Tag: Jeffrey Ngai Tsun-Sung

Table for Six 2 (飯戲攻心2, Sunny Chan Wing-Sun, 2024)

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“It’s okay to be screwed, we’ll unscrew you later,” youngest brother Lung (Peter Chan Charm Man) comforts his dejected brother in an accidental advocation of what means to be a family in Sunny Chan’s followup to the phenomenally successful comedy  Table for Six. Like the previous film and in true Lunar New Year fashion, Table For Six 2 (飯戲攻心2) explores the concept of family in a wider sense along with contemporary attitudes to marriage and traditional gender roles.

Even so, it has to be said this table is now uneven as oldest brother Steve has literally run away from his romantic dilemmas taking off for Africa leaving new girlfriend Miaow (Lin Min-Chen) behind claiming she’s too far out of his league and it’s not fair of him to waste her youth. Ironically enough, Bernard (Louis Cheung) has now started a wedding business helping people pull off extravagant public proposals such as the sort of fake one he prepares for Monica (Stephy Tang Lai-yan) as a publicity stunt featuring him dancing in a 90s-style music video. As part of the campaign, they’ve set up Lung and Miaow as a fake couple hoping to build a following for their romance online much to unexpected chagrin of Josephine (Ivana Wong) who has begun to embrace her dreams by becoming a well-known quirky chef who makes food disguised as other food. Though they had agreed to separate so the could both follow three dreams at the end of the previous film, Josephine suddenly proposes leading Bernard to put on an extravagant wedding as promotion for his business. 

In a way, Bernard’s company symbolises the performative qualities of marriage as couples put themselves through a stressful and expensive ritual more out of obligation than real desire. When Lung is prevented from reaching the ceremony on time, Bernard ends up impersonating him in a full body costume making plain that the spectacle is more for show than sentiment and it could really be anyone up there simply fulfilling a role. In fact, no one even checks the certificates were properly signed. Then again, just as in Josephine’s cooking sometimes the “fake” and can actually contain the “real” just in a different way than expected. She may say that once a relationship has cooled the spark can’t be regained, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a new, different, spark couldn’t be found. 

Perhaps that’s what happened for Bernard and Monica who’ve now overcome the awkwardness of Monica having been in a longterm relationship with oldest brother Steve. Ironically enough, they’d more or less decided not to get married only to be blindsided by their reactions to the “fake” proposal but as it turns out more because of the emotional baggage from their parents’ failed relationships that have left them too afraid to get married. Monica is still traumatised by her father’s extra marital affair which resulted in a half-brother she’s never met but has since become a Cantopop star, while Bernard still has bad memories of being treated as a “red-headed” child and like Steve is preoccupied with a desire to keep the family together while worried that he isn’t really up to it. 

The lesson Bernard learns is that family is a burden that’s carried together so he didn’t need to save it on his own and that it’s alright to mess things up because his family will be there to take care of him. Miaow meanwhile is left in the same place as Steve had been in the first film, wondering how long she should wait for love or if Steve is ever coming back, trying to decide whether to accept a promising job offer in Japan or stay in Hong Kong. Part of her reluctance to move on is that she’s become wedded to the family and fears losing her place within it but as Monica says her status wasn’t dependent on blood or relationships and that she’s already been accepted into the family just for being herself. 

Then again, families can also be annoying as Bernard remembers after inviting his gangsterish uncles to one of the weddings only for them to muscle in as a major sponsor for another own insisting on designs the dress themselves complete with a par of shark fin wings to promote their business none of which meshes well with Monica’s passion for conservation. In any case, as Monica reflects family means you can embarrass yourselves together so maybe wearing a stupid dress for a few minutes isn’t such a big deal. Heartfelt and zany, Chan’s farcical drama shifts past the performative aspects of marriage and family to what lies beneath which, like Josephine’s cooking, may not always be what it first appears.

Table for Six 2 is in UK cinemas from 9th February courtesy of CineAsia.

UK trailer (English subtitles)

Everything Under Control (超神經械劫案下, Ying Chi-Wen, 2023)

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A cocky band of security guards find themselves on the back foot when they’re ambushed by gangsters and one of guys decides to hightail it with the loot in Ying Chi-Wen’s anarchic take on Taiwanese movie Treat or Trick which was itself inspired by the Korean film To Catch a Virgin Ghost. A Lunar New Year release, Everything Under Control (超神經械劫案下) is a typically anarchic affair full of zany nonsense comedy and random gags but is ultimately a redemption story and a defence of community. 

Possibly in a nod to mainland censors the “heroes” are now private security officers rather than actual policemen and have a rather cynical view of their work. The cocky Yau-shing (Hins Cheung King-Hin) who wears sunshades and talks a big game, laughs at rookie recruit Penguin’s questions about about a possible ambush explaining that, in a slice of dark humour, you’d need to rob around 10 convoys before you could afford a Hong Kong flat so it’s not worth the risk nor the effort. Nevertheless in what seems to be at least in part an inside job, the gang are indeed ambushed by gangsters working for Boss Lai (Juno Mak) while transporting diamonds across town on the behalf of an elite tycoon. When Penguin unexpectedly fights back, fellow guard Jelly decides to snatch the diamonds and run with a view to starting a new life in Malaysia. Boss Lai is understandably unimpressed and orders his underling, Monk, to accompany Yau-shing and Penguin as they attempt to track down Jelly and get the diamonds back while he holds their friend Pig Blood hostage as collateral. 

After swerving to avoid what seemed to be the ghostly figure of a young woman in the road, Jelly ends up in a weird village with its own theme song that he has to bribe his way into. His presence is definitely unwelcome and the villagers’ behaviour is undeniably suspicious even in their weird hippie commune aesthetic though the diamonds themselves become something of a MacGuffin as a battle begins between the security guys and the villagers who are understandably keen to defend their territory from incursion especially as it seems there may have been an attempt to force them off their land. “Everyone has something they want to protect” according to weird village chief Wong Cool (Ivana Wong Yuen-Chi) whether it be like her her community, diamonds, status, or the lives of friends though truth be told that doesn’t seem to be at the top of Yau-shing’s list, poor Pig Blood more or less forgotten about by everyone. 

Nevertheless, Ying amps up the weirdness in the quirky village with its rumours of a vengeful ghost who kidnaps “virile men” and gives them what otherwise seems to be a strangely childish punishment adding a note of creepy horror to the guys’ predicament. Penguin even comes to the conclusion that he has psychic abilities and is able to read a crime scene with the power of his mind, committed to the pursuit of justice but also endearingly dim. Monk, meanwhile, is some kind of cinephile gangster who is mocked by his mother for not being a “real man” because he’s never been to a film festival. The guys’ car radio also seems to be permanently tuned to an entertainment program where they offer acerbic comments about the Hong Kong film industry. After a while, we might wonder if we too are being affected by the purple sporing plants found all over the forest which cause Jelly to have a weird fever dream involving a kappa, a Nian beast, and the apparently well-endowed Goddess of Fortune who insists he say “Gong hei fat choy” despite it not being New Year in the movie even though it obviously is to the audience. 

As the radio host admits, redemption doesn’t come from outside forces but by one’s own moral character which explains Yau-shing’s final change of heart, dropping his cynicism and deciding to believe in a better world after all. “Serve with our hearts, protect with our lives” it says on the outside of their van, and Yau-shing may have discovered something worth protecting while the diamonds remain more or less forgotten along with Lai’s ultimatum and Pig Blood’s fate. Decidedly strange, Ying’s genre hoping crime caper strays into some dark corners of human activity but maintains a lightness of touch along with genuine heart even as it does so.

Everything Under Control was released in UK cinemas courtesy of CineAsia.

UK trailer (English subtitles)