Golden Chickensss

金鸡SSS

Hong Kong, 2014, colour, 1.85:1, 102 mins.

Director: Zou Kaiguang 邹凯光 [Matt Chow].

Rating: 6/10.

Bawdy, sophomoric comedy reviving the famous Hong Kong mama-san of a decade ago.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. After recapping the history of prostitution, veteran mama-san Jin (Wu Junru) introduces her current team of girls and shows a typical day and night in their business. Later, when her masseur Shu Fu (Wu Jialong) steals two of her designer bags, she’s comforted by an old gangster friend, Jackie Boy (Chen Yixun). She then gets a big job from an old regular, Ouyang (Lu Haipeng), who wants to make his wife (Lu Mixue) happy by granting her wish to sleep with Hong Kong actor Gu Tianle; Jin hires a lookalike (Gu Tianle). On a research trip to Japan, Jin visits famous oral-sex shop owner Gan, aka Asshi Konpon (Chen Guanxi), and she and her girls do an internship under fellatio expert Takuya (Huang Weiwen). Back in Hong Kong, one of Jin’s girls – supposed Mainlander Wu Lu (Wang Wanzhi) – falls for crazed chef King Duck Mikey (Zheng Zhongji) in a club. On Jin’s birthday, one of her old flames, gangster Gordon (Zhang Jiahui), is released and, not realising the city has changed in the intervening years, sets out to reclaim his old turf in Jiandong 尖沙咀东部. His former partner, Jackie Boy, eventually puts him straight and Gordon threatens to leave for Europe, declaring that Hong Kong is finished.

REVIEW

So local it should have a sign on the screen saying “For Hong Kongers Only!”, Golden Chickensss 金鸡SSS is a bawdy, sometimes very funny but largely sophomoric series of sketches that’s like watching a wild, fancy-dress party before the ship goes down. Reprising her brassy hooker Jin from Golden Chicken 金鸡 (2002) and Golden Chicken 2 金鸡2 (2003), veteran comedienne (and here producer) Wu Junru 吴君如 [Sandra Ng] just about holds things together with another barnstorming performance – and still looks amazingly youthful at the grand old age of 48. But unlike in the earlier films, and especially the first, there’s no sense of any personal signature and, more disappointingly, of any point to making the movie. Both GC and GC2 were funny-sad looks at the ability of Hong Kong (personified by the never-say-die Jin) to survive anything history could throw at it; a decade on from those films, as the territory seems even more conflicted over its post-Handover identity, it would have been a perfect time to re-visit Jin, especially as GC2 had left the way open for a sequel. Instead, Chickensss throws its hands in the air and says, “Hell, let’s just party!”

In its own way, that’s also a statement, especially as non-Mainland Chinese cinemas turn more and more towards local comedies that assert a regional identity. But for Hong Kong, whose day-to-day identity continues to be shaped by China much more directly than, say, Taiwan’s or Singapore’s, Chickensss still represents a lost film-making opportunity. Only a decade or so ago, Hong Kong was still making comedies that joyously celebrated its own values and its ability to punch internationally way above its weight. Chickensss, laden with local names all dialled to the max, has a more desperate feel to its partying – which is kind of sad for an industry that once had real self-confidence to burn.

That’s not to say the film is often very funny – beyond the untranslateable Cantonese puns and local references that have made it such a hit in the territory. But as put together this time by Zou Kaiguang 邹凯光 [Matt Chow], who co-scripted the first in the series and is better known as a comic writer-actor than as a director, the movie is more in the format of an All’s Well End’s Well New Year entry than a properly structured one like GC or GC2. Local gags, mostly centred on money and sex, predominate this time rather than being just decoration to a comedy-drama centred on Jin.

In the most developed section, which occupies the lion’s share of the final half-hour, Zhang Jiahui 张家辉 [Nick Cheung] gives the film some sustained heft as a gangster who’s just come out prison and doesn’t realise Hong Kong has changed in the meantime. It’s a neat parody both of old-style triad movies and of certain present-day attitudes, but the forced happy ending (after the gangster’s declaration that “Hong Kong is finished”) leaves some doubts over how ironic the movie really wants to be. After the only-OK box-office performance of GC2, director-writer Zou and producer-star Wu seem to be playing safe by not alienating their core audience.

Among the non-stop calvacade of names, the standouts are Zheng Zhongji 郑中基 [Ronald Cheng] as a crazed duck chef, Chen Yixun 陈奕迅 [Eason Chan] as the more grounded friend of Zhang’s gangster, Gu Tianle 古天乐 [Louis Koo] in one of his best and loosest performances as his own lookalike, Huang Weiwen 黄伟文 [Wyman Wong] as a fellatio expert in Japan, and Chen Guanxi 陈冠希 [Edison Chen] (in his first screen appearance for several years) sending himself up as an oral-sex shop owner. The women are largely in decorative roles as Jin’s girls, but one – Cantopopster Wang Wanzhi 王菀之 [Ivana Wong], 34, in her movie debut – entertainingly gives Wu a run for her money as a “Mainland” hooker who falls for Zheng’s duck chef. Wang is the only actress whose comic style chimes naturally with Wu’s, and their scenes together are among the film’s best.

Aside from some stunning 38G prosthetic breasts for Wu – which she has as much fun with as UK comedienne Barbara Windsor in an old Carry On comedy – technical credits are just OK, and a notch down on the first films’. In what is thought to be a first, Chickensss was released in Taiwan dubbed into Hokkien, the island’s local dialect which has a similarly earthy flavour to Cantonese even though the sense of humour is not exactly the same.

CREDITS

Presented by One Cool Film Production (HK). Produced by Treasure Island Production (HK).

Script: Zou Kaiguang [Matt Chow]. Photography: Feng Yuanwen [Edmond Fung]. Editing: Zhong Weizhao [Azrael Chung]. Music: Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], Weng Weiying [Janet Yung]. Theme song: My Little Airport. Production design: Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung]. Art direction: Li Guolin. Costume design: Li Bijun [Lee Pik-kwan]. Sound: Chen Zhijian, Ye Zhaoji, Nie Jirong, Zheng Yingyuan [Phyllis Cheng]. Visual effects: Zheng Yaoming (Zcratch, 3 Plus Animation Production).

Cast: Wu Junru [Sandra Ng] (“Boobie” Jin), Zheng Zhongji [Ronald Cheng] (King Duck Mikey), Huang Qiusheng [Anthony Wong] (Tang dynasty brothel customer), Zhen Zidan [Donnie Yen] (Master Ye Wen), Huang Zihua [Dayo Wong] (Master Thirteen), Qian Jiale (businessman brothel customer), Du Wenze [Chapman To] (Tian Zhong, doctor), Wu Ruoxi (one of Jin’s girls), Jiang Meiyi (shop assistant), Lin Erwen (kindergarten queuer), Wei Yuxin (Liza), Lin Yizhi (Monna), Xue Kaiqi (Xia Ma, mama-san), Wei Shiya (Hua), Wang Wanzhi (Wu Lu), Wu Jialong [Carl Ng] (Shu Fu, Jin’s masseur), Chen Yixun [Eason Chan] (Jackie Boy), Lu Haipeng (Ouyang), Lu Mixue [Michelle Lo] (Xuexue BB, Ouyang’s wife), Gu Tianle [Louis Koo] (Gu Tianle lookalike), Zhan Ruiwen [Jim Chim] (Dr. Zhivago), Chen Guanxi [Edison Chen] (Gan/Asshi Konpon, the oral sex-shop owner), Huang Weiwen [Wyman Wong] (Takuya, the “Blowjob King”), Hayama Hiro (dentist brothel customer), Yu Wenle [Shawn Yue] (virginal brothel customer), Du Dewei [Alex To] (Joey Ma, the duck king), Huang Baiming [Raymond Wong], Tang Jiankang (gigolos), Zhang Jingxuan (Jingxian), Zeng Guoxiang [Derek Tsang] (gigolo), Zhang Zhaohui [Eddie Cheung] (Zhaohui), Zhang Jiahui [Nick Cheung] (Gordon, the Jiandong gangster), Liang Jiahui [Tony Leung Kar-wai] (Professor Chen), Su Yongkang (Gong), Liu Dehua [Andy Lau] (himself).

Release: Hong Kong, 30 Jan 2014.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 27 Feb 2014.)