He dong shi hou 2

For the record the only roaring was done by the lioness not the lion.

It starts with a would-be poet interviewing ladies for some unspecified job then cuts to a lovely lady interviewing a rather crude looking man as a possible husband. She soon displays martial arts skills that could only be done in a comedy.

Reviewing a comedy is never easy because what is funny is a matter of taste. Plus, the Hong Kong comedy genre requires viewer experience just to accept the sight gags and the verbal comedy is often lost in the translation. This opening skit works well in both languages so I found the dialog very funny. The action is a spoof of martial arts movies with a lot of sex role reversals. It includes the standard characters of the wispy woman who is actually a kung fu master, the male poet with no martial arts skills, and others.

A viewer not familiar with this genre would stop watching after fifteen minutes. I have watched many of these movies and I thought the first fifteen minutes was great.

If you run to get a drink about one hour into the movie you will return not to a comedy but a tragic story with the philosophical question is it better to remember or forget lost love. That's another cultural thing about Hong Kong movies, they are not afraid to hit the audience with abrupt changes like this.

After all the cultural differences the movie finishes up with the standard love story plot: boy meets girl, something happens and they split but get back together, then something really bad happens and it seems over forever but they get back together in the last scene. This is not the Chinese love story plot: boy meets girl, fate is mentioned, and the rest is up to fate. Overall I liked it and recommend it exclusively for fans of this genre.