Love on a Diet
Reviewed by YTSL
In the current slender figure obsessed Hong
Kong movie world, Andy Lau and most definitely Sammi Cheng would rank among
the top contenders for the titles of slimmest and thinnest of (super)star
figures. Who then would be better choices than this duo to get rendered
virtually unrecognizable by way of fat body suits and the kind of facial
make up that thankfully is qualitatively better than that which was used
to make Carina Lau look portly as well as middle-aged and Tony Leung Kar
Fai look frail as well as old in “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father” (never
mind that utilized in the disastrous attempt to make Anita Yuen to play
a character who was old enough to be the mother of Alan Tam, Teresa Carpio
and Jordan Chan in “The Age of Miracles”)? And who other than Johnnie
To and Wai Ka Fai, the co-producers and -directors of this third Milkyway
Image offering of 2001, could actually think up a way of approaching the
well-trodden – particularly, in the year that has followed in the wake
of their “Needing You…” being the smash summer hit that it was – path of
romantic comedies with such an innovative and fresh angle?
Thus far, the portends are good that this HK$28
million budget production will do well at the local box office, having
beaten out the US$152.75 million budget “Pearl Harbor” for the top spot
in both movies’ first week of release in the HKSAR. Although there
may be a minority out there who will take offence re some aspects of LOVE
ON A DIET (notably the insinuation that all fat folks, like all of the
obese people in this work, got to being the way they are by way of their
possessing little self-control with regards to their eating urges), this
(re)viewer will admit to her finding this film to be much less un-PC than
cute and sweet as well as very funny. But then, I do have a weakness
for efforts in which major personalities are willing to do just about anything
in the name of love and those they hold dear; and that which would have
been more accurately entitled “Dieting for Love” doesn’t only have a woman
seeking to lose 200 lbs. in six months to win back the man she had been
in love with for over ten years but also has a(nother) man voluntarily
turning himself into a human punching bag to earn money to enable her to
seek professional help to successfully carry out this enormous undertaking.
In LOVE ON A DIET, Mini Mo (who Sammi Cheng amusingly
portrays) is a Hong Konger who is the great love of a Japanese master musician
named Kurokawa (played by a handsome Japanese actor who is similarly named).
Ten years previously, the then young man had been inspired by her to compose
a piece that subsequently got him into a music course overseas. Left
alone in Japan to wait for Kurokawa, Mini had sought to fend off her loneliness
and romantic yearning with food, more food and still more food. The
disastrous result was that she ballooned so much in weight that upon his
return some years later, Kurokawa failed to realize who she was when he
came face to face with her and she couldn’t bear to identify herself to
him.
As luck would have it, an equally – if not more
– physically huge individual (played by Andy Lau) makes Mini’s acquaintance
at an immensely low point in her life -- to be precise, days after an unsuccessful
suicide bid and while undergoing bids by the innkeeper she owed room rental
payment to get men romantically attracted to her and thereby willing to
foot her bill. This Fei Lo (Cantonese for “Fatty” or “Fatso”) – whose
real name we actually don’t ever get to know – covers her inn debt because
she is a fellow Hong Konger in need, then finds that he can’t get rid of
her at the nearest train station, like he had planned, even with his offering
to pay for her fare. Before too long though, the kind hearted gentleman
not only learns Mini’s sob story but also resolves to help a clearly desperate
as well as anguished her regain the previously svelte figure that she had.
The radical approaches Fei Lo adopts – many of
which were proposed by his fellow Tokyo Chinatown residents (who include
ones who come in the also rather substantial forms of Lam Suet and Wong
Tin Lam) – and Mini agrees to are rather unorthodox, to say the least;
seeing as they include such as the swallowing of tapeworms and incorporate
acupuncture, reflexology and quite a bit of purging as well as thoroughly
masochistic exercising and dieting. Although they may not seem inherently
hysterically giggle- and laughter-inducing, rest assured that the cast
and crew of LOVE ON A DIET do successfully make them come across as being
so. In particular, I found the communal discussion as to how Mini
could quickly shed large amounts of pounds – which was punctuated by worries
voiced by Wong Tin Lam’s character re the mortality of the tapeworm that
he had suggested that she should swallow, in the face of her stomach and
body also being subjected to the other extreme weight loss methods advocated
by others of Fei Lo’s buddies -- to be pretty prime. The frankly
inspired cutting between the scene of Mini swallowing the tapeworm and
that of Fei Lo sucking up a long and thin piece of candy was something
that also successfully induced a gurgly as well as “wah!” and “eeuww!”
reaction from me.
Lest people think otherwise, here’s letting
it be known that LOVE ON A DIET is a movie that is replete with quite a
few “aaaaww” moments too (plus one that actually coaxed out a tear or more
from my eyes). Something else that I think bears emphasizing is that
this thoroughly palatable offering is not – to use Tim Youngs’ words –
“the gimmicky extended fat joke” that one might have had fairly good reason
to expect that it would be. While I do think that she is thinner
than she ought to be, Sammi Cheng has been rather admirably quoted in a
Sanney Leung translated Fluff Report as asserting that “I hope to show
the beauty of an obese person. I've always felt that society has
treated fat people unfairly by associating being fat with shame and ugliness.
They still, however, have beautiful love stories to tell!” Perhaps
the greatest assurance that I feel I can give people worried about this
work having terribly offensive anti-fat people elements would be that after
viewing it, almost the first thing I wanted to do – doubtless on account
of there having been so much delicious looking food on show in an offering
that was set entirely in Japan…the land of sushi, tempura, teppanyaki,
yakitori, chawan mushi, etc. (yum!) -- was to go eat to my heart’s content,
and the consequences of doing such be damned!
My rating for this film: 8.0
