Diary of a Big Man (Daai jeung foo yat gei, 1988)

Chu Yuan

Hong Kong

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat (Chow Ting Fat), Joey Wang (Joey), Sally Yeh (Sally), Carrie Ng (Ka Lai), Waise Lee (Chi Hung), Kent Cheung (Police inspector)
Runtime: 86 min
Language: Cantonese (English subtitles)

Review © 2002 Branislav L. Slantchev

A silly comedy that redefines silliness (a hard thing to do given the history of this particular HK genre). CYF is a supposedly soft-hearted man, who meets Joey and Sally, falls for both of them, and, naturally, marries them both. A lot of zaniness ensues when he tries to keep his love lives separate. First he attempts to fake job-related emergencies so he can spend a couple of hours every night with the two. This proves unworkable, especially as the cinematic fates steadily put Joey and Sally together in various circumstances until they eventually become friends. CYF's complicated cover story, which I did not particularly follow, to tell the truth, has them confused as to who is Chi Hung's lover, while CYF gets to make out with both his wives. Of course, the intrepid Kent Cheung almost stumbles across the truth, as all good police officers do, but he is quickly repelled by a truly awful gay-man imitation by Chow.

The comedy of errors cannot continue forever (although it came darn nearly close) and the women find out the truth. At first they take their revenge, and this part was rather poorly done and in bad taste. Then they abandon him, only to come back separately and run into each other again. The end is sure to surprise everybody and irate the resident feminists. It had me drooling.

February 8, 2002