Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
What an astonishing and confusing mess this Shaw
Brothers film is! I sat there in wonderment and bemusement that such a
film could be made – what were they thinking? Of course, by the time this
was released in 1983 the Shaw Brothers had fallen on hard times. Their
bread and butter for the previous decade had been the martial arts films
and they had completely lost their box office appeal. So Shaw Brothers
was frantically searching for the next big thing, but this clearly was
not it. According to the DVD notes, this film took two years, six scriptwriters
and HK$10 million to produce – the six scriptwriters is easy to discern
and one suspects that much of the two years was spent thinking how this
film could be saved.
One senses that in the Shaw’s hopes that this
film would turn their financial misfortunes around they threw everything
into the pot, stirred, boiled and crossed their fingers. It has sci-fi
elements, a mad scientist/werewolf, musical videos, slapstick comedy, screwball
comedy, vaudeville comedy, kung fu (provided by Ching Siu-tung), the perils
of Pauline and a touch of romance. It also has about a two minute scene
in which Cherie Chung does a Marilyn Monroe The Seven Year Itch imitation
of her dress blowing over her head that causes a series of car accidents
and for me was the highlight of this film. Some of the individual set pieces
work decently on their own and a few of the comedy routines had me cracking
up but it all hangs together like stray clothing on a line – the narrative
is totally incoherent and bounces around like an out of control helium
balloon.
Oddly and perhaps not wisely, Shaw chose Alex
Cheung to direct this near last gasp of theirs (they were to close their
film production unit in 1984 and focus on television). Alex Cheung was
one of the pioneers of what is called the “New Wave” in Hong Kong films
that began in the late 1970’s when a number of young directors with a background
in TV turned to film and introduced a different sense of aesthetics that
was more contemporary, realistic and experimental. These filmmakers energized
the film scene for a few years with their very personal edgy and often-bleak
films before most of them were either deemed too commercially unsuccessful
and their careers languished or they were brought into the mainstream of
HK film.
Some of the other New Wave directors that made
an impact were Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Patrick Tam, Allen Fong, Kirk Wong and
Yim Ho. Before his entry into film, Cheung was considered one of the more
innovative TV directors and took his shows into areas that HK television
had not really experimented with. One critic called him a “whiz kid” and
his shows for CID, Taxi Driver and Four-eyed Detective were judged to be
some of the best TV that HK produced. In 1979 he moved into film with Cops
and Robbers and then in 1981 he directed Man on the Brink – both films
were met with critical success (Cheung received the Golden Horse Best Director
award for his second film) if not commercial success. They were taut lean
intense suspense tales that explored the grittier side of Hong Kong society.
After Twinkle – Cheung was only to direct five more films that received
little recognition (Danger has Two Faces, Imaginary Suspense, Framed, Midnight
Caller and Made in Heaven). One can only wonder how much his career was
adversely affected by this film.
You would almost have to be a mathematician to
connect the dots of this film’s so-called plot and I have trouble balancing
my checkbook (actually I don’t even bother), but here goes a sketchy rundown.
After the Cherie Chung dress over the head sighting (lets replay that one
again!), we find her working as a clerk in the cosmetics section of a department
store. Her supervisor (Ha Ping) harangues her for distracting customers
and the big boss looks on as Cherie gets something in her eye and can’t
stop winking – leading to the elderly boss thinking she is flirting with
him and suffering from a heart attack. She is fired at which time the son
(David Lo) of a wealthy man (Ching Miao) enters to the accompaniment of
a music video and falls in love with her and takes her home to meet dad.
Or I should say – to pass dad’s test. He wants two things from his daughter-in-law
– brains and her virginity in tact. Nothing second hand in his home – to
which he proceeds to show that he in fact . . . cut off his second hand
– it’s that kind of humor folks.
It turns out that as cute as Cherie is, she
is as dumb as a stone – but her virginity is right where it should be –
until she is abducted by aliens and possibly deflowered. The film liberally
parodies both Close Encounters and Star Wars. Dumped by her fiancé
– she tries to kill herself but is rescued by a private investigator –
James Yi Lui (one of the top comedians of the 1970’s) and his assistant
(the scary looking Tam Tin Nam). After this I started losing it – but there
is a werewolf, a Darth Vader laser light duel, Cherie becomes famous during
another music video, a skit collecting money from a family of 16 – and
so much more including a huge food fight that had Tsui Hark and Alfred
Cheung among others – but little of it made sense in the flow of the film.
There is a certain fascination in watching this
train go off the tracks, but much of it was quite tedious at times, while
being somewhat amusing at other times. Cherie is adorable as usual, but
I can’t say she had much allowance for dramatic range here as her expressions
go from dim to dazed.
My rating for this film: 5.0
Note: Information regarding Alex Cheung is
from the book published by the HKIFF - Hong Kong New Wave - Twenty Years
After.
