on, the bad “word of mouth” about this film started to grow and then at the end of 2003, the talented songstress and award winning film actress Anita Mui Yim-Fong passed away. My sadness over that tragedy kept me from returning to the film. A couple of years have passed and I recently became cinematically infatuated with Sammi Cheng Sau-Man. Go figure. After seeing and thoroughly enjoying her work in films like Good Times, Bed Times (2003) and Yesterday Once More (2004), I felt that I should return to Wu Yen. I found that this movie is an intelligent, amazing piece of filmmaking. The performance of Anita Mui Yim-Fong is astounding, perhaps her best. The three lead actresses (Mui, Cheng, and Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi) have remarkable chemistry on screen. All of the supporting cast adds layers of color to the finely crafted screenplay. Steeped in cultural history and nuance, Wu Yen is one of those Hong Kong movies made for local audiences and true Hong Kong cinephiliacs. Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: Stardust Date: 07/09/2002 Summary: An Alternative To A Sleeping Pill This movie was so bad that I fell asleep a quarter of the way through. I woke up in time to catch the ending, which I made me regret waking up so soon. An adaptaion to a legendary character, with 3 of the most popular female stars of HK would make one think that this would be an interesting movie worth watching, not use it as an alternative to a sleeping pill. If I'm not mistaken, I think Sammi got a movie nomination for her character here. How the heck did her name slip into the ballot? In my opinion, there was no difference between her here and her previous work. If taking on an ancient role continues to remind viewers of Sammi's previous characters, then it can be confirmed that Sammi can't act and she's only playing herself everytime. Overall, I'm just glad I missed most of the movie, and I'm glad I didn't have the patience to go back to watch what I missed. Rating: 3/10 Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 01/04/2002 Summary: Nothing special Wu Yen ('Smart But Ugly' in Cantonese) is a comedy that is based on another story from years ago (can't think of the name off hand). It is a period comedy which is not often done in HOng Kong, but still that doesn't save it. Even the presence of Sammi Cheng and the 'old favorite' Anita Mui, they still don't bring much appeal to this film. Some of the comedy is funny, but most of the film is boring. Rating: 2/5

Reviewed by: danton Date: 01/03/2002 Not quite sure what to make of this movie. It almost plays like a live continuation of the puppet theatre scene that glues the various chapters together, with everyone in the cast, especially Anita Mui, hamming it up and overacting every scene in the most child-like manner. The humour feels laboured, mixing fart gags with modern elements like the fake Adidas poster during the 7 nations games sequence, the production values are poor, and the gender-bending felt just odd... Who wants to see Anita Mui, Sammi Cheng and Cecilia Cheung with a beard, acting silly and buffoonish??? And yet, the movie has a unique, innocent charm, and I actually found myself at some point caught up in the story, caring about these silly characters... Marginal recommendation.

Reviewed by: reelcool Date: 06/21/2001 Summary: Sucks Big Time This film sucks like there's no tomorrow. The acting is bad, story is bad, directing is bad, and thus the movie is bad. Watch it at your own risk.

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 06/08/2001 Summary: It's the 90's revival WU YEN - Soooo early 90's! The opening shots in the forest with blue lighting & filters and dry ice and strangely cantered camera angles were perfectly done, gave me goose bumps of nostalgia. The film reminded me most of some of Stephen Chiau's period farces... it had the same sort of balance of humour, characters and yet a serious undercurrent and relative coherency. I don't think it's as well done as Chiau's best though. I was initially rather disconcerted by the extreme over-acting on display, which made it feel rather... distant, I guess. Felt too much like Anita Mui, Cecilia Cheung etc acting than it did characters. After a while I adjusted to this somewhat though. Sammi Cheng also overacted a lot at the very start but over time I quickly stopped registering "Sammi" when I saw her and started registering "Wu Yen". I didn't find the movie as amusing as I think it wanted to be... possibly because it felt too intelligent and deliberate in it's attempt to recapture the atmosphere of the 90's. The action scenes were disappointing... there are only a couple, and they make vague nods to the early 90's style, but don't have anything like the effort devoted to staging and filming them. I wish they'd put a little bit more time and money into these. I'd love to see a revival of that style of action and movie, but I don't think Wu Yen will be the movie to start it. Maybe it's just that there aren't that many people left in Hong Kong that know how to work a wire rig anymore :-( Overall, the movie is good to watch, but not Milkway's strongest offering. I don't think it's what To & Wai Ka Fai do best. It was certainly a worthy attempt though. The running time seemed very long when I watched it (actually 123 minutes), and I never quite felt the rush of excitement that I'd have liked, but I did enjoy the story and characters, and a reasonable percentage of the humour.

Reviewed by: MilesC Date: 05/18/2001 Summary: First Johnnie To disappointment in years. I should make it clear that I'm not entirely fit to judge this film; Chinese viewers certainly seem to enjoy it more. However, I am beginning to grasp some language jokes, and have certainly enjoyed farcical period comedies in the past; unfortunately, this is no Chinese Odyssey, Eagle Shooting Heroes, or Forbidden City Cop. The film's main asset, really, is the cast; the star-power of the leading trio melds well with the always-welcome Milkyway regulars, and Anita Mui's gimmick casting is interesting enough. Cecilia Cheung, however, is a bit irritating, especially when her character's throwing a tantrum. Unfortunately, the cast's best efforts at wackiness (and they are consistently and thoroughly wacky; perhaps 5% of the film's lines are delivered "straight.")just don't get the film very far. Conflict-wise the story seems dead in the water, and as far as gags go, they must be HEAVILY language-based, because I barely cracked a smile watching this. There are some decent moments, but there isn't really a single gag scene that did much for me. There area lot of costumes, but as period films go it's surprisingly dull looking; as others have noted, the sets are few and bland. And at two nearly two hours, a movie needs to offer more than just star-power and funny voices. Although I enjoyed Johnny To's other "sellout" (ie profitable) movies "Needing You" and "Help" just fine, Wu Yen is the first disappointing film from my current favorite in quite a while. It is, however, reassuring to know that I'm not a drooling Johnnie To fanboy who will lavish praise on anything he turns out.

Reviewed by: future113 Date: 05/17/2001 Summary: Hmm.. I must be the only one that didn't like this one I like Sammi Cheng because I think she is cute and a good actor too. But after seeing the first half of this movie I thought that it isn't that good, funny at times but overall it was stupid. So I haven't finished the second disc yet because there's no motiviation. I'd give this rating as: 1.5 out of 5.

Reviewed by: rfong Date: 04/21/2001 i think its Brill and funny especially Sammi Cheng who was exceptionally good acting in her part and her coments were very very funnnnnnnnny! Cecelia Cheung had a funny role playing a woo lei ching both a woman and a man , my brother and i had a great time watching this and laughed my pants off .

Reviewed by: rolandyu Date: 04/16/2001 Summary: A good and entertaining movie! It is very enjoyable and fun-flowing movie. Characters are nicely performed by all actors and actresses. I love the visualisation of the Emperor's characteristics. A good and entertaining movie all around. 4/5

Reviewed by: KwanHoFans Date: 03/14/2001 Summary: Loads of (sometimes silly) fun! 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

Reviewed by: magic-8 Date: 03/14/2001 Summary: Shabby and Not Funny Sooner or later, it had to happen. Johnnie To has been producing and directing so many solid films, that he finally came out with a terrible mess. To's latest movie "Wu Yen" is the most painfully unfunny comedy to come out this year. It has the look, feel, and cheap production values of bad Hong Kong television. The shiny and glaring video sheen on this picture is inexcusable. If To and co-producer Wai Ka-Fai were aiming to imitate bad TV, then they succeeded. If they were looking to put out a quality piece of work, then they failed miserably. The script was amazingly bad. There was no subtlety or humor at all. The three leading women in the film were miscast, or perhaps they made the wrong choices in their methods of delivering the comedy. Comedy is a matter of timing, and this movie had none. Mui, Cheng and Cheung were terrible. Speaking your lines quickly is not comedy. After awhile, the three women sounded very shrill, like whiners. They needed to be bigger, grander and more fantastic. What was missing were the good old reaction shots of the characters as they went through their situations as wide-eyed, slack-jawed, or mouth agape zingers. With a director like To, you'd expect a more finished product. The movie's conceit is that a shadow puppet play is transformed from puppets to live actors in the telling of the story. When dealing with cartoon caricatures, the cast didn't go far enough. There was no distinction between the stereotypical good and bad characters. This is a film where the casting should have been based on types that define the fable. Someone in this movie had to play the straight man, or the target of the "jokes," but there wasn't one. This film needed an Ng Man-Tat type or similar straight man role. This movie made me yearn for the comedy of Stephen Chow or Wong Jing, at least for a few sight gags and some lowbrow humor. "Wu Yen" had some tasteless humor, but not funny in any way. Not to mention that this film was awfully long. I felt like abandoning this stinker, but I waited until the end, thinking that maybe the film would get better as it went on. I was sorely disappointed by To and this shabby production. I can only hope that this was an aberration in To's filmmaking. Reviewer Score: 2

Reviewed by: Chuma Date: 02/23/2001 Summary: A Chinese Pantomime Story The story starts with a shadow puppet play showing the lend of a Fairy Enchantress who is imprisoned in a rock by a wizard. Along comes Emperor Qi on a hunting expedition, who unwittingly set the Enchantress free which unleashes a love triangle. Next we cut to a live action version of the scene, although it is not what you would expect. The leading roles in this movies (Emperor Qi, The Fairy Enchantress) are played by women, which makes for some funny situations. Qi is being followed by his entourage which includes: the Prime Minister, a historian and the General. He comes across a sword chained to a rock and goes to pull it out, but he is ambushed by Wu Yen's clan who try to stop him pulling out the sword and in doing so, actually manage to pull out the sword by mistake. Once she is free, the Fairy Enchantress casts a Love Spell on Wu Yen and will only agree to lift it if she marries him. On seeing the effect of the spell, Qi rejects Wu Yen for being 'ugly' even though he was just about to marry her. On the way back to the palace, Emperor Qi finds the Fairy Enchantress in human female form and agrees to marry her. Wu Yen objects however and tries to fight him. Back at the palace, the Fairy Enchantress is attacked by Ancestor Huan, the Great(X5) Grandfather of the current Emperor who is trying to protect his dynasty. The attack backfires however, as he is only a fairy in training. Wu Yen turns up at the palace, but she ends up down a well and then in jail after appearing to kill Emperor Qi's new lover. When an envoy turns up from the Yen provence, with a warrior carrying the 'Heaven Sword', which cuts other swords in two, Emperor Qi seeks Wu Yen's help. She defeats the warrior easily, but the Fairy Enchantress insults the envoy and he declares war on Qi's kingdom. At the Emperor's request, Wu Yen leads the troops into battle... Probably the closest thing I can compare this to is a pantomime, where everyone overacts and there are gender bender characters. There are many funny scenes, but it doesn't have many fight scenes (the shadow puppets are used to good effect however). I would recommend this move to people who like light comedy/romance films. Rating : 9/10

Reviewed by: Paul Fonoroff Date: 02/03/2001 Wu Yen would be a Cantonese movie fan’s dream come true—if casting and marketing were everything. Director-producer Johnny To is a master at both. His Needing You, one of the most popular films of 2000, turned pop star Sammi Cheng into a box office force. In Wu Yen he teams her with Anita Mui, one of the few female personalities of the 1980s to still retain a popular following in the new century, and 20-year-old Cecelia Cheung, number one in the up-and-coming category (some would say she has already arrived). Alas, casting isn’t everything, and Wu Yen is a case of a good cast cast adrift. The classic comedy of a clever-but-ugly lady (Wu Yen), whose destiny to marry the buffoonish emperor is stymied by an alluring fox, is familiar to Hong Kong viewers, having been brought to the big and small screen numerous times since Cantonese pictures learned to talk. Alas, the filmmakers make only the most perfunctory attempt on playing with this familiarity. There is a limp effort at spoofing the unique low-tech special effects and sound effects in those “late show” oldies, but it never goes far enough to be truly amusing. Wu Yen’s production values are not particularly high, but it seems due to a hasty production schedule rather than any conscious effort to emulate or burlesque an earlier cinematic age. The movie plays with a few gimmicks—Anita in a man’s role and the attractive Sammi as the less-than-pretty title character. But the gimmicks quickly grow stale, while the film goes on and on and on for a laborious 120 minutes. There are a few funny scenes. At the screening I attended, the crowd laughed loudest during an over-the-top mah-jongg game, the kind of sequence that is almost de rigeur in Chinese New Year comedies. The hilarity doesn’t go beyond that level, and even moments like those are few and far between. There is virtually non-stop gab, little of it clever, with Anita’s pseudo-macho delivery, Sammi’s nasal protestations, and Cecelia’s coquetry becoming shrill. The latter looks ravishing in her ancient costumes, but still lacks the sense of comic timing previous films have shown the two more veteran actresses to possess. Fans satiated with New Years goodies will probably be too gorged to notice. For them, and they are indeed the target audience, Wu Yen will provide innocuous, inoffensive family fun. 2 Stars This review is copyright (c) 2001 by Paul Fonoroff. All rights reserved. No part of the review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: shelly Date: 01/29/2001 Summary: Wu Yen: first impressions The story involves a complicated love triangle set in the distant past: a Fairy Enchantress who moves between male and female disguises (Cecilia Cheung) and a powerful female outlaw Zheng Wuyan (aka Chung Mo-yim, aka Wu Yen, played by Sammi Cheng) vie for the affections of the Emperor Qi (Anita Mui). Farcical palace intrigues (involving much disguise switching and imprisoning) are interrupted when the Qi Kingdom is attacked. And the situation can be saved only if Wu Yen can be prevailed upon to lead the Emperor's army. But the Emperor is torn between her attraction to Cheung (disguised as a lovely young woman -- not a stretch) and her admiration for Wu Yen. My first impression was that this was a Stephen Chiau-style movie with Anita Mui in the Stephen Chiau role. It's a period drama set much earlier than the usual Ming/Qing era costumers: over 2000 years ago, in the Warring States Era, before China was united. So one can enjoy those distinctive concave upswept hats affixed with large pins that decorate the men, and a much more "archaic" look to women's costumes, male armour, etc. It's refreshing. This is an ultra-high speed verbal comedy that relies on the quality of the writing, as well as the performances by the three principles. Verbal delivery is Stephen-Chiau speed, hurtling along from line to line with barely a gap for breath until later in the film, when things become momentarily more serious (signalled by the Sammi Cheng song montage moment). Anita Mui can handle all of this with aplomb. She's hilarious, strong, dignified, and loose, all at once. She plays two male roles (the Emperor and the ghost of his ancestor), and manages a nice parody of male swagger, authority, and goofy irresponsibility without lapsing into tiresome caricature. Mui even manages to pull of a double-drag scene, in which her character has to dress as the Emperor's concubine: it's as much fun as it should be to watch her playing a man playing (badly) a woman... (... the joys of mise-en-abime, if you're into French deconstruction). A glorious performance that (it's early, but) puts her in the running for best actress of 2001. Sammi Cheng proves again that she's a real actress (if proof were needed after NEEDING YOU and KILLING ME TENDERLY). It's no fluke, any more. She trades in her stylish Cantopop diva persona for something much more varied and expressive: she can play romantic, daffy, petulant (fortunately there's less of this), comic-noble, frenzied-energetic., furious... just about anything that the script calls for. Not as polished a performance as Mui's, but in some ways tougher, calling for greater range, and it puts on display areas of Cheng's talent that we haven't yet had occasion to see. The third lead, Cecilia Cheung, is somewhat disappointing here. She's an actress who can exhibit real depth and surprising power with the right collaborators (see her work for director Aubrey Lam in TWELVE NIGHTS). But To and Wai seem to not know what to do with her, here, and left to her own devices, she seems out of place, too one-dimensional. There's no consistent heft or depth to her character, which provides the opportunity (with its triple or quadruple role, much gender-switching, and moments or moral confusion) for an actress to shine. Among the supporting cast, I found Lam Suet to be hysterically funny as the effeminate Prime Minister. Usually this sort of stereotyped role makes me gag, or worse, but Lam works so effectively against his stolid persona that I forgot to be offended. In the technical departments: Raymond Wong Ying-wah provides another superb musical score. The art direction and cinematography, though, let me down, which is extremely unusual for a Milkyway Image production. Sets looked rather cheap, colours seemed subdued, and the whole production had a rather "shot for television" look about it. I'll have to have another look, though, before passing final judgement on this. Just to balance that criticism, though, I have to say that the delicately realized shadow puppet scenes were superb. Set to a woman's chorus (was this newly composed for the film, or is the music historical?), these scenes narrated plot background and enacted the the magical and battle sequences. What a wonderful way to save money and do something artful, at the same time. I can't think of anything in a Chinese film quite like it. Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: Paul Fox Date: 01/27/2001 Summary: Wu Yen, A fantastic farce. After a somewhat dissapointing December at the box-office, Wu Yen is an unexpected treat for the Chinese New Year. A comedic farce based upon a legendary Chinese fable it features three of Hong Kong's leading female performers in the key roles. Sammi Cheng stars as the films main character Cheung Mo Yim. A gifted female warrior who is destined to marry the emperor and bring prosperity to the dynasty. Cecelia Cheung plays the fairy spirit that comes between the destined couple. The nature of her role has her playing both masculine and feminine roles. Anita Mui has the largest role as both the Emperor Qi and his descendant Emperor Huang. Arguably, Anita Mui is the real star of this film. She is given the most material of the film and comes across with some of the best laughs. This should come as no surprise given her extensive film background. Wu Yen marks her return to the big screen after a four-year hiatus. Her last film was Eighteen Spring (1997) for which she won the award for best supporting actress. Her performance here as two male characters in the film is only underscored when she later (as a man) dons a dress to portray a woman. Sammi and Cecelia also give noteable performances and the three woman work quite well on scrren together. The content of the film plays very much like a live cartoon, with sound effects and visuals to match. It also features some traditional shadow puppet narration and narrative music sung by Sammi. This creates some beautiful storytelling and in today's industry where everything of late seems to be rendered by computer effects, it is nice to see a film that returns to a bit of tradition. Johnnie To is no stranger to comedic direction and has proven his versatility in films such as Justice, My Foot! (1992) and The Fun the Luck and the Tycoon (1990). The key to this film, as in his other comedy works, is in the script and the dialogue. If there is any problem with Wu Yen, it lies in the fact that the director chose to keep it solely in the realm of comedy, so at times Wu Yen may seem to be a bit lacking in the action department. Still, this is only a minor flaw in a film that is so wonderfully woven.   Overall review rating : 4 Review by Paul Fox Location:  UA Shatin Time: Sunday 21 January    7:30pm