The Fantastic Water Babes

Jeffrey Lau

The story: After getting publicly humiliated by her boyfriend’s new squeeze, Gill (Gillian Chung) wants to get back at her by winning a swimming relay competition. There is one snag – she cannot really swim, so she kidnaps champion swimmer Chi (Alex Fong) to train her.

You could completely disregard the plot and it would not make much of a difference. The movie is really just a series of gags and the only question is whether the hit-to-miss ratio is high enough.

Answer: Not quite.

Still, there are some funny sequences such as when the entire island of Cheung Chau colludes to convince Gill that she has superpowers and her friends and neighbours end up having to do all kinds of ridiculous things. There is also a nicely executed mahjong scene about arcane local rules – essentially a standalone skit.

This is all familiar territory for writerdirector Jeffrey Lau as he had also helmed farcical movies such as Just Another Pandora’s Box (2010) and The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993), in which a bunch of A-listers from the two Tony Leungs to Maggie Cheung gamely make fools of themselves.

The star wattage here is dimmer.

Gillian Chung, one-half of Cantopop duo Twins, seems to hold back and does not quite throw herself into the whole zany enterprise.

Professional swimmer-turned-actor Alex Fong (Chi) fares better but it is Stephen Fung who proves he is gungho enough to do anything for a laugh.

When the director decides to shove Gill and Chi into some grand romance, the result is underwhelming. It is difficult to be emotionally committed to cardboard characters who have been manipulated for yuks all through the movie.

Even more bewildering is the CGI-heavy finale, which further distances the viewer from the story. It is as though, after all that onscreen craziness, Lau finally goes off the deep end.

(ST)