Eighth Happiness (1988)

Johnnie To

Hong Kong

88 min, color, Cantonese (English subtitles)

Review © 2003 Branislav L. Slantchev

Comedy of Errors	Yun-Fat and Jacky, gods of cookery
Raymond Wong is the serious brother	Typical

An irresistibly silly comedy that would never be shown publicly in this country unless the showing was immediately followed by the ritual burning of all existing copies of the film. As funny as it is politically incorrect and offensive, this Johnnie To offering features several enormous advantages over the plethora of similar fare.

Cherie Chung is Beautiful	Advanced wooing technique
It only takes a smashed car	Petrina Fung in a Peking Opera

First, it stars Chow Yun-Fat in a decidedly non-typical role of a rather effeminate dandy who is an incorrigible womanizer despite the overt gay mannerisms. Second, it stars DoDo Cheng, which is a reason enough to see it anyway. Third, it stars Cherie Cheung as the care-free sybarite that is out to have fun no matter what the consequences. Obviously, a lot of this film rides on star appeal.

The stunning Carol 'DoDo' Cheng	Facing the challenges of ping-pong
Gratuitous shot of DoDo	Communicating with the in-laws

Chow Yun-Fat, Jacky Cheung, and Raymond Wong are brothers who all mess up their love lives only to have everything straightened out by the end of the film. CYF is a perennial womanizer who cheats on his exquisite girlfriend Do Do with women from 19 neighborhoods. His latest involvement is with Beautiful (Cherie), who is outrageously seductive. Do Do is an airline stewardess and is conveniently away most of the time, but eventually catches her hubby in his misbehaving. Right after they've decided to get married, of course. In a move that is sure to get every decent feminist choke with indignation, she forgives him after he nearly drowns himself in a restaurant pool.

Trouble in paradise	DoDo being angry
DoDo being sad	DoDo being unforgiving

Jacky, on the other hand, is a wimpy guy who has fallen for Ying Ying (Fennie Yuen), who unfortunately has a rather beefy boyfriend (Michael Chow), who does not hesitate to take advantage of the sniveling Jacky. That is, until the latter's brothers and their girlfriends combine forces to show the guy who's boss. These two lovebirds then decide to get married.

Romantic sunset... threesome	Maybe anger would work?
If anger doesn't, groveling sure should	The hilarious opera spoof

Raymond is a host of his own cooking show and falls for Mrs. Wu (Petrina Fung), whose husband has just left her with their annoying son. Everything goes well until she finds out that the obscene phone calls she's been getting every night originate from the brothers' apartment. The three idiots apparently have nothing better to do with their time. She splits with Raymond, but they get reconciled in an absolutely hilarious staging of a Peking Opera, in which everyone sings, and which has to be seen to be believed. This spoof itself is worth the price of admission.

Recognize them in makeup?	(Maybe) happy ending

Although a lot of the humor is lost in translation (the subtitles fail to convey huge chunks of the dialogue and flicker on and off way too quickly), the film is rather funny and is quite entertaining. It won't be making headlines but then again I won't be selling my DVD of it either. The Universe DVD comes with Dolby Digital 5.1 remixes in Cantonese and Mandarin, and is letterboxed at 1.85:1. It has the usual minimal extras: trailers and talent files for CYF, Jacky Cheung, and Johnnie To.

November 17, 2003