HK Celebrates Lunar New Year 2012 with A Family Movie Tradition
The arrival of Lunar New Year must also mean the arrival of another All’s Well That Ends Well movie from HK, the 2012 version being maybe the 12th iteration of it? I dunno, I’ve lost track, and have also lost plenty of brain cells watching these silly pieces of crap. The AWTEW movies are always chock full of big HK/C stars being told to play either characters completely different than their typical onscreen personas or characters that make fun of their real life personas. It’s very HK-centric, with so many inside entertainment jokes one needs to read Apple Daily on a weekly basis to understand all the juice.
I like watching them because it’s akin to a really stupid Monty Python movie, but swapping out the Brit humor for the Canto humor, plus deducting intelligence points and upping the R-rated joke factor. Who wouldn’t like that? Heh. Have a look at the English subbed trailer below and some official stills. 2012 managed to get Donnie Yen, Sandra Ng, Raymond Lam, Louis Koo, Kelly Chen, Lynn Xiong, Yang Mi, and Chapman To to gather together and then make a movie as if everyone might’ve been eight sheets to the wind already. Super bonus points for having an old lady crack an Edison Chen joke (which apparently never gets old), plus have Yang Mi recreate the Phoebe Cates bikini scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Trailer for All’s Well That Ends Well 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k5dTzLm1-I
haha I’ve disowned these a yr or 2 ago. It’s like those veggies drowned in sugar that’s always present in some aunties’ candybox but I’ve refused to touch even if offered. I’ve jumped ship watching the TVB pirated versions.
Just the trailer is making me sad. How I wish they’ve stopped touching anything reminding me of the 1997 one. And YangMi, my dear, ‘save ur feathers’, this is so not worthy of your talents (and PSs)
I missed the last 2 years, but seeing this made me nostalgic, and I totally felt the stupid cheerful lunar new year mood come over me. XD
Showed it to hubs, he said, ‘That’s so new year charitable spirits of them, all the best scenes cut for the love of mankind to skip the movie’
XDDD
I think these movies do not really appeal to non-hknese.
The jokes are witty if you know HK politics and gossips. As a Cantonese myself, i swear i still dont get like 1/2 of the jokes.
Yet being HK exclusive is part of their appeal. I find that in recent years HK movie try to appeal too much to the Mainland market..losing some of it’s magic…(and of course just the fact that HK films in general are going down the drain.)
I honestly haven’t seen one of these since the first 2 (I think I saw the first 2) long long long time ago now (in the 90s right?). I loved those first 2 because I really thought they were really funny. In fact, all those crazy HK movies from the late 80s, the early 90s – when each actor turned out 10 movies a year – there were some funny ones there. Totally random and silly but funny. Gotta love CYF or Stephen Chow back then 🙂 Have the more recent ones been in the same spirit?
Anyhow – I don’t really have an inkling to watch the new one, but I might go back and watch the 1st one. 🙂 Stephen Chow back then… LOL. It was fun to see a lot of who’s who in HK ent world.
Is Donnie Yen now best buds w/ Louis Koo or something? This is like his 2nd rom-com w/ the dude. The 1st one about cosmetics was kinda cool to watch Donnie in. Is this one of those films where if the chemistry is just right then go milk them for what they’ve got kinda shows?
I do enjoy the All’s Well That Ends Well movies. Yes they are stupid but to be fair, they never pretend to be intelligent or deep or even good-quality movies. Basically they are just a quick way for the movie company and the stars to earn some cash during the CNY festive season. So it’s best to watch them with zero expectation and leave your brain at the door. This year movie is not as funny as some of the previous ones I have watched but there are still some laugh out loud moments and I enjoy Louis Koo hamming it up as the himbo who tries to use his six packs to impress Kelly Chen.