Fascination Amour
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.
