Ma ma fan fan

A mess of nauseating sentimentality which does not even succeed in being funny, this story of a woman who makes a deal with Death, trading ten years of her own life for the survival of her son, is too much awash in candy-colored cheesiness to wring any tears from its most outrageous plays for pathos.

There is not much plot, and Anita Yuen's make-up is atrocious, but I like this movie because it reminds us not to take our loved ones for granted, especially our parents.

When Anita's character (the mother) disappears, her children start to reminisce about their childhood and remember how much she loved them. Jordan Chan as the intellectually-slow but filial son is juxtaposed with his other siblings who are cold to their mother. Perhaps we have become so clever who forget what things are more important.

This movie is also valuable for the scenes of the late Roy Chiao, and a peep into the mentality of the old people as their friends start to die off one by one.