Donnie Yen is known as one of the world's toughest martial arts stars, but he showcased his comedic side with the Lunar New Year release All's Well Ends Well 2012. Apparently, Donnie's "comedic side" involves wearing bad looking wigs. Oh, the hilarity. You had better have some Excedrin ready for this one.

Like the previous films in the series, this entry consists of several loosely interconnected stories regarding couples, with the common thread here being that the couples meet via a janky-looking web site. They include two down and out pop stars (Donnie Yen and Sandra Ng), a construction worker (Louis Koo) who becomes an unlikely model for photographer Kelly Chen, an "ugly" writer (Chapman To) that helps a blind woman (Lynn Xiong) with dating, and lastly, an older man (Raymond Wong) disguises himself as an heiress's (Mini Yang) father to help her claim a large inheritance.

Lunar New Year films are not really produced to be deep viewing material. They're light, fluffy films packed with stars and even more cameos and basically rapid fire jokes and puns that for the most part riff on Hong Kong pop culture, both present and past. In that sense, the movie works for its' intended audience, who are simply looking for light entertainment to check out during their long holiday celebration.

But for most westerners or more casual fans, most of the comedy featured here will miss the target. Sure, Donnie in a wig or Louis Koo mangling English lines will bring a few chuckles, but the jokes quickly run aground and become tiresome. The script as a whole feels like it's grasping at straws and would be stretching to get to ninety minutes, much less the almost two hours this film runs at. Sandra Ng tries to pull things through with her wonderfully manic energy, but it's ultimately an effort in vain, as the film as a whole pants and limps to get to the (highly telegraphed) finish line.

RATING: 4