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Looking for Mister Perfect

AKA: Looking for Mr. Perfect
Year of release: 2003
Genre: romantic action-comedy
Director: Ringo Lam
Stars: Simon Yam, Hsu Chi, Andy On, Lam Suet, Raymond Wong, Chapman To, Ruby Wong, Isabel Chan
Rated IIA for mild violence
Version reviewed: Mei Ah DVD

Boy, what a departure for Ringo Lam. Who would have thought the director behind films like City on Fire and Full Contact would be doing a Hsu Chi romantic comedy? But if the results here are any indication, I would much rather have Lam go in this direction, rather than continuing to crank out straight-to-video junk with Van Damme.

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The plot has Hsu Chi as a cop who is unlucky in love (in a nod to how much her career has changed from her softcore porn days, her virginity is mentioned several times) who travels to Malaysia with her friend (Isabel Chan). The hotel they're staying at is home to a group of strange characters. One of them (Andy On) catches Hsu's eye, but things turn sour when she finds out that he's actually some sort of agent trying to get a valuable computer system from a goofy gangster played by Simon Yam. Eventually, they patch things up enough to team up to get the system and begin a romance.

Normally, this wouldn't really be my type of movie -- romantic comedies make me retch -- but Looking for Mister Perfect never takes itself seriously. There's none of the pretense or the self-importance that usually plague the genre. For instance, there's never a big scene where Andy and Hsu run toward each other on the beach in slow-motion while some crappy ballad plays or some such nonsense. I will grant that there were times when the movie does get a bit cute for its' own good (most notably a gag towards the end that uses talking flowers), but for the most part, the characters are personable and the jokes are amusing, which is all you really want in a movie like this. Well, okay, there was no gratuitous nudity, but Looking for Mister Perfect is a good enough film that it doesn't need to pump up its' "production value" using gimmicks like that.

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It doesn't hurt that there's heaping doses of action in here as well. It reminded me a lot of Jackie Chan's work from the early to mid-1980's, right down to the sound effects. Again, the antics go a bit overboard in spots, but for the most part, it's good stuff, and pretty unique in this day and age of "computer-fu". I especially enjoyed Simon Yam's fight scenes, which combined dancing and fighting into some of the best action you're likely to see this year.

Like the classic films from Hong Kong's "golden age", Looking for Mister Perfect mashes together a whole bunch of genres and manges to create a coherent and entertaining movie. It's certainly not the best film I've ever seen, but if you're looking for some good mindless fun, you could do much worse. At the least, it has a fast and breezy attitude that helps make this a romantic comedy even the most macho guys will enjoy.

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Note: the movie was actually filmed in 2001, but was shelved because executives thought that Black Mask 2: City of Masks would be a better introduction to HK audiences for Andy On. Of course, that movie bombed and this one didn't fare much better since it came out during the SARS crisis, when movie attendance dropped off dramatically.

RATING: 7


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