Merry Go Round
In a last minute rush to check out a few more
offerings from 2001 before I compile a Top 10 list for the year, I have
been very pleasantly surprised to discover a few small nicely wrapped presents
waiting for me. They have received little publicity but You Shoot, I Shoot
and this film have generated strong word of mouth as films worth checking
out. In both instances word of mouth has been right on target. Both films
unfortunately vanished at the box office without a gasp (You Shoot, I Shoot
-HK$ 1.7MM, Merry Go Round - HK$ 1.1MM), but they are certainly more rewarding
than many of the higher profile films of the year.
It is somewhat surprising that Merry Go Round
did so poorly as it is produced by UFO, but it is a small gentle film with
a fairly unknown cast (except for Eric Tsang and a small bit for Helen
Law Lan) and directed by Thomas Chow who has only a few film credits to
his name. The film harkens back to earlier UFO films, as it is very reminiscent
of the series of Yesterday You, Yesterday Me films in which Eric Tsang
played a kind understanding father and the film was told from the point
of view of his young son. Here Eric is again an understanding father of
two children and the film is framed through the eyes of his young daughter
Cocoa, but it basically revolves around his older teenage son, Fung
(Lawrence Chou) and his friendship with two sisters – Carlily and Heman.
The film admittedly has very little bite and feels
somewhat idealized in its portrayal of the family and characters within,
but clearly the director has a lot of affection for them and is unable
to allow anything really bad into their lives. Not a lot happens in the
film – in a metaphorical sense they are on a slow Merry Go Round as it
ends sort of where it began – but this very tiny slice of life is touching
and when the end credits began rolling I was disappointed that I wasn’t
going to be able to watch what this family does next, where it goes next,
who it meets next.
In a brief synopsis, Eric opens a noodle shop
with his two children. Carlily (in a sweet wide eyed huggable performance
from newcomer Yeung Shing Lan) pops by and offers to help out. Fung and
Carlily soon engage in an adorable hand holding romance. A poor but dignified
older woman (Helen Law Lan) and her grandson, Locust, drop by for one bowl
of noodles and soon the boy becomes a quasi-member of the family and strikes
up a friendship with Cocoa. The only angst enters the film when Fung becomes
mildly interested in Carlily’s tomboy sister, Zeny Kwok (get the character’s
name - Heman). It’s teenage romance at its most innocent and perhaps in
this day and age not quite believable. An interesting aspect that never
gets explored is the absence of parents – the mother of Fung and Cocoa
is dead, the parents of Carlily and Heman seem to have vanished and Locust
is being brought up by his grandmother. But though this is alluded to in
one touching scene between father and son and briefly addressed in another
between grandmother and grandson – it is never brought in as a major dramatic
device.
The performances from the young cast are engaging.
All are very new to the business, they seem naturals and are very charming
and real. Even though the two little kids appear awkward in a couple of
scenes they carry off their roles very nicely. For Eric this sort of role
is a walk through the park – what is most interesting is that the scars
from the attack on him are very apparent in many of the scenes of the film
– a major gash on his forehead – but not in every scene – so perhaps he
was filming this when the attack occurred? Adding to the sweet ambiance
of the film are three songs from Kelly Chan who also appears in an almost
impossible to recognize cameo – but oddly I was able to recognize her from
the back! There are a few other cameos as well and Hung Ye appears as one
of the contestants in the quiz game.
My rating for this film: 7.5
Note: The below information was passed on
to me by Calvin:
GCGooBi who wrote the script created these
Fu family characters (which suffered a name change in the movie) in 1998
as a daily segment aired in her radio programme "GCGooBi Family". In the
radio version, the father is actually voice-acted by Vincent Kuk and GCGooBi
voice acts both brother and sister's characters. Merry-Go-Round was initially
a 20 chapters special presentation aired during last summer which
Kelly Chen was both Carlily and Heman, Andy Hui was Locust and Rain Lee
from Goodbye Mr.Cool was his grandma.