The Hong Kong Happy Man (2000)

The folks at the Just Talk Advertising* agency are running into hard times. Debt collectors are onto company head KY (Hung Shiu-man), the creative juices have run dry, and staffers silly enough to stick around haven't been paid for six months. The firm's troubles are hardly surprising; they've taken a year to think up a campaign for a sex potion named Super Man Makes Women Hate, finally resorting to the poetry of porno flick titles for their half-baked inspiration.

One day long-time client Brother Wong comes into the office. 20 years back he had the Just Talk old guard launch his vegetable water Green Grass to much success. Wong knows his business partners will probably switch to ad company All Blood for the forthcoming campaign so he's visiting Just Talk to let them know in advance. But as he leaves the office, he spots a topless girl on a computer screen and is thrilled - even clothed she'd be great as the future Green Grass Girl. "If you can find this girl for us to be our image," old Wong says, "it'd be perfect."

Desperate to keep their client, the Just Talk team have only seven days to locate the mystery girl, who they deduce is from Thailand. A Thai assistant, Rocky, is roped in and obscene ad guys Brothers Wai, Nonsee and Fan, and receptionist Toto, join him in a trip to Thailand to find the girl. And in Hong Kong movies a trip to Thailand means at least one of two things: whoring and horror.

Here the focus is on vice as the Nonsee, Fan and Wai immediately stash up on prophylactics in anticipation for the supermarket of sex down south. Notably inexplicable here is Brother Wai being game for the sleaze - he's married to the athletic Diana Pang Dan. Whatever his problem, as soon as they hit their Thailand resort they're out on the town. Ever-so-serious Rocky meanwhile gets hunting for the mystery girl and shrugs off Toto's lustful advances to her continued frustration.

Back in Hong Kong Diana gets suspicious of what her hubby is getting up to abroad after friend Winnie (Emily Kwan) explains to her every man's "ostrich policy". Just to ensure Wai's not fevering behind her back, she and Winnie buy plane tickets and slip over to the resort for a bit of spying. By this point you should pretty much guess where these assorted plots are heading.

Adhering loosely to its Southeast Asian sleaze formula, The Hong Kong Happy Man is dirt-cheap Hong Kong film at its more mesmerisingly inane. While Diana Pang Dan fans will doubtless admire her outrageous impression of a Thai local and a bouncy gym scene, other more casual viewers may well find this to be the utter pits of Hong Kong film. The threadbare story is drenched with running innuendo, in words, sound effects and action, tiring long before the folks hit Thailand. Also not so funny is one scene of unconsenting gains and another in which drowning or hospitalising prostitutes is valued at 5,000 baht (HK$2,000). Humour anadvertedly arrives with incredulous crude comments made by the men, notably one line in fending off a perceived gay advance. It's quite unthinkable that someone could come up with all this dialogue, let alone film it, and that kept me watching right through to the end. Though not a film I'd casually recommend at all, fans of ultra-cheap n' dirty Hong Kong filmmaking [who know what to expect] may enjoy the pervading enthusiasm of this silly Southeast Asian jaunt.

DVD information: Wide Sight Entertainment have put this one out. The film is presented letterboxed with its original subtitles. The edges of the picture appear to be cut off, with credits running off both sides of the screen. Picture quality is on the poor side, with a notable fracture in the picture in the first few minutes, and the print is gritty around the reel changes. Only six chapters break up the movie. The special feature is a Chinese-only plot synopsis from the back of the case. Worth noting is that the bikini-clad girl on the main menu, and shown reclining on the front cover, is an extra who appears in the film for much less than a minute near the end.

* Note: Just Talk Advertising is subtitled as King Advertising throughout the film. Just Talk is the name on the wall at the company's reception area, which I'm using as the reference for this review. It's also the more fitting company name considering all the mindless chatter that plagues the office.

** Another note: This recent release review is based entirely on seeing the film on the DVD edition and I'm unable to compare the disc presentation to the cinema version.

Credits:

Directed by Sam Ho
Starring Billy Lau, Lau Siu-kwan, Anthony Ngan, Aaron Ma, Diana Pang Dan, Hung Shiu-man, Irene Cheung, Emily Kwan Bo-wai, Benz Hui and Chak Pui-wan