SYNOPSIS:
Ah
Long Pte Ltd is a light-hearted black comedy about a young lady,
Wang Li hua (Fann wong) tries to restructure her money-lending
triad into a professional and 'loving' triad that stands against
the use of violence after she takes over from her triad leader,
Chen Jun ( Richard Low ) who has retired. Her various restructuring
plans bring about hilarious results.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Reportedly Director Jack Neo was very dismay with
the major print media’s review of Ah Long Pte Ltd. He
was upset that all his effort had been criticized as rubbish
and being simply atrocious1. Even our usually generous reviewer
(who didn’t had the best of days during Ah Long Pte
Ltd preview screening) gave it a miserly 2 stars rating. Based
on those reviews and a plot that sound like a rip off of “My
wife is a Gangster”, Ah Long Pte Ltd was in my “avoid
list” for the longest of time until the release of the
Dvd copies.
I would often find mini crowds, scattered around our local
Dvd stores when it’s screening Ah Long Pte Ltd on their
flatscreen TV. There were moments where we were grinning at
the funny antics and although we couldn’t hear what’s
being said, it had fun atmosphere as those community TV watching
days.
Then
further on, while meeting up with my Malaysian friend for
dinner recently, she spoke of dialogues as “being careful
with the splashing of paint” and “the ability
of making your mother pregnant”. She didn’t say
it was from Ah Long Pte Ltd but being exposed to how movies
could be a big influence in everyday dialogue, it wasn’t
hard to figure out that it was from this film.
I am not going to say that those negative critics were wrong
in being arrogant and standoffish towards Jack Neo’s
films (or particularity to this one). To a degree, this film
does feel that it’s cheaply made and it really can’t
escape the fact that Korean actually popularize the gangster
wife franchise quite sometime ago (now that there’s
2 sequels to the original).
But
then, it doesn’t mean it can’t be an enjoyable
rip-off adaptation of popular Asian films.
First of all, after hearing Jack Neo’s speech during
his 10th
years of film making celebration on how he had to work
around tight budget, it painted a different impression on
how he made his films. This guy had to wrestle funding problem
like every other local Singaporean director and in all honesty,
Ah Long Pte Ltd might “look cheap” in certain
moments, it felt that he had maximized what he could with
his budget to bring the best out of this film.
Then
the adaptation of the gangster wife into Singapore / Malaysian
context was a riot.
Besides
the constant poking at our government, the cast (especially
Mark Lee) and story brought a distinctive local flavor to
this triads set in our vicinity and sort of make it our own.
Shouldn’t we be proud that we finally have a gangster
movie to call truly and uniquely our own after Korea and Hong
Kong had it fair share?
They wouldn’t think of a durian soccer
match (yes it reeks of Shaolin Soccer but the usage of durian
scores one for Ah Long Pte Ltd) and the blend of dialects
(Cantonese and Hokkien) with Malay really made it feel close
to heart.
The
jokes here are a bit crude but nonetheless; it was amusing
enough that it leave a lasting impression (to my Malaysian
friend, me and I believe many others too). There are jokes
about the “difference between buffet and à la
carte connection with sex”, how Fann Wong’s Li
Hua made the biggest mistakes that for both male and female
gender and many others that really crack me up. It might be
rather low brow (such as the shit and urine joke) but it can
be high entertainment value if you are not too turn-off by
it.
One
of the main reasons that the jokes worked here would be due
to Mark Lee portrayal of an effeminate “Ah Gua”
dancing teacher character. His transformation starts right
when he spoke with Malaysia accent which was a spot on. Watching
him acting as a sissified straight guy was equally impressive
especially when one is so used to his boisterous presentation
in our local variety show. I had never been a fan of his but
I really hope that he win some awards for this role.
Fann Wong on the other hand did relatively ok as the tomboyish
gang leader role but if her performance was to compare to
her Korean counterparts, it definitely need a lot of catching
up to convince that petite demure woman is one tough rough
cookie as in Ah Long Pte Ltd. Giving her a scar on her face
can only do so much and it doesn’t help that Mark Lee
was there to steal every scene from her.
The
last bit that stood out from this show was how it handled
the perspective of the loan sharks and their victims. On one
hand, we could actually see the various (rather funny but
could be true) difficulties that these “cold hearted”
loan sharks had to go through with debts collecting but on
the other end, Ah Long Pte Ltd also shows how bad the victims
suffered. These somewhat balance viewpoints are equally affecting
and insightful that one would never expect from a Chinese
New Year flick. Although some of the themes here touch on
rather darkly like Protégé did in previous CNY,
thankfully it ended in a more upbeat manner than Andy Lau’s
drug flick.
Overall
Ah Long Pte Ltd is not that original in it’s theme but
it brought along some of our local flavors that actually made
it fun and relatable. The story felt that it was being told
in episodic comedic skit show manner but it has a structure
and a basic flow of story. Plus I watched this film leisurely
at my own pace and basically was in a chirpier mood than a
judgmental one, resulting with a more pleasant experience
with Ah Long Pte Ltd than my fellow critics. It might not
be one of the greatest films from Singapore but it does have
it’s own entertainment merits that should not be brush
aside.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Making of
In
this 20 odd minutes of making off, the director, actors and
producers come together to present their respective characters
and plotline. This seemly made for TV making off is relatively
short in each aspect that they are touching on but it tired
to cover as much as possible, with short introduction on the
CGI, the kungfu choreographing, the makeup and etc.
One to catch for in this making of would be the various scenes
that are left out from the final cuts. There isn’t a
deleted scenes segment here so this is the next best thing.
Switching to judgmental mode, this making off tried to get
funky with the camera angles during the interviews but resulting
with an amateurish effort. When not including scenes from
the film, the rest of the “making off” look horribly
grainy. There is also the awful Chinese dubbing over the various
artists that sound more comfortable in their own dialect.
Trailer
Also included here is a trailer for this film. If
you watch carefully, there is deleted stuff that might had
irate the government body too much that it couldn’t
stay on the movie.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Ah
Long Pte Ltd is presented in it’s delightful Dialect
filled dialogue among some Mandarin tracks. Comes with Chinese
and English subtitles.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Richard Lim Jr
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