A Tale of Rascal (1999)

Delon Wu plays Wu, a homeless guy with attitude. Life is solitary for him as he trudges through the days, playing his harmonica, scamming food from restaurants and having some pesky girl (named Kido?) follow him around town.

His life takes a dramatic turn when a young lady sprints past him with thugs in pursuit. Wu, a dapper hand at martial arts, lays waste to the goons and saves the girl. Oh, but wait... it's that tired old routine of a guy unknowingly saving an actress from thugs in a scene that's being filmed for a movie. The director yells "Cut!" and drafts his newfound pugilist into the stunt crew for the selfsame movie. Wu falls for the actress, GiGi Shu, who tells him that if he goes back to school and does well in his studies, she'll be there. Pity, then, that Wu has learning difficulties -- he uses his martial arts in class to let him sleep, and so on. He cheats on the final exam, and then gets dobbed in. GiGi's unimpressed and here the plot radically changes route.

Up to this point (or about half the film) the film's a kiddy comedy, replete with laugh track, "boinng!" noises and a chirpy soundtrack. And then it gets all serious on you. Kido(?) sneakily drafts a ruse to get Wu back into GiGi's heart, and into her home. But Wu is a selfish, mean bastard and he's forced to relive Christmas Day ad nauseum until he becomes nice enough a guy to win over his girl. Or so it all seems...

The Groundhog Day-esque touch is undeniable and a tad dull in this Taiwan-set comedy. But if you can cope with the script device, and an annoying giggle-dubbed little girl, then A Tale of Rascal really isn't that bad. The acting is run of the mill but certainly not bad and the script was lively enough to get a fair few laughs out of the small crowd. Interestingly, A Tale of Rascal has an undeniable Christmas theme despite being released in HK during July, suggesting how long it was kept on ice. Another thing a bit odd is that the banknotes are in Hong Kong dollars despite it all being shot in Taiwan. Is it to make another country look like HK? Odd. It's something also seen in Devil Angel (another Vivian Hsu flick, this time with Hong Kong car license plates in Taiwan) and, though it's certainly picky of me to point it out, the practice strikes me as somewhat misguided.

Credits:

Directed by Chang Gwoh-hih
Screenplay by Wu How-shinn
Starring Delon (or Nicky) Wu and Vivian Hsu