He jia la

An ode to old school Hong Kong style comedy featuring a cast that we've grown up with and loved. It is refreshing to see a product like this in this day and age, but the execution of it is poor in my eyes. There just aren't enough laughs and the story is a little too plain for my liking. For me, Ronald Cheng is one of the true legends, and his character is so lacking in personality that you feel anybody could have played that role. I do like the fact that they tried to tie in current events and the pandemic into the film to reflect what is going on in HK society, but this does not do much to the overall quality of the film.

This film tells the story of a family, who found a business opportunity during the pandemic by making chilli sauce.

It is a light hearted comedy, and it made me laugh hard several times. What I like about this film is that, apart from the funny jokes, it also contains emotional elements that touches heart strings. I enjoyed it a lot.

I stumbled upon the 2022 Hong Kong comedy "He Jia La" (aka "Chilli Laugh Story") by random chance here in 2023, and with my love for the Hong Kong cinema, of course I opted to sit down and watch the movie without ever having heard about it.

Coba Cheng and Matt Chow wrote a script that failed to entertain me in any outstanding manner. Sure, "He Jia La" was semi-watchable, but it was a rather monotonous and forgettable movie experience. And for a comedy then the writers swung and missed terribly. I didn't even laugh once throughout the 94 minutes that this ordeal carried on for, nor were I even brought to a smile.

The movie does have some familiar faces on the cast list, if you are well-familiar with Hong Kong cinema. But not even the likes of Sandra Kwan Yue Ng and Louis Koo could do much to lift up this movie.

I was rather disappointed with this movie, and it is not a movie that I will recommend to fans of the Hong Kong cinema. It was an interesting enough concept for a movie, but it was just poorly executed and brought to the screen.

My rating of director Coba Cheng's 2022 movie "He Jia La" lands on a three out of ten stars.