King of Mahjong: inconsistent CNY fun

This probably will be my finale to the CNY movie bash. Ah... the mindless funny movies with not much sense and yet manage to attract a cinema full of viewers. Given that I am very supportive of local product, King of Mahjong is my natural choice.

Sort of a joint effort, King of Mahjong boast of stars powers from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Therefore expect to hear a good mixture of Cantonese and Mandarin, with cameos from familiar faces all over the 3 regions. Chapman To shoulders the responsibility as the main attraction and he is fairly predictable in his role. Mark Lee plays the villain, and appears very comfortable.  The rest of the supporting crew play their part well enough to make sure the show did not sink.


However, given that I had watched Adrian Teh's previous movies, this year's offering disappoints me. The story is so typical that it had been used so many times, so much so that it felt like drinking expired milk. A master (in this case, mahjong expert) goes into hiding after winning a big champion. A arch nemesis manage to track him down, challenge him to a contest. Master refuse to comply, however, later change his mind after something happens. Master wins (or sort of win) in the end. The end. From all those gambling movies in HK (all the mahjong movies), the cooking movies in HK to Kara-King from Namewee boast the same formula. Yawn.....!

The humour is rather inconsistent. There are some genuine funny moments that tickle you, but there are more humour that seems rather childish. The sound effect for these moments kept reminding me, " oh, we are suppose to laugh at this point". Even the highlight finale mahjong match felt bit stale. The camera works are nice for some shots with some excellent pans. I suspect the censorship meddle with some sequence as a few stretch of the movie felt disjointed.



Despite the big name, this remains a very local flavoured movie. However, the production team decided to go along the direction of Raymong Wong style of CNY movie and Wong Jing style of humour. It may work for them, but will not work for a local movie. We have our own flavour which is unique. Think the Journey. Think Woohoo and 天天好天. Think 笑着回家. These are the good local CNY movies that mix CNY humour with good doses of family values. Even Adrian earlier work with Aniu, the Wedding Diary is better than this.

rating: 2 half poink!
comments: extra poink since bulk of the movie is shot in our own backyard, Ipoh