August
11, 2016
Diary of a Big Man, The – Hong Kong, 1988
Chow
Yun-Fat is a very talented actor. Blessed with dashing good looks and an
appearance that can fluctuate between tender and tough at the drop of a dime,
he has dazzled audience for four decades, an impressive feat by any standards.
He excels in dramas and period pieces, and his films with John Woo were many
young people’s introduction to Hong Kong cinema. I have seen a number of his
films and enjoyed many of them. However, nothing I had seen before of his
prepared me for Chor Yuen’s The Diary of
a Big Man. If that sounds like praise, it is not.
In
The Diary of a Big Man, Chow plays
Chow Chen Fat, a young stock analyst whose life is utterly changed one rainy
night. It is on that night that he meets two young women. The first is Joey
(Joey Wang). She meets Chow while her umbrella is giving her fits, and he
clumsily tries to assist her. In this movie, being clumsy is rather endearing,
and in no time at all, she’s giving him her card so that he can return her umbrella
after he fixes it. (Really. That’s what the subtitles said.) A few minutes
later, he meets Sally (Sally Yeh). Sally is getting out of a cab, and wouldn’t
you know it - she needs an umbrella! Just what’s a guy like Chow to do in this
situation, but give her the umbrella? It’s practically love at first sight.
Chow
decides to date both of them, and through a series of errors eventually ends up
married to them. Thus, begins one of the greatest and funniest of ruses ever put
to celluloid. If only. Rather, thus begins is an ill-fated attempt at screwball
comedy featuring actors whose director has confused screaming and exaggerating with
acting, and who believes that being eclectic is the same as being entertaining.
All of this is brought to us courtesy of a screenwriter who seems to think that
taking time to establish characters and built relationships is overrated.
Just
how much did I dislike this films? Oh, let me count the ways. This is a film
which offers a semblance of sweetness in its opening moments only to abandon it
seconds later in favor of showing nastiness in the guise of screwball comedy. This
is a film that thinks that actors will be funny if they speak loudly and
quickly, yet doesn’t put any thought into what the actors are actually saying.
There are scenes featuring cockroaches and screaming women, police sergeants
who sexually harass their subordinates, and a man making up threats against his
life in order to deceive his wives. All of these scenes are intended to be
humorous. Then there’s the almost obligatory scene from an eighties comedy - you
know, the one in which the lead character pretends to be gay - and the almost
obligatory overreaction by the person who sees him do so. Here, the witness
seems to be trying to avoid throwing up, and as he departs, he yells at two
unsuspecting individuals, “Don’t get AIDS!” Ah, the eighties.
Like
a screwball film, The Diary of a Big Man
is a film that doesn’t take a moment to breath. It is filmed like a Road Runner
cartoon, all frenzied movement with no direction or purpose. Its female
character are one-dimensional for most of the film, and then suddenly they’re
engaging in actions that are so far removed from what they have done before
that it’s unsettling. In one scene, the film seems to be attempting black comedy
when Chow’s two lovely wives, previously thoughtful, caring, and devoted, are suddenly
pretending to be drugged and arranging for their husband to be roughed up by
thugs. The change is simply too sudden to be shocking and the execution too
bland to be entertaining. I watched it in exasperation rather than exhilaration.
Calling
the film a product of its time would be to let it off the hook, for even films
that are dated can still be good films. It would also be an insult to films of
its time. Instead, I would say that too much of the film just feels wrong – and
wrong at any time in film history. For example, it breaks the fourth wall, but
doesn’t know how to use the technique to enhance the story. Also, it seems to
think speeding up the action will create comedy, ignoring the fact that
speeding up a film only makes it look clunky and dated – just ask the Keystone
Cops. And just for kicks, in the film’s final moments, it decides to let Islam
in on the fun, proving, I suppose, that the film is an equal opportunity
offender.
In
the end, I gave up on the film. Oh, I finished it, of course, but I did so with
an air of resignation. I simply did not believe that the film would get better
or build to anything worth waiting around for. This is unlike me, for I believe
even the worst films can have decent endings. However, at one point, Chow asks
aloud, “When will this end?” and I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I was
asking the same question myself.
Now
there are some people out there who will say that I missed the boat on this
one, that all of the things I disliked about the film were not intended to be
taken seriously. Essentially, they will be suggesting that I just didn’t get
the humor. They may be right. However, I would add this caveat: I did laugh as
I watched the film - once. I believe audiences deserve more. (on DVD)
2
stars
*The Diary of a Big Man is in Cantonese
with English subtitles.
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