My Papa Rich: rich movie that with generous tickles

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.

Kingsman: The Secret Service: Secret Recipe for Delicious Fun

Simple recipe for great spy movie, but somehow, many people deviate so much from the original recipe without much success. A faithful intrepretation to the old school spy story, which follow rather closely to the formula, and ended up with one hell of a ride.


Ingredients:
1. 1 lovable lead
2. 2-3 veterans to help carry the show. It will be great to have names like Colin Firth and Michael Caine
3. 1 megalomaniac villain, preferably marinate with one scary sidekick (remember the guy with metallic jaw in Bond? Try it with a metallic blade as legs)
generous dose of humour, especially the British type
4. one light but funny, smart script
5. plenty of smart gadgets, albeit bit old fashion

Instructions:
1. the usual instruction of rookie trying to be great spy, failed in the process and later redeem themselves. Follow that closely.
2. Mix it well with a megalomaniac plan for mass destruction. Work well with almost all recipe, even though it may sound ridiculous at first.
3. make sure that the action is fast paced.
4. pour the generous dose of humour into the script, so the audience would not be yawning (refer my last reviewed movie). Even all the death could be done in artfully funny manner.
5. it will be good to add bit of smart intellectual reference into the bowl. For example reference to the Knights of Round Table (probably faithful to the original comic? and do not forget the reference to Mycroft (hey, that would guarantee me loving it!)
6. Bake it in high temperature in the oven, referring the hot pace of the whole movie, to make sure everyone is glued to their seats.
7. and after 2 hours, you have one massive success!

ratings: 4 poink~!
comments: just so happen that compare to the Jupiter recipe, this is a much more tasty recipe, although a formulaic one. This proves that even a age old recipe could be still a good one.