Table for Six

饭戏攻心

Hong Kong, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 117 mins.

Director: Chen Yongshen 陈咏燊 [Sunny Chan].

Rating: 6/10.

Relationships comedy about three half-brothers and their girlfriends has good performances and a play-like feel but is over-long and doesn’t fully deliver on the dramatic side.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. Three half-brothers – Chen Hong (Huang Zihua), Chen Li (Zhang Zicong) and Chen Xi (Chen Zhanwen) – live together in a spacious flat converted from an old barbecued-pork factory inherited from their parents. The eldest, Chen Hong, is a once-famous photographer who now does occasional work from home; since painfully breaking up with his girlfriend Monica (Deng Lixin), a marketing executive, three years ago, he hasn’t been in a relationship. Middle brother Chen Li goes out to work and seems well-adjusted. Chen Xi, the youngest, is a layabout who’s drifted from job to job and now hopes to make his first million as an e-sports athlete 电竞运动员; as well as being nagged by his brothers for never contributing his fair share to living expenses, he’s perpetually nagged by his longtime and ever-present girlfriend Zhuzhu (Wang Wanzhi), a wannabe celebrity chef, to get married. Chen Xi decides to hire Miaomiao (Lin Mingzhen), a Taiwan-born online influencer-cum-model, as his team’s mascot and gets Chen Hong to take some publicity photos of her. When she turns up for the sessions at his studio in the flat – dressed as the Japanese anime teenager Ayanami Rei 绫波丽 – she turns out to be a longtime fan of Chen Hong’s work who once wrote him a fan letter he still remembers. But when she proposes dinner together, he says he’s not yet ready for another relationship. To celebrate his birthday at home that evening, Chen Li has ordered in the ingredients for a hotpot. As it’s so expensive, Chen Hong suspects something is up. And then, as Monica unexpectedly arrives, Chen Li announces the two of them have been dating for six months. Chen Hong just about manages to put on a brave face and Chen Xi – to spite Chen Li, who’d earlier suggested Zhuzhu moving in and cooking their meals – proposes Monica moves in as well. Chen Li, who wants to move into her flat, opposes the idea but is voted down. Next day Zhuzhu and Monica’s things arrive, including a double bed for Chen Li and Monica that Chen Hong helps to carry in. When Monica arrives, she and Chen Hong have a serious talk, during which he pretends everything is okay and she has a minor attack of hysteria. That evening Zhuzhu cooks a welcome meal for Monica and Chen Hong turns up with Miaomiao, whom he announces is his girlfriend.

REVIEW

Longtime Hong Kong scriptwriter Chen Yongshen 陈咏燊 [Sunny Chan], now in his 40s, comes up trumps with his second stab at directing with Table for Six 饭戏攻心, a largely successful, if over-long, relationships comedy between three half-brothers and their girlfriends whose key moments are played out at the dinner table in their large shared flat. (The Chinese title roughly means “Mealtime Psy-Wars”.) It’s a big step-up from Chen’s first outing as a director, Men on the Dragon 逆流大叔 (2018), a strictly local comedy centred on a dragon-boat crew, starring Wu Zhenyu 吴镇宇 [Francis Ng], that testified to Chen’s years co-writing formulaic fare, much for journeyman director Ma Weihao 马伟豪 [Joe Ma] (Love Undercover 新扎师妹, 2002; The Lion Roars 我家有一只河东狮, 2002; Three of a Kind 煎酿三宝, 2004).

Originally set to be a CNY release for 2022, Table fell victim to Hong Kong’s Draconian cinema closure from early January to late April, and the film’s whole marketing campaign had to be re-tooled as a Mid-Autumn Festival release. Even though Hong Kong cinemas were still limited to 85% capacity (until late Dec 2022), it managed to become the highest-grossing local film in that year’s top ten, taking the no. 4 spot and a nice HK$77 million amid all the US blockbusters. (In the Mainland, where it was simultaneously released in a Mandarin-dubbed version with the soppier Chinese title 还是觉得你最好 – literally, “Still Think You’re the Best” [see poster, left] – it even managed RMB107 million, a more-than-polite figure for a non-action Hong Kong comedy with no huge names.)

With virtually all the action set in the brothers’ large flat – converted from a barbecued-pork factory once owned by their late father – the film has the feeling of a stage play, especially in the way it eases into its main theme – family ties – via a series of short scenes, often separated by Hong Kong cityscapes, featuring two or three characters. That’s no bad thing, and the dialogue and characters are generally strong enough to sustain the stage-like setting. The first “mealtime surprise” comes 20 minutes in, as no. 2 brother upstages no. 1 by bringing along not only the latter’s ex but also revealing that they’ve been dating for six months; at dinner the next day, no. 1 gets his revenge by bringing along a cute Taiwan model and introducing her as his girlfriend. The revelations and psychological game-playing at the next three dinners never quite equal the first two, though one at which the youngest brother, a computer geek, finally proposes to his naggy longtime girlfriend comes close.

The bits between the five dinners are pleasant rather than revelatory, and don’t really develop the relationships as they should. The key one, between no. 1 brother and his hysteria-prone ex, is nicely portrayed by veteran stand-up comic Huang Zihua 黄子华 [Dayo Wong] and Deng Lixin 邓丽欣 [Stephy Tang], in two of their career bests. Actress-singer Deng, now 39, is especially good and, for someone who’s spent most of her career in trashy fluff, is as revelatory here as she was in The Empty Hands 空手道 (2017, dir. Du Wenze 杜汶泽 [Chapman To]), commanding various moods without slipping into Hong Kong comedy stereotypes. Huang, who makes few films nowadays, has a smooth but impressive presence, and hardly looks his 62 years. But, through no fault of the actors, this key relationship never has the emotional power to anchor the movie as it should.

The second brother is somewhat underwritten, and there’s little that character actor Zhang Jicong 张继聪, 43 – so good as the light relief in P Storm P风暴 (2019) – can do with it, except to be reactive. The showiest relationship is that between the nerdy youngest brother and his drama-queen girlfriend, in which 43-year-old Cantopopster Wang Wanzhi 王菀之 [Ivana Wong] (Golden Chickensss 金鸡SSS, 2014; 12 Golden Ducks 12金鸭, 2015) has a great time chewing the scenery but comes closest to a local stereotype. Apart from Deng’s performance, the biggest surprise comes from Malaysian-born Lin Mingzhen 林明祯, 32 but looking half that, as the perky cutie who, being an outsider, can prod the characters into saying what they really mean. Switching between Mandarin and accented Cantonese, Lin, till now in genre fare, makes a potentially decorative role very much her own.

Typically, however, Lin’s role just disappears at the end, as the film struggles to achieve any kind of emotional or dramatic resolution. Writer-director Chen tries with a fantasy sequence on a balcony with the no. 1 brother and his step-mother (a cameo by Malaysian-born actress Liao Ziyu 廖子妤, from Lazy Hazy Crazy 同班同学, 2015); but it doesn’t really work. Though the audience has had a generally good time meeting them, Chen simply seems unsure what to do with his characters – like guests hanging around after a party has ended. The film’s lack of any real dramatic arc begins to show in the final 20 minutes, and even after the end credits Chen adds on six minutes of extra scenes, as if he just can’t let go. At almost two hours, Table for Six is half-an-hour too long.

Technically everything is very smooth, from the interior photography by d.p. Zhang Yuhan 张宇瀚 (billed here as Liuxing 流行 [“meteor”]), fluidly cut together by the experienced Zhang Jiahui 张嘉辉 [Cheung Ka-fai] along with Zheng Weilin 郑伟麟, to the easy-listening score by veterans Huang Ailun 黄艾伦 [Alan Wong] and Weng Weiying 翁玮盈 [Janet Yung]. The production design of the flat alone is a study in props and small details by Zhang Yiwen 张伊雯 (billed here as Zhang Wen 张蚊) and Liang Zixian 梁子贤, both of whom worked on Men on the Dragon.

For the record, writer-director Chen is not to be confused with actor Chen Jinhong 陈锦鸿, 56, who also uses the English name Sunny Chan.

CREDITS

Presented by Edko Films (HK), Irresistible Beta (HK), One Cool Film Production (HK).

Script: Chen Yongshen [Sunny Chan]. Photography: Liuxing [Zhang Yuhan]. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai], Zheng Weilin. Music: Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], Weng Weiying [Janet Yung]. Production design: Zhang Wen [Zhang Yiwen]. Art direction: Liang Zixian. Costume design: Luo Huanfang. Sound: Chen Weixiong, Li Yaoqiang. Action: Liang Bo’en.

Cast: Huang Zihua [Dayo Wong] (Chen Hong/Steve, no. 1 brother), Deng Lixin [Stephy Tang] (Monica), Zhang Jicong (Chen Li/Bernard, no. 2 brother), Wang Wanzhi [Ivana Wong] (Zhuzhu/Josephine), Lin Mingzhen (Miaomiao), Chen Zhanwen (Chen Xi/Lung, no. 3 brother), Liao Ziyu (Chen Li’s mother), Chen Qinghang (doorman), Meng Jie (Sally), Wu Fengming (Tracy), Mai Yongnan (Gigi), Lin Kaiying (Wendy), Lin Baixi (hotpot delivery boy).

Premiere: Far East Film Festival, Udine, Italy, 24 Apr 2022.

Release: Hong Kong, 8 Sep 2022.