Yam yeung lo 14: Seung gwai pat moon

Number 14 in the Troublesome Night movie series might just be the worst out of the trilogy. This plot-less, low-budget, so-called movie has the usual suspects, Bud Gay (Tong Kai Fai), Bud Ren (Ronnie Cheung), Brother Eight (Oni Tsuka) and Brother Nine (Mr. Nine), doing the same old thing - courting girls and partying at the disco. Their oversexed tones have gotten way old and their attempt at coolness fall flat.

This movie was supposed to be about hotel manager Christin (Emily Kwan), who has gotten in trouble after embezzling money out of her sister's fiancé's company to invest in the stock market. When the stock company goes bankrupt, she is left penniless herself. She commits suicide and her vengeful ghost returns to haunt those who refused to help her. But, don't expect this story-line to become the center of focus in the movie. Christin's story doesn't happen until well into the second half of the movie, and her ghost doesn't appear until the last half hour of the movie.

Much of this film, instead, is focused on Bud Lung's (Lan Law) ex-husband Budcasso (Joe Junior), who is as dumb as a brick, inviting her and her family to Szenchen to attend his wedding to Zidane (Frances Fong). Her back and forth duels with Bud Lung got old quick; Zidane sicking a gay ghost to play tricks on Bud Lung's family was boring. Just when you crave some real ghost action, you're taken back to the same old women-wooing and disco-dancing scenes again. And, the scenes of Budcasso belching out songs in attempts to romance Bud Rung and Zidane were extremely awkward.

To sum it all, the plot, or lack thereof, was slow, story was boring, characters were unremarkable and script was stupid. The filmmakers really did not put any effort in this movie; sure wished I knew what they were on when they made this flop.

Grade F

Here's a novel experience -- I was actually entertained by some of this entry in the never-ending series. The Bud family grows by one when Helena Law's ex-husband, "Budcasso," sends her a wedding invitation and offers her shares in his hotel in Shenzhen. It turns out his new wife is a master of Western Astrology, and they fight against each other, and against the hotel manager (Emily Kwan) until one of them is exposed as a thief and commits suicide. Her ghost returns, and only the survivor's combined powers can stop her. Maybe I'm just getting used to the regular Troublesome Night cast, or maybe they are improving somewhat, or maybe TROUBLESOME NIGHT 13 was so bad there really is no way to make a worse movie. Whatever the case, TN14 is a marked improvement, and perhaps the series has reached a turning point and will start to get better again.