Chut sui fu yung

There's just nothing fantastic about writer/director Jeff Lau's new romantic comedy- which is probably better known as the Gillian Chung movie whose release got delayed for two years after the infamous Edison Chen sex scandal. Yes, sitting on the shelves of Emperor Motion Pictures, it has finally seen the light of day- though judging by how shockingly inept it is, it would probably have done better to remain in cold storage.

To be fair, the movie begins promisingly enough by introducing us to village girl Gillian (yes, they couldn't come up with a more inventive name for Gillian Chung's character) raised as an orphan by the closely knit Cheung Chau community. After being dumped by her boyfriend in front of an audience of her schoolmates, Gillian tries to commit suicide but miraculously survives- and thanks to some local legend about the Water Deity, she believes she has acquired supernatural powers.

In order not to make her more upset, the rest of the community decides to indulge in her fantasy, so they simply do what she says to their best abilities. Along a crowded street market, one man faints on command, another eats a strewn packet of noodles on the ground and yet another pregnant woman tries to suddenly go into labour- talk about community spirit. This is also one of the film's funniest sequences, and if you don't think you're likely to find such manner of slapstick humorous, then you might as well skip this altogether.

Those who think they may appreciate some 'mo lei tau' comedy courtesy of "The Eagle Shooting Heroes", "A Chinese Odyssey" and the most recent "Just Another Pandora's Box" director Jeff Lau can probably stick around for the first half of the movie. Though nowhere near as funny as these other movies, Lau still makes use of the Cheung Chau setting to derive some good-natured humour that you'll find yourself chuckling to.

Most of these consist of the fish-out-of-water situations that champion swimmer Chi Yuen (Alex Fong) finds himself in after being kidnapped by Gillian to teach her swimming. Why? So she can get back at her romantic rival in the upcoming "Asia Water Babes Swimming Competition". It doesn't sound particularly convincing, nor does the movie make any attempt to make it any less ludicrous than it sounds, but to nitpick at such details in a Jeff Lau film is really missing the point.

Still, what generosity one affords to suspend his disbelief is quickly exhausted in the second half of the movie. It is as if Jeff Lau has suddenly lost interest in the various characters, supporting characters and subplots he took effort to set up in the first half of the movie. Indeed, this second half is no more than a lazy and half-hearted attempt at milking every cliché one can think of in romantic comedies, albeit at twice the speed and not even half the finesse.

But what really takes the cake is a messy, overlong and nonsensical climax filled with laughable special effects, WTF moments and an out-of-nowhere ecological message. Can it get any more slapdash than this? I think not- especially when an indoor swimming pool suddenly turns into an ocean filled with corals, octopuses, stingrays and jellyfish which are on closer look just trash floating underwater whose shapes resemble these creatures. Confused already? You're certainly not alone- as lead star Gillian Chung seems equally perplexed. At least in the first half of the movie, Gillian exudes an easy charm that fits her character quite well; but in the abysmal latter half, Gillian just looks puzzled or bewildered, probably a good indication of how she was feeling while filming. Still, Gillian fares much better than her co-stars- the once-national swimmer Alex Fong is embarrassingly wooden most of the time, while Stephen Fung makes a forgettable special appearance playing an autistic adult living under the shadow of his father's demise.

The real tragedy however is how writer/director Jeff Lau could have done such an appallingly bad movie; while the impending tragedy is how this supposed comeback vehicle for Gillian Chung will likely backfire because of the demerits of the film. Yes there's nothing fantastic about "The Fantastic WaterBabes"; there's not even anything mediocre about it- it deserves to be shelved not because of Gillian but because of how awful it is.

Despite its title, there's rarely a fantastic moment in the film, the swimming pool featured only in a small handful of scenes including one really out of this world computer generated effects extravaganza that was really out of place, and in reality having not too many babes in the film. So I guess that's three strikes against what it's trying to sell, and it just goes to show that writer-director Jeff Lau does blow hot and cold, especially the latter for this film when it had to sit in limbo for two years while waiting for main lead Gillian Chung's scandal to blow over.

But I suppose it didn't matter. While Hong Kong comedies can afford to have no coherent narrative and can sprawl all over the place, I think Jeff Lau's effort here really takes the cake and can probably be archived to film schools as how one should never make a film. Putting together an eye candy cast does not make a hit, especially when there's hardly a semblance of a story. As a comedy the jokes mostly fell flat, as a romance the leads share little chemistry, and one can only wonder what the director had wanted to achieve out of this, other than pay homage to Cheung Chau, one of Hong Kong's outlying islands.

Simply put, it tells the story of Gillian (Chung), a native of Cheung Chau, who believes that she has had an encounter with a deity, and is granted supernatural powers. The first few minutes of the film tries to establish this fact in a really unfunny sequence, after she gets into trouble with a rival who had sown the seed of jealousy, and as revenge, she wants to go one up against her in a hastily organized 4 x 100m swimming relay. Embroiled into the mix is the swim king of Asia, Chi (Alex Fong), who gets kidnapped by Gillian and her gang so as to learn some swimming techniques from him, to his reluctance of course, since he's a captive against his will.

Don't expect a Waterboys equivalent, or a typical Japanese zero to hero story, because this film is just not that. There's little focus on the swimming aspects, so any thoughts of a training montage gets thrown out of the window after an obligatory one. Instead, Jeff Lau tries to explore the various characters and their motivations, from the romantic to the ethical, drawing broad strokes in insinuating that city dwellers are always scheming to make money, and have absolutely zero morals in that singular pursuit, while the village people are sincere, honest and trustworthy. Between the two lead characters in Gillian and Chi, the theme of hypocritical behaviour get broached, but only barely, while leaving the rest of the characters in support mode, without clear direction other than to be fodder for anything the writer/director so decides.

Comedy-wise, this is probably one of Jeff Lau's weakest offering, since the jokes are nary funny, and relied on gimmicky aspects already exploited to death in the hey days of Hong Kong comedy cinema. Don't expect any laugh-a-minute, and worse, some of these perceived comical aspects just made the storyline even more incoherent with fantastical elements thrown in that more often than not, backfire. Perhaps the only saving grace is Stephen Fung's character, whose sole appearance alone in drag will elicit much needed laughter, because his limited cameo in earlier scenes were just plain scenery, or an improvised Mahjong scene that I thought would have been better had the language of the film shown here be in its original Cantonese track.

Like Sniper, this is one film that's a blast from the past that had to await until audience sentiments of the scandal blows over, before making a cinema debut. After all, some costs recouped is better than none at all, so don't go to this expecting to see something rip-roaring funny.