Vulgaria
Pang Ho Cheung
The story: Film producer To’s (Chapman To) meeting with prospective investor Tyrannosaurus (Ronald Cheng) takes a strange turn when he finds himself facing the prospect of having sex with a mule. Soon after, he starts to remake the classic erotic film Confessions Of A Concubine with one-time idol Yum Yum Shaw (Susan Shaw) and the deliciously named Popping Candy (Dada Chen). Meanwhile, his shrewish ex-wife (Kristal Tin) wants to stop him from seeing his young daughter so that he will not be a bad influence on her.

This movie is lewd, crude and proud of it, proclaiming its vulgarity like a badge of honour in the title.
The set-up is a simple one: Producer To has been invited to give a talk to a group of students on the business of putting a movie together. As he recounts his experiences, flashbacks unfold.
Very quickly, one gets a sense of the film’s irreverent tone as To launches into a discourse on the purpose of pubic hair, and concludes with the pronouncement: “A great producer is like a thick bunch of pubic hair.”
Writer-director-producer Pang Ho Cheung delivers the laughs along with a send-up of the film industry, where those who hold the purse strings can hold enormous, and dubious, sway.
In an unforgettable dinner scene with a prospective mainland investor, not only does To have to stomach some unusual “delicacies”, but he also has to get it on with a mule. This would placate the loaded triad boss Tyrannosaurus, whose interest in movies is extremely personal and narrow – he wants to remake an erotic classic with the original starlet.
Singer-actor Ronald Cheng gamely plays the swaggering buffoon for laughs in a nicely calibrated performance complete with hilariously intoned Cantonese, or Mandarin for audiences here.
Comedian Chapman To is also stellar as the put-upon producer who is always trying to weasel his way out of tight spots with his gift of the gab and his street smarts.
He is a man under siege as he tries to raise money, convince actors to come on board and juggle his livelihood with fatherhood.
Vulgaria’s cast of colourful characters also includes Dada Chen as Popping Candy, a wannabe- actress with a specific sexual skill, and Hiro Hayama, star of the exploitative flick 3D Sex And Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (2011), as himself.
The Vulgaria version of the Hong Kong-based Hayama is a sly in-joke as he plays an actor who is extremely wary of explosives after his experience on the set of Sex And Zen.
Pang is a director who is able to be raucous and raunchy one moment and sensitive and gentle the next. Like Kevin Smith (Zack And Miri Make A Porno, 2008) or Seth MacFarlane (TV’s Family Guy and Ted, now showing in cinemas), he has a salacious saltiness that is often balanced with an unexpected sweetness at the core.
Add to that his ability to pen sharp and smart lines and his characters come to believably flawed life and make you root for them.
His genuine affection for movies also comes through as he chronicles the difficulties of producers and directors as they wait for the opportunity to do what they love.
With Vulgaria a hit in his native Hong Kong – earning close to HK$28 million (S$4.5 million) to make it the No. 1 local film of the year so far, ahead of his own rom-com sequel Love In The Buff – Pang will probably not have to muck around with a mule to get funding for his next project.
(ST)