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Hi! Welcome to The Silver Spleen, my name is Stu Pitt...
And this is my review of SEX DUTIES UNIT/飛虎出征
After the success of his last film, a lot of people were looking forward to Pang Ho
Cheung's next one.
I usually enjoy his movies more symbolically than implicitly.
I appreciate the idea that his movies exist more than I appreciate the movies
themselves.
All of Pang Ho Cheung's films are relatively unusual
and that's probably what I appreciate most about them. I enjoyed his last film,
Vulgaria, more for what it did than what it was.
He took a risk and it paid off; Vulgaria ended up being one of the
highest-grossing domestic films of 2012.
So now we have the follow-up. It's the story of four B team
SDU cops who go to Macau for a little... 'horizontal refreshment.'
The movie is a light-hearted comedy that aims to please
as well as to titillate. "We won't be late for them!" It is after all Category III.
But I will say that the rating is far and away because of the profanity
and the sex. Suddenly, all that math revision becomes useful.
Like all of his recent films, Pang's use of profane,
and therefore highly realistic, dialogue is a lot of fun to watch.
So we've got foul language. That said, it's draped over a story that's
neither very interesting nor very entertaining. Like Vulgaria,
SDU relies on, and entertains us with, very funny dialogue and situations.
And they certainly made me laugh an awful lot. But those situations don't really
enhance the story; they're substitutes for it. The characters
kind of develop themselves through their dialogue, but the narrative
struck me as being kinda lazy. The stereotypical
innocent new chicken with a heart of gold meme
was trotted out with really no effort whatsoever at selling it; we were just
supposed to
buy it. Lau On Ki is very good in this role,
but it helped her that she didn't have to work very hard. And that she took her
shirt off.
Chapman To is, as usual, funny, but he's playing Chapman To,
so he kinda has to be good at it. "We who are about to eat
salute you!" Derek Tsang and Matt Chow are both very funny
and engaging in ways that... Well, I'd rather you see for yourself,
I don't want to tell you about it. "What's she doing back there?" Shawn Yue Man Lok's
character
is supposedly from Boston. "F@#$in Red Sox!" But there was nothing to either explain
or flesh out that detail. Simon Lui was surprisingly restrained and downright
appreciable.
I really enjoyed his scenes, and that's unusual for me. Jim Chim is
just as annoying as ever, and I spent most the time he was on screen hoping
that
he'd get *** by a shark. In real life. But never mind that.
Pang Ho Cheung certainly deserves to congratulate himself
for the success of VULGARIA, and so his referencing that film
in SEX DUTIES UNIT makes a lot of sense. He earned it.
I have nothing against self-parody or self-reference
but when you do it three times in the same movie, you just might be Scud.
Speaking of gay movies... After coming out to his friends,
one of the characters is constantly joked to, because of
(and about) his orientation. It seems as though the jokes were meant to convey
some kinda rough-edged,
manly acceptance, but there was always one more joke.
Maybe it was supposed to be inclusive, but maybe it
just struck me as kind of tasteless and disappointing. It's a thin line between
parody and endorsement. "Tell me about it!" Now that's an easy thing for me to say
only if I find the portrayals of the mainland sex workers
to be equally problematic. And I can't say that I do. But
maybe because making fun of the 'northern mushrooms'
isn't a running gag that never seems to go away. Like almost all of Pang Ho Cheung's
previous films,
I can easily say that I enjoy the fact that SDU: SEX DUTIES UNIT exists
much more than I can say I enjoyed the film itself. If that's a backhanded
compliment,
so be it. I'd like you to watch this movie
and make up your own mind. While it's in cinemas, go see it. Once it comes out on DVD
and Blu ray,
I'll update the description below so that you can buy a copy.
I don't want you to download it, because downloading stinks. If you like this
review, please leave me a comment.
If you didn't like the review, please leave me a comment. And then go play in
traffic.
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Have a nice day. Go touch someone.