12 Golden Ducks

12金鸭

Hong Kong, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 84 mins.

Director: Zou Kaiguang 邹凯光 [Matt Chow].

Rating: 7/10.

Bawdy but likeable CNY comedy, with Wu Junru [Sandra Ng] as a Hong Kong gigolo on the skids.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. Four old friends – broker Chen Shouren (Liu Haolong), Cantonese Opera teacher Mr. Lu (Huang Qiusheng), personal trainer Rocky (Gu Tianle) and cookery teacher Jamie (Zhou Baihao) – meet for lunch at Chen Shouren’s club. Chen Shouren berates the other three for living off the sexual attentions of their female clients. One friend is absent – super-successful professional gigolo Zhang Jinlai, aka Future (Wu Junru), who was the son of a street butcher (Xu Shaoxiong) but knew how to charm women from an early age. Overhearing their conversation, a member of the club, Situ Xiuxiu (Lu Mixue), who used to be Future’s class head, mentions she saw him recently working in a gigolo club in Bangkok. Mr. Lu visits him and Future says he lost his mojo after being conned by a supposedly crippled woman (Chen Yanxi) he’d fallen for. Mr. Lu brings him back to Hong Kong, where he gets into shape and starts working his way up again – along with Shouren, who’s given up brokering, and two other wannabe gigolos, former construction worker Di Wei (Jiang Haowen) and pretty boy Liuyun, aka Nebula (Cai Hanyi), who thinks he’s an alien. At the Loy-Loy Nursing Home, run by gigolo-turned-health quack Qing Shen (Ren Dahua), they get to know the aged Aunt Mei (Lu Yan), who recommends them to Lianqiu, aka Hammer (Huang Weiwen), a Thai restaurant owner who runs a back-room gigolo club. Before taking the quartet on, he tests them out with various female clients. Meanwhile, Future is hired by an anonymous client who turns out to be wealthy businessman Ma Zhijian (Xie Tingfeng), who was secretly in love with Future when they were both at high school. When Hammer’s club is busted by undercover police, the quartet are arrested but bailed out by Aunt Mei on condition they entertain her at her birthday party the following evening. However, Future and his friends have their sights set on meeting charity telethon queen Liang Li Xiaoxi, aka LLCC (Rong Zuer), who can get them on a telethon the same evening as Aunt Mei’s birthday party.

REVIEW

With Raymond Wong’s re-boot of the All’s Well series seemingly dead and buried, comedienne Wu Junru 吴君如 [Sandra Ng] keeps the CNY Hong Kong ensemble comedy flag flying with 12 Golden Ducks 12金鸭, a cameo-packed sexual romp that’s a male version of 2014’s Golden Chickensss 金鸡SSS. Equally episodic, and with even less of a plot, Ducks is held together by a tour de force performance from Wu as a top male gigolo who loses his mojo and then sets out to fight his way back. Made by much of the same crew as Chickensss, led by comedian/occasional writer-director Zou Kaiguang 邹凯光 [Matt Chow], it’s a good-hearted, likeable comedy that’s all the better for not trying too hard, and thankfully free of the rather desperate party atmosphere that marred last year’s outing.

With a five o’clock shadow, severe haircut and tomboy slouch, Wu is so good as a “duck” (gigolo) that it actually takes a few minutes to register it’s her in the lead role. Going one better than her stunning 38G prosthetic breasts in Chickensss, the Hong Kong actress pushes the envelope even farther here with a jaw-droppingly real, top-body prosthetic suit that shows her dancing bare-chested in a club. Thereafter, she’s so natural in the part, and supported by a simpatico ensemble, that the whole drag act doesn’t become the film’s sine qua non. Like a lot of Wu’s roles, there’s still a nudge-nudge, wink-wink element to the sexual shenanigans; but here they aren’t the main comic driver.

Instead, her performance lets the audience settle back and enjoy the cavalcade of cameos, which range from the gently humorous – Huang Qiusheng 黄秋生 [Anthony Wong] as a Cantonese Opera scam artist – to the pantomimic – Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam], in a bouffon wig and big specs, as a gigolo-turned-quack. Not for the first time in his career, Gu Tianle 古天乐 [Louis Koo] is more relaxed sending up his hunky image (here as a personal trainer) than catering to it, while Huang Weiwen 黄伟文 [Wyman Wong], the fellatio expert in Chickensss, goes way over the top again, as a Thai-speaking club owner. Most cameos are just spot-the-face; among the more extensive ones are veteran Lu Haipeng 卢海鹏, as a gigolo who claims to be Taiwan actor Peng Yuyan 彭于晏 [Eddie Peng], Xie Tingfeng 谢霆锋 [Nicholas Tse] as a closeted gay businessman (played very straight), and Wang Wanzhi 王菀之 [Ivana Wong], the female standout of Chickensss, as a restaurant manager spouting subtitled kind-of-Thai. Bringing heft to the rear end of the film are Rong Zuer 容祖儿 [Joey Yung] as a vampy socialite and veteran singer Ou Yongquan 区永权 [Albert Au] as her frustrated husband.

Where Zou’s script for the previous film took time out to parody film genres, this one sends up Hong Kong obsessions like money, social status and the media world much more subtly, with Wu’s gift for physical comedy providing just as much bounce as the Carry On-like double entendres. (Typical is a delicious sight gag of the four “ducks” leaning back in a popstar pose as they’re arrested in public by the police.) There’s also a genuinely sweet element to the finale – involving veteran actress Lu Yan 卢燕 [Lisa Lu] and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by Mainland star Zhao Wei 赵薇 – that’s quite moving. Zou’s script doesn’t create a convincing emotional arc for Wu’s gigolo, and her habit of falling for her clients, but the film’s overall kindly nature is much less cynical than that of Chickensss.

Editing by Zhong Weizhao 钟炜钊 [Azrael Chung] brings the film in at a very tight 80-odd minutes that even manage to squeeze in a song’n’dance at the end by Beijing-born, Seoul-based popster Lu Han 鹿晗 as well as a very funny “extraordinary appearance” in a Shanghai street by another star. So ruthless is the editing that some background material appears to have been sacrificed, notably on two fellow gigolos played by Jiang Haowen 姜皓文 [Philip Keung] and Cai Hanyi 蔡瀚亿. (An extended version of the film, adding one new sequence, was released a week later.) Though Ducks only earned half of Chickensss‘ total on local release, it’s actually a subtler and more likeable movie.

CREDITS

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

Script: Zou Kaiguang [Matt Chow]. Photography: Feng Yuanwen [Edmond Fung]. Editing: Azrael Chung (Zhong Weizhao]. Music: Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], Weng Weiying [Janet Yung]. Production design: Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung]. Art direction: Li Guolin. Costume design: Chen Baoyan. Sound: Chen Zhijian, Zheng Yingyuan [Phyllis Cheng]. Visual effects: Zheng Yaoming (3Plus Animation Production). Choreography: He Jingru.

Cast: Wu Junru [Sandra Ng] (Zhang Jinlai/Future), Gu Tianle [Louis Koo] (Rocky), Liu Haolong (Chen Shouren), Huang Qiusheng [Anthony Wong] (Mr. Lu), Zhou Baihao (Jamie), Shao Meijun (Lu’s opera pupil), Zheng Xinyi (Joyce, Rocky’s gym pupil), Wei Shiya (Jamie’s cookery pupil), Lu Mixue [Michelle Lo] (Situ Xiuxiu), Xu Shaoxiong (Zhang Zhen, Zhang Jinlai’s father), Zhou Xiuna (Zhou Mei, teenage Zhang Jinlai’s teacher), Chen Yanxi (Shufen, Zhang Jinlai’s crippled client), Guo Zijian [Derek Kwok] (Dr. Guo Zijian), Chen Yixun [Eason Chan] (Master Kenji, the hairdresser), Li Ruotong (Rocky’s fitness pupil with bar), Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Qing Shen), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Di Wei), Cai Hanyi (Liuyun/Nebula), Lu Yan [Lisa Lu] (Aunt Mei), Yao Jiahao (waiter in Thai restaurant), Wang Wanzhi [Ivana Wong] (Poy, Thai restaurant manager), Huang Weiwen [Wyman Wong] (Lianqiu/Hammer, her husband), Li Shiyi (guitarist gigolo at Lianqiu’s club), Guan Chuyao (muscular gigolo at Lianqiu’s club), Xian Seli (his client), Chen Jiale (Guan, masseur gigolo at Lianqiu’s club), Zhao Shuozhi (Guan’s client), Sun Jianhong (Valentino, dance gigolo at Lianqiu’s club), Yan Zifei (Valentino’s dance client), Lin Zhaoxia (Hengling, Zhang Jinlai’s client), Lu Haipeng (“Peng Yuyan/Eddie Peng”), Xue Kaiqi [Fiona Sit] (Di Wei’s office-lady client at Lianqiu’s club), Liang Luoshi [Isabella Leong] (“alien” businesswoman), Chen Jing (Kitty), Xie Tingfeng [Nicholas Tse] (Ma Zhijian), Rong Zuer [Joey Yung] (Liang Li Xiaoxi/LLCC), Ruan Zhaoxiang (Mei Dingding), Ye Weixin [Wilson Yip] (Situ Xiuxiu’s police boss), Bird of Paradise (singing trio at party), Lu Yongquan (Aunt Mei’s lawyer), Tenmuxic (party gigolos), Wu Junxiang (stage manager), Ou Yongquan [Albert Au] (Liang Nengren, Liang Li Xiaoxi’s husband), Feng Mianheng (restaurant manager), Zhao Wei (young Aunt Mei), Lu Han (himself), Peng Yuyan [Eddie Peng] (himself).

Release: Hong Kong, 19 Feb 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 5 Apr 2015.)