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
