I did finally decide to watch this one all the way through. Mostly after reading how Stephen Chow managed to make "enemies" of Johnnie To and Danny Lee in the aftermath of this movie. The former vowed never to work with him again, and he has not, and the latter apparently wasn't pleased about the appropriation of his name for Chow's character, which culminated in the message on the wall "Lee Sau-Yin, I will kill your whole family."

This is the second and last movie Chow was in directed by Johnnie To, and like that first one (Justice My Foot), it's mildly entertaining, but decidedly unfunny. In it, Chow plays Dragon Fighter Lo-Han, a belligerent god that raises a bunch of havoc in heaven, only to get sent to Earth to redeem 3 unrepentant sinners; a begger, a whore and a killer. That is, they've been at their respective vices for 9 lives. If he can do that, his own transgressions will be forgiven and he'll be promoted. If not...well. Anyway, that's the gist of it. He has a magic fan and that's all the magic he can have. Oh, and he also has Tat following him around in retard-mode, not doing a whole lot.

Mostly Chow just spends his time making fun of people, kicking them in the face, and trying to keep the killer among the scoundrels from killing the other two. It gets a bit muddled towards the end, but like I said, it really wasn't all that funny. However, while in Mad Monk mode, Chow reminded me an awful lot of Jack Sparrow, and it makes me wonder if those people ever saw this movie. So, I suppose, in the end, I was only in it for his oddly attractive scruffyness and to add another tick to my list of Stephen Chow movies I've watched. So I figure maybe Chow did whatever he did to put Johnnie To off his breakfast to keep him from making more boring movies like this.

Mood cynical Tags: comedies, stephen chow, wuxia