Happy CNY everyone. It is the season for low expectation movies as distributors churn out sub par shows to cater for the sudden surge of movie going crowd. It is the season to suspend all believes while watching story with holes that rivals the swiss cheese. It is the season to watch all those films with big names despite knowing that it is just mindless way of killing 2 hours. And despite that, I still continue the tradition of catching some CNY offerings. Kingsman was a delightful way of beginning the lunar goat year, and as usual I am super supportive of local product (despite the weak offerings from MyFM crew in the recent years)My Papa Rich is one of the choice promoted heavily by 988. Yup, I got teased when I switched over to the "uncle-radio-channel" of 988, but that is how I manage to get to know this movie. It is only after I finished the movie and read its review that I knew that it is the product of Ryon Lee who directed Transcend, Seventh and Dream Boyz. Had heard few good comments of him but did not know his style until now.
The show is the usual family oriented comedy which local movie makers excel in while making CNY movies. It is not the origin story of Papa Rich cafe chains, but the story of how a humble chicken rice seller became instant millionaire for a month after meeting up with his childhood friend. All the estranged children return home to cheat his money and as expected with some disastrous outcome. The money broke the family but in all CNY movie, there is a heart warming ending where by reunion became the main theme.
The casts are strong, being all veterans and adequate cameos here and there. I have to say that the director Ho Yuhang is sooooo funny in his scenes that he can consider switching career to a comedy actor. I did not know about Kim Thian earlier but playing the granddaughter of the main character, she steal all the laughter whenever she appears. The story, again, is full of holes and felt bit artificial at times, but good enough for this lunar season. The script, which can make or break the movie, is funny enough though some of the humour (with the "lapok" sound effect) felt bit forced. There are some genuine funny moments which will stick in my mind in the next 15 days, but there are also some moments which endanger the show to regress to a low level HK mo-lei-tou show. The ending is rather expected with the typical CNY fare but satisfies this picky CNY movie reviewer.
ratings: 3 poink~!
comments: extra poink for the effort. defnitely not "the journey" of 2014, but not a bad choice for CNY.
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