SYNOPSIS:
The story revolves around Spring, a hitman who is on a mission in Hong Kong with his partner Setting Sun. However, Spring falls ill and comes under the care of a nerdy screenwriter Soya. Soya welcomes his new friend snd tells him his sad story involving a beautiful woman, Tian Ai. Spring decided to solve Soya problem by killing Tian Ai. But it turns up to be a mission impossible...
MOVIE REVIEW:
During
the viewing of this DVD, we pressed the “pause”
button a few times. Not because we wanted to take a toilet
break. Not because we needed to take a call. Not because we
decided to watch the movie on another day when we felt “more
inspired”. We paused the movie because being movie buffs,
there were a few very interesting shots of nicely stacked
DVDs – we just wanted to take a closer look, to see
which of those titles are movies we have seen before.
Ah,
the narcissistic nature of reviewers.
This
Hong Kong movie does satisfy this egotistical behaviour of
ours. And that is the reason why this 105 minute movie is
one oddly intriguing comedy that we have to recommend to all
you cinephiles out there.
Directed
by Chan Hing Kai and Janet Siu, the story’s protagonist
is a Mainland Chinese hitman who ends up in Hong Kong with
a film screenwriter. The friendship brings the duo on a misadventure
that involves a psychotic girlfriend, a pompous film director,
a pregnant young girl, and a climatic gunfight showdown. Sounds
like a serious drama? Think again. When one of the directors,
Chan, has a filmography which includes La Brassiere (2001)
and La Lingerie (2007), you can expect anything except serious
drama.
It
is convenient to pass this movie off as one of the many disposable
Hong Kong comedies, but trust us, if you are a fan of Chinese
movies, then you will lap this up. There are countless references
to Chinese cinema which will have you grinning in glee. One
particularly memorable scene involves the hitman using movie
titles to tell his personal story (that’s when you’d
see the nicely stacked DVDs in several shots), while others
include parodies of films like Assembly, Ip Man and Johnnie
To’s triad films.
Don’t
worry - the parodies are not as senseless as the ones you
saw in Vampire Sucks or one of those Scary Movies. In fact,
these in jokes are played with a heart, and you can sense
the filmmakers’ love for cinema. The warm and fuzzy
feeling makes you smile, and want to embrace this unique movie.
Chapman
To (Triple Tap), who plays the chubby hitman and Wong Cho
Lam (72 Tenants of Prosperity), who plays the geeky screenwriter
head a wacky cast in this movie. The pretty Fiona Sit breaks
her sweet stereotype to portray a crazy girlfriend, while
the equally pretty Kama Law plays the spunky girl who wants
to seek revenge on the boy who impregnated her. Joining them
are familiar Hong Kong stars like Tsui Ting Yau, Hui Siu Hung,
Carl Ng and Wong Yau Nam in some blink and you’ll miss
it roles. Fellow filmmakers Lee Lik Chee, Law Wing Cheong,
Soi Cheang Pou Soi and Derek Kwok also chip in to play clueless
filmmakers in a brilliantly executed scene.
You
may not remember much about the story when the end credits
roll, but you’d be amazed how much you love cinema,
and start going back to the abovementioned scene to check
which of those DVD titles you actually own.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Code 3 DVD contains a Trailer for the movie.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The visual transfer of the movie isn’t spectacular,
and it is presented in a dubbed Mandarin audio track. We can
only imagine how much funnier the movie is in its original
Cantonese audio track.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING:
Review by John Li
Posted on 21 September 2010
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