Film review: An Inspector Calls - fluff with great visuals
Many of the key ingredients associated with a classic Lunar New Year Hong Kong film are present in An Inspector Calls: it's star-studded, cameo-filled and often visually outrageous.
Starring: Louis Koo Tin-lok, Eric Tsang Chi-wai, Teresa Mo Shun-kwan
Directors: Raymond Wong Pak-min, Herman Yau Lai-to
Category: IIA (Cantonese)
Many of the key ingredients associated with a classic Lunar New Year Hong Kong film are present in : it's star-studded, cameo-filled and often visually outrageous.
It possesses the right pedigree too — it's produced, co-directed and co-stars Raymond Wong Pak-min, the man behind the festive comedies.
The requisite effort has been made — including by Wong's scriptwriter son Edmond Wong Chi-mun — to inject humour and colour into this lavish adaptation of English novelist-dramatist J.B. Priestley's tale of a wealthy family visited by a man claiming to be a police inspector investigating a pregnant woman's suicide. Still, it's hard to get away from the fact that the source material is a psychological drama rather than wacky comedy.
Although lead Louis Koo Tin-lok tries to amuse with a running gag involving his fishing out the dead woman's diary from various parts of his person, he can't do much to make his Inspector Karl appear more funny than angry. Better at playing laughably over-the-top characters, however, are a hyper Eric Tsang Chi-wai (as family patriarch) and stunning Teresa Mo Shun-kwan (as his wife).
