1992 ‘踢到寶’ Directed by Johnnie To
Two inventors encounter a friendly little ghost, and stumble onto a plot to capture the ghost's uncle who was responsible for his untimely death. However, the inventors are warned by a spiritual master that humans and ghosts cannot co-exist in the same room at the same time. Doing so would cause a drainage of humans' life force.
Tek dou bou, 踢到宝, 사후환생
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Congratulations to Tony Leung for winning the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Venice Film Festival!
Lucky Encounter is only a minor Johnnie To movie, but I still thought it was entertaining. It's a supernatural comedy with a romance subplot. The setup is basically Home Alone but with more ghost kids and romance. It stars Tony Leung and Kent Cheng as a loveable burglar duo. Anthony Wong stars as well. Here he is a big geek though, instead of his usual skeezy self. He is still one of the movie's the bad guys.
The movie throws a lot of ghost hijinks our way. Plus there are fun scenes with a remote control toy car, Sonny Chong and her long tongue, and John Shum as a scientist/spiritual guru with a so-called "molecular reorganizer".
Hong Kong for the Holidays 2023 (#9)
It’s a ghostly christmas in HK where Anthony Wong is looking for a Garfield full of money while a never ending stream of Coca-Cola product placements stages a rescue/revenge mission to get a phantom child to the other spectral side. This movie is magical and really quite sweet. Cozy Saturday morning watch.
so hk flicks about ghosts teaming up with the living to avenge their death so they can reincarnate/go to heaven are a whole genre lmao. i love it.
this opens as ghostbusters version of home alone then becomes more road trip-y. the kid is a whole star giving a physical performance at 3 ft tall and making for most the laughs lmao. a key part of the story is that he cant go near police cuz their badges repell him ('i faint when i see police' 😂 RT) which is why he cant transform & tell his story directly.
kent cheng and tony leung as fat & skinny criminal duo are hilarious as well, using some kinda computerized remote controlled car that…
This Hong Kong-made juvenile ghost comedy is light, insubstantial and almost too silly to be taken seriously. It has a wild and absurd plot that sprawls all over the place. Horrendous overacting is the call of the day – something that manages to go into overdrive whenever the compulsively sniggering villain played by Anthony Wong enters the scene.
Nevertheless, several of the comedy scenes manage to work in an agreeable way. Like the scenes in the police station with the two idiots trying to get a dreadfully po-faced sergeant to sneeze in order see the ghost child or the madcap climax with the quartet of heroes and heroines running about the maternity ward trying to find a woman about to…
Johnnie To makes adult movies for kids and kid movies for adults. I have been lukewarm to some of his films in the past, but this piece of connective tissue kinda synthesizes his psychotic-frequency to a hum I am in tune with. He likes to mix a respectful dedication to rules and order with spontaneity, which is perfect kid brain logic. I see his mastery now.
Johnnie To goes back to his Happy Ghost roots on this Tony Leung Chiu Wai-Kent Cheng comedy. They make for an amiable comic duo and some of the ghost has a zany inspiration to them, but the HK style frantic tone don’t suit this one quite as well and the film is slowly drained of its energy.
True mind-fuck, brain-melt HK cinema featuring a constantly spitting wet-ass Anthony Wong, ghost and human dimension traveling (courtesy of the "Professor") and a child-ghost allergic to cops...
..and let's not forget Garfield in one of the greatest precinct scenes ever.
Light-hearted and fun even with the dark set up and child violence. Tony Leung & Keng Cheng are goofy and Anthony Wong overacts and hams it up as his role necessitates. Not bad but with these actors if could've been a lot better.
You ever wonder what HOME ALONE would be like if Kevin were actually a ghost? You are not even about to believe your luck.
