David Loman 2

大尾鲈鳗2

Taiwan, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 102 mins.

Director: Qiu Likuan 邱瓈宽.

Rating: 4/10.

Poorly written and with a sanitised feel, this thin sequel isn’t a patch on the original hit.

STORY

Taiwan, the present day. Zhu Dade, aka David Loman (Zhuge Liang), has retired from gangsterism and opened the David Lo Motel in the countryside with his wife Nana (Miao Keli), his daughter Zhu Xiaoqin (Guo Caijie), her partner He Xiang (Yang Youning) and their young son Choudi (Liao Yanlun). When Choudi gets into a fight at school with a fellow student who made fun of him because his parents weren’t married, his teacher visits the family to complain. Soon afterwards, Xiaola (Lian Jingwen), 35, Nana’s long-lost younger sister, turns up at the door and announces she’s staying. Meanwhile, Xiaoqida (Kang Kang), who unsuccessfully tried to kill Zhu Dade (but shot his double instead) after the latter took over his father’s gang, escapes from prison to find his wife (Hong Peiyin) is sleeping with their neighbour, Wang (Chen Gang); in revenge, Xiaoqida tells Wang’s wife (Liao Lijun) and the two of them end up having strenuous sex together. Xiaoqida learns that Zhu Dade has retired. At a bar, feeling depressed, he’s approached by a Hong Kong gangster, Tiantian (Zeng Zhiwei), who’s looking for the wife who walked out on him – Xiaola – and proposes a deal to Xiaoqida. At home, He Xiang is under pressure from both Zhu Xiaoqin and her father to get married. Zhu Xiaoqin gets frustrated by his apparent lack of interest and begins to suspect he’s having an affaire. Xiaola admits to Nana that she’s come back to get revenge for the way Nana let her be taken off by gangsters 20 years ago, when she was still a teenager. Then one day, Zhu Xiaoqin is kidnapped, Xiaola disappears, and Xiaoqida and Tiantian demand an exchange of Zhu Xiaoqin for Xiaola. Zhu Dade has no choice but to come out of retirement and, along with He Xiang, climb back in his superhero suit.

REVIEW

Many of the team behind Taiwan mega-hit David Loman 大尾鲈鳗 (2013) – including its key cast, director Qiu Likuan 邱瓈宽, Hong Kong d.p. Lin Binghua 林炳华 and editor Chen Bowen 陈博文 – re-assemble for David Loman 2 大尾鲈鳗2, but the result isn’t just a tool round the same gangster-comedy block. Though always handsome on a production level, DL2 feels lazily structured, offhandedly written, and sanitised for a mass family audience, with none of the original’s devil-may-care attitude. The “plot” is so thin and episodic it makes the first film look like War and Peace, and popular local comic Zhuge Liang 猪哥亮, 69, while still the raison d’être for the whole thing, seems constrained and somewhat marginalised, no longer an anarchic driving force.

The producing hand of local hitmeister/director Zhu Yanping 朱延平 is again strongly evident, not just in a self-deprecating cameo he’s shoehorned in for himself (as a VIP at the Golden Horse Awards) but in the slick production values, which are way more sophisticated than either the humour or the script. However, the absence of most of the original writing team (especially lead writer Jian Shigeng 简士耕, New Perfect Two 新天生一对, 2012) looks like the cause of the threadbare writing – a gap that Qiu, 52, a veteran manager-producer directing only her second movie, isn’t up to filling with her new team of co-scribes. Also significant is the absence this time of the first film’s associate director, Huang Chaoliang 黄朝亮, who in the meantime has directed the far superior hit comedy The Wonderful Wedding 大喜临门 (2015), also starring Zhuge Liang.

The back-of-a-coaster story finds Zhuge Liang’s titular gangster now retired and running the David Lo Motel in the countryside with his family. It’s all squeaky clean and happy-clappy families, with his daughter (no longer a bolshie tomboy mechanic) pining to marry her live-in partner, and so on. When some Hokkien gangster types from the first film turn up for some toilet humour and wordplay jokes, they’re made to feel as out-of-place as tramps at a wedding party. The story moves into second gear (and stays there) as the hot younger sister (pouty Lian Jingwen 连静雯, from TV) of David Loman’s wife (Miao Keli 苗可丽, solid) turns up, and becomes the target of both a revenge plot by one of David Loman’s enemies from the first film (Kang Kang 康康, annoying) and a kidnapping plot by her husband, a Hong Kong gangster played with all goofy stops out by Zeng Zhiwei 曾志伟 [Eric Tsang] (doubly annoying). Yes, it’s that kind of film.

What plot there is basically wraps up around the 70-minute mark, with the final half-hour padded out with karaoke numbers, physical gags, a prolongment of the tiff between young leads Yang Youning 杨祐宁 and Guo Caijie 郭采洁 [Amber Kuo], and a finale with a double wedding. Though Yang is more characterful here than in the first film, Guo is the opposite, her character stripped of any spunk. The three “aunties” (actually underworld ex-mistresses) from the first film – played by veterans Su Zhu 素珠, Lin Meixiu 林美秀 and Wang Caihua 王彩桦 – reappear here as the celebrity trio “Lin Zu Ma Girls”, but the humour all feels terribly local and not a little bit desperate.

The film’s dialogue this time is about 60/40 in Hokkien and Mandarin, still with several linguistic jokes centred around Zhuge Liang’s character misunderstanding standard Mandarin or making double-entendre mistakes. Constant use of TV-like “pings” on the soundtrack underline the film being a series of manufactured sit-com gags. In Taibei the film grossed less than half of the original – NT$170 million, compared with NT$428 million.

CREDITS

Presented by Polyface Movie (TW), Vision Films (TW).

Script: Qiu Likuan, Tong Yining, Qiu Binghao. Original story: Tong Yining. Photography: Lin Binghua. B-unit photography: Zhang Ximing. Editing: Chen Bowen, Weng Yuhong. Music: Huang Yunling, Zhong Xingmin, Ye Zhaozhong, Ye Shuhui. Music direction: Huang Yunling, Deng Zhiwei, Zhuang Dongxin. Production design: Su Guohao. Art direction: Zheng Zhihan. Costume design: Du Peixun. Sound: Zheng Xuzhi. Action: Cai Guozhou.

Cast: Zhuge Liang (Zhu Dade/David Loman), Yang Youning (He Xiang/Xiaohe), Guo Caijie [Amber Kuo] (Zhu Xiaoqin, Zhu Dade’s daughter), Zeng Zhiwei [Eric Tsang] (Tiantian/Brother Chen/Everyday), Miao Keli (Nana), Lian Jingwen (Xiaola/Hottie, Nana’s younger sister), Kang Kang (Xiaoqida), Chen Bozheng (Zhurou Xi/Silly Pork), Su Zhu (Linda), Lin Meixiu (Zu’er), Wang Caihua (Maria), Ye Hua (He Xiang’s half-sister), Mi Jiang (mayor), Lin Xiaolou (mayor’s wife), Liao Yanlun (He Chendan/Chou Di, He Xiang’s son), Fang Jun (aboriginal leader), Lv Xuefeng (Tiantian’s mother), Zhang Tingting (Zhurou Xi’s wife), Maria (Xiaoqida’s younger brother), Huang Zijiao (Golden Horse Awards MC), Qian Junzhong (young Tiantian), Zhang Xinyu (young Nana), Xiao Weixi (young Xiaola), Hong Peiyin (Xiaoqida’s wife), Chen Gang (Wang), Liao Lijun (Wang’s wife), Lin Yifang (veteran gangster), Qin Yang (Liu Wencong/Pilihuo/Thunderbolt, young gangster), Qiu Yifeng (Feng Gou/Mad Dog, gangster), Tony Chen (teacher), Chen Muyi (temple shaman), Hou Xiaoxian, Chen Kunhou, Yan Hao [Yim Ho], Xu Anhua [Ann Hui], Liu Weiqiang [Andrew Lau], Zhang Guoming [Alex Cheung], Zhu Yanping (50th Golden Horse Awards VIPs).

Release: Taiwan, 5 Feb 2016.

(Read review of David Loman here: https://sino-cinema.com/2016/06/25/review-david-loman/.)