SYNOPSIS:
Eldest brother Yang Bao Hui (Henry Thia) under his youngest
brother, Yang Bao Huang's (Mark Lee) influence, quits his delivery
job to sell health supplements. He is doing well until... Second
brother Yang Bao Qiang (Jack Neo) is a successful businessman
with a flashy car and big house, before he lands himself in
debts. Bao Huang earns a good salary as a regional supervisor
for a health supplement trading company, and spends lavishly,
until the health supplement business goes bust... With three
sons in financial crisis, what will happen to their elderly
mother (Lai Ming)?
MOVIE REVIEW:
Jack Neo is back with a second servicing of his first
hit movie Money Not Enough and instead of a direct sequel,
this is more of a update of current money issue problems that
Singaporean are facing. The contemporary grievances such as
the increasing taxing number of ERPs (Every Road Pay/Electronic
Road Pricing) to the other recent problems such as En-bloc
saga and MLM scam fall out are all played out here.
However
Jack Neo had commented in the making of segment that in a
relatively financially stable country like Singapore, there
aren’t that many new money issues problems that could
be updated into this movie. If only he delayed the making
of this movie by a year and he would have abundance of materials
to play with (since we are heading towards a recession right
now). But since this film was to coincide with the 10 years
Anniversary of his film making career, it’s unfortunate
that such juicy material was untimely missed. In order to
solve that issue which could potentially mean a shorter runtime
of this movie was working the kinship versus money matters
angle into this sequel.
The
balancing act between family and money was the best moments
in this movie. It’s effectively a tear buckets inducer
and it all boils down to the grand actress Lai Ming’s
performance. This fragile old lady delivered her comedic and
dramatic performance with such a flair that is testament to
her longevity in showbiz and the worthiness of her nomination
for the upcoming Golden Horse’s Best Supporting actress
awards. Her portrayal of a sympathetic and long suffering
mom deserves a movie mom award of the year (if there ever
is one).
However
there are some bits that stood out as sore thumbs. In recent
years, it’s becoming the norm to see product placement
in movies but to see the manner this movie was plugging products
and services from the movie sponsors; it’s like watching
an extended paid infomercials for the first half of the movie.
Even though Jack Neo needed the funds to support his quest
for better CGI effects in this movie, such creative influences
due to external factors would somehow derail the story telling
and characters buildup. The end result would be a choppy and
uneventful introduction and set up for Money Not Enough 2.
When
the movie is not busy showing products placement, one can’t
help but feel that it is aping certain factors from other
films that achieved success in our local theatres. If the
robotic ERP gantry doesn’t remind you of a certain transforming
movie, then you need to watch more blockbuster movies. The
success that 881 had with the Getai (Live stage performance
at Ghost Festival) aspect made the effort to include a Getai
singer and their performing routine in this movie felt rather
dubious.
Lastly
the way the movie chose to resolve the matters after the high
strung tearjerkers climatic was a bit rush and overly simplified.
The solution for their money woes felt squeezed in at the
last minute as the storyteller suddenly remember this is a
movie about money problems and not a Taiwanese tearjerkers
movie. All these problems sort of signify that this sequel
was made without a strong core storyline and were patched
together by pandering to various external factors.
Overall
it’s a passable movie that touches on the current Singaporean’s
financial grievances that most Singaporeans are already aware
of. It brings nothing new or offers nothing in depth as it
tried to wander through a series of endorsements to tell a
story. The only interesting aspect of this film was that it
posses an intriguing question on balancing between kinship
and money matters but sadly it took the easy way out by offering
little closure to that question. Personally I don’t
see the appeal of this movie but Money Not Enough 2 made over
4 Million dollars earnings at the box office so I am guessing
that many heartlanders of Singapore think otherwise.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
First up, there’s the trailer and teaser
for Money Not Enough 2. While there isn’t anything
special to note about the 2.30mins trailer, the teaser is
a funny PSA (Public Service Announcement) with Mark Lee and
Henry Thia to demand that the cinema audience to turn off
their phone during the movie.
The
Making of segment covers genesis of this
sequel which Jack Neo had been putting off till now. It covers
also the usual features where the actors talk about their
characters and their involvement with the story. The breaks
in-between made it feel suspiciously made for TV to promote
this movie before it was screen. The notable bit was a peek
into how Singapore productions are branching out to green
screens special effects. Although the effects here are still
a far cry with the Hollywood heavies, it’s a decent
and commendable effort.
The
last extra would be the movie stills segment
featuring various photo stills of the movie and the production
of this movie with accompanying Hokkien song from this movie
soundtrack.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
If I didn’t
count wrongly, the ScorpioEast Logo flashed twice during this
playback of the movie in this Dvd, once during the 2 mins
mark and during the fake ending of this movie. It seems that
they are trying to scale down the number of times that their
logo flashes during the movie. It’s a good progress
but a little shout out to them, how about totally removing
this horrible idea? It feels like what a China brand would
do and it’s destroying the film that’s in your
Dvd. Show some love for the movie.
Although
presented in 2.0 Dolby Digital, it had a very good mixing
of dialogue and background sound effect that came off as a
very robust and strong audio production for playback on a
TV.
Comes
with Chinese, English and Malay subtitles.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Richard Lim Jr
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