Sunday 30 April 2017

Love Off The Cuff Review 2017 Hong Kong 春嬌救志明



Love Off The Cuff 春嬌救志明
Year: 2017
Director: Pang Ho-cheung
Writers: Luk Yee-sum, Wan Chi-man, Pang Ho-cheung
Cast: Miriam Yeung, Shawn Yue, Paul Chun, Jiang Mengjie
Running Time: 120 minutes
Country: Hong Kong-China

Pang Ho-cheung re-teams Shawn Yue and Miriam Yeung for his third installment in the romantic-comedy Love In A Puff series. Is this story starting to show signs of fatigue? Or is this an inevitable set up for a fourth film?

Picking up after the events of 2012's Love In The Buff, Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and Jimmy (Shawn Yue) are now a relatively happy couple, living together and dealing with their daily ups and downs. Jimmy still has trouble growing up and taking the relationship seriously, while Cherie can be a bit overbearing and her demands make it somewhat challenging to live with. Furthering their stress, Cherie's father (Paul Chun) returns to town out of blue to introduce them to his new young fiancee. At the same time, Jimmy's childhood friend, who also happens to be his godmother, comes to visit with the request of wanting Jimmy to father her child through artificial insemination. After a disastrous trip together to Taipei, the couple are finally forced to confront their doubts about their future together.

The plot is very bare, as was the rest of the series, but that's never what drives these films. It's about the characters, their realism and their situations together. It almost has an intimate documentary feel as we peek in to a couples insecurities as we watch Cherie snoop through Jimmy's phone. Or her worrying about their younger lodger walking around the apartment in her bra. Jimmy is constantly doing something wrong or upsetting his partner by accident, which is a character trait that a lot of men, including myself, can relate to. And that's the driving force behind these films, how relatable and real that they feel.

Love Off The Cuff, like the rest of the series, is a very local Hong Kong film. The characters talk and act like Hong Kongers which is part of the appeal of Pang Ho-cheung's work. He isn't afraid to possibly alienate some viewers by keeping it brutally realistic. Some of the humour is distinctive to Hong Kong, so some of the jokes may go over your head. And there are references throughout to HK pop-culture such as jokes about the Young and Dangerous films, Nick Cheung, Leon Lai and even some Canto-pop songs. There is a karaoke scene featuring a pop song(that i'm unfamiliar with) which is used rather effectively and even if you are unfamiliar with the song, you still understand the sentiment. But if you are a local, i'm sure it would have even more depth.

Pang Ho-cheung handles humour excellently in his films, and Love Off The Cuff is dirtier and more outrageous than before. There is a scene involving a gag about "literally shit" as Cherie puts it. It's childish, it's crude, and it's genuinely funny, it received a loud roar of laughter in the cinema hall I was in. There is some situation and shock humour throughout the film, but it's all executed well. A memorable scene has cops finding the 2 leads in a mistaken sexual act situation which gets funnier and funnier as it progresses, this is similar to comedy you may see in American Pie or Superbad. It's not always possible to get humour to work this well for the Hong Kong audience that the Western world also understands, but I think this series has tackled that very well, even if that wasn't their overall intention.






Shawn and Miriam have grew together throughout these films. They have always had great chemistry but now after 7 years, it almost feels like they have became these alter egos and it makes the whole experience more worthwhile. Both do a superb job in their roles, and none of their acting could be faulted. The supporting cast are also great with Cherie's regular friends returning for shenanigans. And her dad played by Paul Chun has some brilliantly funny scenes which boosts the film with some needed energy.

120 minutes didn't feel overly long, but it could have been trimmed down by about 15 minutes or so to help the overall flow of the story progression. There is also one scene which came across as being a bit too dark and startling for this genre of film, it caught me off guard and stayed with me for a while afterwards. But Pang Ho-cheung is a genre busting director at heart, which is evident by his bizarre intros to his films. This time is was a highly entertaining story about Gat Gat Gong... Which almost makes me hope he directs a monster horror film next.

Although I wouldn't go as far to say that fatigue is setting in, I'd rank this film better than part two but not as good as part one, it did feel like more could have been done to progress the characters story further as a lot of the film is familiar territory. With the ending we are left wondering, is this the end of the trilogy? Or will there be a fourth to let us fans know what happens next? I personally think there is enough story left in these characters to make another film. So how about we get the next installment "Love Up The Duff" (That name has been shamelessly stolen from my partner who suggested it after our viewing).


7/10

Love Off The Cuff is currently showing from the 28th April in cinemas across Hong Kong, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK. For more information check here


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