Lou she oi sheung mao

I found this Chinese film to be quite strange and random. Perhaps I was missing something in the translation. Perhaps I would have gotten more out of the movie had I been Chinese...who knows. All I know is that I often found myself confused by the film and didn't particularly enjoy it.

The story is about a judge (Andy Lau) who is bored since his portion of China has no crime to speak of. He's frustrated with nothing to do and is encouraged to take a vacation to some other part of the kingdom. There, he meets some strange folks (including a lady who sports a van dyke beard--and I have no idea why). Eventually, he learns of a conspiracy in the imperial court and returns to all sorts of strange nonsense and machinations.

Sprinkled throughout are some funny tiny bits--but the film never really is a comedy--but it's too surreal and stupid to be a good drama. There were also some anachronisms--and I wonder if they actually were in the film originally (perhaps the subtitles were NOT what actually was said--such as a mention of HIV--yet it's imperial China!). All in all, the martial arts weren't even that good. Overall, not a lot to recommend this one.

This movie a lot of fun, and all the actors have great chemistry together. It's a very sweet and charming movie. The plot has Zhan (Andy Lau), a well known court officer, going on vacation, where he meets Bai (Cecilia Cheung), and where he finds out about an assassination plot against Judge Bao (Anthony Wong), who's an important person. There are a few more plot elements that come around but that's the basic setup for the movie.

This movie has very good people behind it. The co-writer is Felix Chong, who won a Hong Kong Film Award for his work on Infernal Affairs. The producer/co-cinematographer (odd combination, but, yes, that's what it is) is Andrew Lau (The Storm Riders, The Wesley's Mysterious File) and luckily he's on the spiky ball this time (he's done some bad movies before). You also have Gordon Chan as director (Fist of Legend anyone?). Then you have the three actors mentioned above and a great supporting cast. So all around, people know what they're doing. Nobody messes up either, and that helps a lot.

The only real problem I have with this movie is the speech at the end. This was either put in to pacify the government or asked to be put in by the government. It's basically a brief communist speech given by the Emperor to the people. It shouldn't have been put in there. There's really no setup for it during the movie and it sort of comes out of nowhere (...sort of...). Considering where the movie came from, I guess I can let it go.

This is nothing very heavy. It's light and funny and entertaining. The leads are very good and have great chemistry together. Andy Lau and Cecilia Cheung are very charming whenever they're on screen. Anthony Wong and the rest of the cast seem to be having so much fun doing this movie as well. The movie doesn't break new ground but that doesn't matter, it doesn't try to. It just wants to entertain, and that's what it does very well. 4/5

I had relatively high expectations of Cat And Mouse, being a big fan of Cecilia Cheung, and while it wasn't a terribly good movie, it did have some nice performances, and Cecilia sure enough was cute (and that's even though she spent the first half of the movie wearing a totally unconvincing beard!). It was entertaining and pleasant enough, but not as good as I had hoped. I wanted more action, more kung fu, and more story. It was a comedy, and while Hong Kong comedies are traditionally light on story, this one was definitely not as bad as many others. Except for a few rather silly jokes, there was nothing offensive or disgusting in this movie; it was mainly a mainstream showcase for two of Hong Kong's most attractive stars.

For a Cecilia Cheung fan, it is a very worthwhile movie. Not only does it feature plentiful close-up shots of her delectable face, it also gives her a good character and some good (though perhaps a bit too romantic) scenes to work with. Despite the light-hearted material, she does manage to demonstrate some considerable acting skill, which is the thing that best serves to recommend the movie.

6 out of 10.

This movie was produced by Andrew Lau after the successful Infernal Affair he had made. I don't get it, Why is Gordan Chan picking up bad script to direct? (this and the medallion). With impressive star like Andy Lau, who play Swordman Zhan a bodyguard and inspector of Judge Bao (his character was in a lot of series and is a real life judge blown to proportion) who is play by Anthony Wong. The story goes, when there was no crime in Judge Bao territory for 3 month, Zhan was given a vacation. Upon to his destination, he heard that the Kind father in law want to get rid of Judge Bao. He also met Shining Mouse (play by Cecilia Cheung) who pretends to be a man and they become friends at first. Anyway, Zhan inform Judge Bao and thus they immediate went to the king (who play hilariously by Cheung Tat Ming) to tell them to the King.

This Lunar New Year fluff was suppose to be fun, entertaining and funny, well this movie wasn't funny at all. There were probably 2 scenes that I had good laugh while most of them are stupid. I can also see some Wong Jing wackiness in this movie which was totally unnecessary. The main plot might seen interesting, but really this movie was boring and how they solve the case was mighty stupid. The dialogue was extremely shallow which add to the boringness. The acting was actually not bad, Andy Lau was charming and Cecilia Cheung acted an amazing role where she a strong woman but can't get over with her love to Andy Lau. Judge Bao was extremely dumb and wasted in this movie. The fight scene was totally unrealistic, and there was never a moment where you were surprise by the movie.

Let hope we can all forget about this movie and move on..