Papa Loves You - HKNEO Reviews

PAPA LOVES YOU (2004-HK)
review by Neo

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It’s the Twins again! Well, at least it is one of them again swamping the 2004 Boxoffice with again and again film and this time it is Charlene Choi (the not as pretty one but cuter one!). Not surprisingly the Twins are becoming the next Chapman To by trying to appear in as many movies as possible, but this is not necessary a bad thing, especially to Twins fans like me. Well, don’t worry I will try my best to not be bias here, and put in my honest opinion as I have in my two earlier reviews of Moving Targets and Love on the Rocks. Ok, let’s get to the movie now and stop my boring blah blah blah of how cute Twins are. This movie as you probably know before you access this review is a movie called Papa Loves You and starring the ever versatile veteran actor who looks like my grandpa when he was his age (really not lying and I only know it last year when I saw my grandpa photo back in those days) – Tony Leung Ka Fai and Charlene who I will call Ah Sa from now on and the wanna-be Boyz. This movie borrows from so many other movies but ultimately creates a pretty fun movie ride, though it is not saying much.

The movie is basically like this Ying (Tony K.F. Leung), a widower who teaches wealthy ladies and professional to play piano has a teenage daughter, Ellen (Charlene Choi). Ellen once is a band one form five student. However, the disappointed result from public examination leads her to repeat in a band five high school. The reason that Ying picks this school is not for the good of Ellen, but in the vicinity of his home. He believes the environment cannot rot the nature of a good person, like Ellen. Yet he is wrong! And yes Ah Sa is a rebellious girl and yes, she is a teenager who gets into trouble and yes, she has a trouble relationship with her father and yes as you may guess his father loves her.

This movie directed by Herman Yau is very much – Wong Jing-like but uses or even overuse the soundtrack too much but still manage to evict much emotions from the soundtrack itself. The changing of the lyrics from In the world this is only mother good to father is cool and fit in. However, a better use of the music must be Jet Li’s Fong Sai Yuk 2 which utilities the music to depict love of a son to a mother. In terms of acting style, Ah Sa continues to improve but is very much in her My Wife is 18 mode, but is still a screen presence that put a smile on your face as she hops around. The supermarket scene is fun and cool, but the scene that does attempt to show Ah Sa range is the final scenes where she is in a cage! Yes you are right, she is in a cage! However, her performance in crying scenes is at best mediocre (see I am not bias even if I am a Twins Fans). However, Tony Leung once again shows his versatility from being a comedic actor to a funny ass loving father. His acting no matter how good or even great if you wanna call it, but I tell you, Mr. Leung you are wasting your time on material like this one. Well, his performance will bring no Oscars but one thing is certain, he is a funny guy. As to the Boyz performance is actually alright and fit in the undemanding role at a non-annoying pace. However, the person who steal the show, is the cameo by the late Blacky Ko whose several minutes of presence lifts up the movie considerably.

Overall, Papa Loves You is a fun, easygoing, coming of age/ change/ father and daughter relationship film that is quite forgettable. If it is one factor that I actually somewhat liked this movie is because I like the song as I have like the song in Fong Sai Yuk 2 of which I actually sang the song to my mum on mother’s day. The fun performances from Tony and Ah Sa leads quite well and moves along the plotless movie at a quick pace but one thing that downgrade the plotless ride is the mo lei tau ending in Wong Jing style which is both unnecessary and nothing fresh. So do I advise you to watch this movie, well in my honest opinion (throwing way my twins fan face for a moment) Papa Loves You is by not means a good movie and is certainly a reflection of what HK movies are like, but it is a quite fun mindless ride and because of the soundtrack, I rise it up from pass to an average coming of age comedy.

I rate it 6.5/10