Wu ming zhi bei

"A Cool Fish" is the tale of two would-be criminals and an ex-cop trying to prove themselves in order to change their unfortunate lots in life with no idea how interconnected the lives of everyone they know have become. With the exception of a single dumb gag near the beginning, the rest of the movie treats the audience respectfully using believable and relatable characters who find themselves in both touching and humorous situations, ultimately leading to a refreshingly unpredictable ending. A bonus "what happened next" during the credits gives a sense of conclusion for anyone who prefer stories which end a bit more definitively.

Well, sure I hadn't even heard about the 2018 movie titled "A Cool Fish" (aka "Wu ming zhi bei") prior to sitting down in 2021 to watch it. But with it being a Chinese movie that I hadn't already seen, I needed no persuasion to sit down to watch it.

And while "A Cool Fish" was watchable, it was by no means an outstanding movie. For me, the storyline was just too much of a scrambled and random mess, so I don't really grasp what writers Zhilong Lei and Xiaozhi Rao were trying to accomplish with the different storylines that they tried to tie together for a unified movie. It just felt out of sync with each other.

I will say, though, that the acting in the movie was good, despite of the storyline being such a scrambled mess. But the acting performances were definitely good throughout the course of the story, and I was in particularly impressed with actress Suxi Ren and her performance, especially since she virtually had no body language to use in her acting, given her role in the movie.

While I managed to sit through the entire course of the movie, I must admit that I was starting to drift off once or twice along the way. For me the movie was just not really delivering a wholehearted and coherent storyline. So I am not giving any praise to director Xiaozhi Rao for this 2018 movie.

My rating of "A Cool Fish" lands on a four out of ten stars. If you enjoy Chinese cinema, this is hardly a noteworthy movie, nor is it one that I will recommend that you rush out to watch. "A Cool Fish" was good enough for a single viewing, albeit not an overly impressive viewing, but it is hardly a movie that warrants more than just a single viewing.

I chose this movie to see only because I want to find some fun to kill time in a bored afternoon. At first, I really did laugh a lot. Then I couldn't help crying for many times while watching the rest of the movie. Every characters were funny. But I could not laugh at them. Instead, I felt deep sympathy about them. In Chinese, "wu ming zhi bei" means a person lives in the bottom of the society. Such a person isn't worthy a penny for his name. In this movie, the security guard, the two thieves, and the lady on the wheelchair, they were all small persons. But they still fought and struggled against the destiny. In addition, the episode song sang by the guitar player was very very fair-sounding. I chose this song as my cellphone's bell for a long time.

Another rare dark comedy, this A Cool Fish has a really fantastic cast. In particular, the performances of Binlong Pan and Yu Zhang are just stunning and memorable. However, the screenplay and editing falls short compared to those of Crazy Stone. There are too many coincidences and the plot lacks credibility. The editing is also somehow artificial and contrived.

A Cool Fish is an action-comedy movie with a dramatic twist. It tells several different stories that are all linked. We follow two friends and thugs who want to rob a bank but end up taking cell phone models from a cheap store and hide in the apartment of a suicidal woman in a wheelchair. The brother of said woman is a security guard and former police officer who now works for a businessman who betrayed his own clients and the security guard tries to retrieve a gun that was stolen from him. His former colleagues don't care about the gun however and are busy chasing the two thieves. The security officer's daughter is friends with the businessman's son who tries to clear his father's name. His father's clients and partners organize daily funerals in the city to put pressure on the businessman who has fled the city with his emotive girlfriend. All these characters will end up at the same spot for an explosive showdown.

Does the plot sound confusing to you? It actually is and that is one of the few flaws of the film. It includes too many characters, locations and side stories. Some elements of the plot are also quite hard to believe. Another flaw is the dragging ending that certainly overstays its welcome. This film would be much more efficient if it were fifteen minutes shorter.

Apart of the stretched ending, A Cool Fish is a dynamic, entertaining and funny movie. The action scenes have hilarious slapstick elements. The dialogues often have dark and dry humour. The actresses and actors are rather convincing with the suicidal woman in the wheelchair being the greatest of them all.

If you are looking for an entertaining action-comedy movie with a few profound touches towards the end, you will certainly enjoy this dynamic film. It's not a particularly memorable movie but an enthusiastic one that is best enjoyed at your local cinema with a few friends. It's certainly more creative, vivid and surprising than another Hollywood reboot of an old action-comedy franchise.