Fascination Amour
Director: Herman Yau
Year: 1999
Rating: 5.0
Where is Gavin MacLeod
when you need him. Even an episode of Love Boat has more cinematic integrity
than this film. You know a movie is totally bankrupt of ideas when in the
last 30-minutes there are two flashbacks to previous scenes in the film and
also when there are some five quasi music video type scenes to songs from
I believe Andy Lau. The plot of this film is so lightweight that a puff of
wind would have blown it out to sea. Basically that’s both where this film
takes place and belongs. This Chinese New Year’s offering from Andy Lau is
an attempt at old fashioned screwball comedy, but it has only the formula
with none of the heart or zaniness.
Andy Lau is this shallow, incredibly wealthy fellow who was born with a
silver spoon in his mouth and has not taken it out since. He goes everywhere
with his entourage of Anthony Wong and others and does nothing for himself.
His mother sends him a marriage candidate – he has had seven previous fiancées
– and the two of them go on a cruise on the Fascination Amour.
The fiancé soon finds love with a
waiter and Andy Lau becomes enamored with Ishida Hikari – initially also
very wealthy, but who soon discovers she is down to her last ten dollars.
She challenges Andy to get off the ship with her with ten dollars as well
and see if he can survive on his own. He accepts.
There is also a bizarre and absolutely stupid
subplot – no not even a subplot – just dumb routines with Raymond Wong and
Christine Ng.
This has all the basic ingredients of the
old screwball comedies, but there is just no inspiration here. I would love
to send the producers/writers a video of Sullivan's Travels as a lesson in
the screwball genre. It just feels like they slapped this film together
in a week or were spending all their time partying on that Caribbean island
! The only reason I can think to watch this is because of nice performances
from Ishida and Anthony Wong.
