Missbehavior

恭喜八婆

Hong Kong, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 87 mins.

Director: Peng Haoxiang 彭浩翔 [Pang Ho-cheung].

Rating: 5/10.

So-so, very local Hong Kong CNY comedy from maverick director Peng Haoxiang [Pang Ho-cheung].

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. When Isabel (Chen Yining) tells her BFF, policewoman May (Liang Yongqi), that she’s now going out with Liang Zhi’an (Peng Haoxiang), May’s ex, it’s a further strain among a group of friends (six women and two gay men), calling themselves “The Witches” 八婆, who’ve become gradually more estranged. However, Isabel tells May that one of their group, June (Lin Zhaoxia), urgently needs their help. That morning at the ad agency where she works, June, while making coffee for a major client (Xie Xian) who wanted a low-fat latte, accidentally used the bottle of breast milk that her boss, Luna Fu (Liang Luoshi), who’s just given birth, keeps in the office fridge. June needs to replace it before 18:00, when Luna Fu will need it for feeding her baby son. She cannot afford to lose her job, as her husband is out of work and they’re behind on their mortgage payments. Isabel and May try to round up their group to help with the emergency. However, Lian Qiaowen (Chen Jing), a best-selling, big-breasted trashy author who just has a new book out on love that exploits all her friends’ secrets, initially refuses to help, because another of the group, street singer Minibus (Ding Kexin) has insulted her books. May finally rounds up almost everyone, including June, and they try to form a plan. They split into two teams to try to find some breast milk: one team visits their eighth member of the group, kindergarten teacher Eva (Gu Zulin), to see if any of her young pupils has a bottle of breast milk; the other team tries stealing a bottle from a mother’s flat. When all has failed, Frank (Xu Tianyou) and Boris (Chen Huanren), the two gays in the group, have an idea.

REVIEW

Almost two years after Love off the Cuff 春娇救志明 (2017), the final segment in his singletons Love trilogy, Hong Kong maverick Peng Haoxiang 彭浩翔 [Pang Ho-cheung] went back to his quickie roots with Missbehavior 恭喜八婆, an ensemble comedy shot on the hoof in a fortnight, full of Cantonese wordplay, and peopled with all his pals. It’s an intermittently amusing, throwaway item that wouldn’t rate much attention without Peng’s name on it; but as a CNY attraction it just about gets by with plenty of face recognition from the film-maker’s stable of performers – rather different from the usual old guard who clock in for Hong Kong CNY films – and a triumphant glee in its Carry On-like, tits-and-toilets humour. Unsurprisingly, no one even tried to release such a local movie in the Mainland.

The plot – a group of quarrelsome friends band together to find a bottle of breast milk in a couple of hours (don’t ask) – is just a clothesline on which to hang a series of sketches. A few are there just to showcase a veteran name or two: Yang Qianhua 杨千嬅 [Miriam Yeung] as a cafe client and Lin Xue 林雪 [Lam Suet] as her waiter, Macau-born Liang Luoshi 梁洛施 [Isabella Leong] coming out of retirement to play an ad executive and Xie Xian 谢贤 [Patrick Tse] as her fussy client. But most of the sketches are an excuse – as in Peng’s satire of low-end film-making, Vulgaria 低俗喜剧 (2012), also shot on the hoof – to see how far he can push the envelope. Thus, there are lots of jokes again about the breasts of actress-model Chen Jing 陈静 (the sex starlet in Vulgaria) – here playing a trashy, best-selling authoress – but also a jaw-dropping toilet joke that shows, if nothing else, that the Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-based performer, then almost 30, was still up for anything. Apart from that, there’s lots of dressing up, fooling around, frenetic chases, and gay jokes, plus flashbacks whenever anyone tells a story. After all this silly and often very camp stuff, Peng and Hong Kong co-writer Liu Weng 刘翁 tack on a precious lecture about love that’s much more offensive than anything earlier on.

Chen gets many of the more outrageous jokes but the whole cast melds pretty smoothly, with veteran Liang Yongqi 梁咏琪 [Gigi Leung] effectively cast as the straightwoman and Chen Yining 陈逸宁 (the Plain Jane in Peng’s Love in the Buff 春娇与志明, 2012) playing off her as a self-serving BFF. Peng’s regular tech crew, plus d.p. Qiu Zhongye 邱忠业 who shot the Peng-produced chick-flick Lazy Hazy Crazy 同班同学 (2015), ensure an okay-looking product, capped by an all-cast musicvideo at the end to pad out the running time and end in celebratory mood. The friends’ chat-group is translated in the film as The Witches, but a more accurate name would be The Bitches, as in the film’s slangy Cantonese title (“Congratulations, Bitches”).

CREDITS

Presented by Epik Pictures (HK). Produced by Making Film Productions (HK).

Script: Peng Haoxiang [Pang Ho-cheung], Liu Weng. Original story: Peng Haoxiang [Pang Ho-cheung]. Photography: Qiu Zhongye. Editing: Li Dongquan [Wenders Li]. Music: Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], Weng Weiying [Janet Yung]. Art direction: Yao Kaishan. Costume design: Feng Biying. Sound: He Sizhan, Zheng Minghui, Yang Zhichao, Tan Jinghua. Action: Wu Yongsen. Visual effects: Wang Yinghao (Oh Yes Productions). End-title musicvideo: Wang Yinghao (direction/editing), Steward Chan (photography).

Cast: Chen Yining (Isabel), Chen Jing (Lian Qiaowen/Rosalin Bosom, author), Liang Yongqi [Gigi Leung] (May, policewoman), Lin Zhaoxia (June), Xu Tianyou (Frank, younger gay), Chen Huanren (Boris, older gay), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (waiter), Ding Kexin (Xiaoba/Minibus, street singer), Xie Xian [Patrick Tse] (Zhang), Gu Zulin [Jo Kuk] (Eva, kindergarten teacher), Yang Qianhua [Miriam Yeung] (customer in restaurant), Liang Luoshi [Isabella Leong] (Luna Fu/Mrs Cha), Zou Kaiguang [Matt Chow] (Michael, Luna Fu’s colleague), Ouyang Zhonghao (Hao Dee, gangster), Peng Haoxiang [Pang Ho-cheung] (Liang Zhi’an/Andy/Sweetie, May’s ex), Shao Yinyin [Susan Shaw] (Doula, woman selling breast milk), Zeng Guoxiang [Derek Tsang] (head of mall security), Guo Yixin (Irene), Tang Jiawen (Liang Zhi’an’s girlfriend), Feng Biying, Ye Peiyan (customers in restaurant), Situ Huizhuo [Roy Szeto] (Qiang), Chen Jinghui (taxi driver), Ye Zhiting, Lin Zhiyu (mothers at mall).

Release: Hong Kong, 31 Jan 2019.