Hit 'n' Fun, originally known as Lam Si Kyut Dau, is an action comedy film set in present-day Hong Kong and Macau. It tells the story of a financially unsuccessful and old-fashioned Muay Thai training centre owned by coach Chung Lei. He has to take care of his wife who struggles to rekindle her acting career and their intelligent daughter who is unafraid to tell her parents harsh truths they tend to ignore. One day, ambitious advertising executive Lin Xue shows up and is willing to pay a very generous sum to undergo exhausting training sessions. She has just learnt that her naive boyfriend Daniel is having a romantic relationship with boxing champion Sun Yayun. She wants to challenge her competitor to a duel. The boxing champion has left coach Chung Lei and is now training with another former student of Chung Lei who decides to challenge his former master to show him how much he has grown as a martial artist. The movie follows the initial conflicts, long-winded training sessions and final two fights.
This film has a few noteworthy strengths. The initial conflict between Lin Xue and Sun Yayun is wonderfully acted and starts the film on a high note. The film's greatest scene is the confrontation between the two ladies in the boxing champion's apartment. The characters are fleshed out and overall sympathetic which will lead to viewers sympathizing with the underdogs. The final fighting sequences feel liberating as they don't only offer intense Muay Thai techniques but also clever elements of philosophy.
However, this movie also has some significant downsides. The entire middle section overstays its welcome and feels exhaustingly repetitive. This movie would work so much better if it had been cut by twenty to thirty minutes. The movie also suffers from an overdose of melancholy and at times feels like a cheap tearjerker. The film fails when it enters drama territory portraying miserable careers, choices and lives. At least the film's ending feels hopeful and optimistic to the audience.
At the end of the day, Hit 'n' Fun, originally entitled Lam Si Kyut Dau, is an average action-comedy film with interesting characters that suffers from overtly melancholic passages and failed attempts to introduce dramatic genre elements. This movie is thus only recommended to avid fans of contemporary Hong Kong action cinema who don't mind their favourite genre being mixed with soap opera stereotypes.
