I first saw Adrian Pang on the big screen when I was still in the army, during one of our nights off where we managed to catch a Singapore movie (back then, Singapore movies were rare, and not to mention suffers from low attendances because of the misconception that locally made movies are bad), and I was tickled by his portrayal as the Ah Beng who aspires to be the king of disco in Forever Fever.
Fast forward to today, Adrian is based back in Singapore, and has been a regular on local television, from acting to hosting, and gaining a reputation as a funnyman in addition to Gurmit Singh. In between he has also managed cameos in movies like Spy Game, and it's no surprise that he was picked to star in another movie, this time by Jack Neo in I Do, I Do, opposite top compere and host at that time, Sharon Au.
I Do, I Do is a typical Jack Neo movie, tackling topical issues of the day, this time with the worrying trend of single Singaporeans taking too long to get hitched, and to repopulate our numbers. Falling into this category, I recall plenty of noise with regards to this, from the newspapers, to television, to even nagging parents, and it is no doubt that Jack, the commercial film director that he is, would have picked up the buzz and made a romantic comedy out of it. And in typical Jack Neo fashion, you'd come to expect the predictability of recycled criticisms of the government (which had a scene with Jack as an MP, good for only one thing) and social commentaries worked into the plot, which is more or less what you hear from coffeeshops.
Starting with a one-sided breakup of an infatuation, Liu Wenhui (Sharon Au) made it clear to Lee Ah Peng (Adrian Pang) that she sees no future in their relationship, given their difference in status and having no "Feelings" for him. The story then tracks Ah Peng's tactics into wooing his lady love back, and along the way, the main obstacle comes in the form of a new ABC colleague Chen Jianfeng (Allan Wu, current host of the Amazing Race Asia Edition). It's predictable stuff, clearly fluffly with implausible plot development, totally losing the plot towards the end, as it plays out as short comedic skits being glued together, some not being funny at all.
Typical in a Jack Neo film, you can count on a series of songs being composed for the movie, and used as montages for plot summarization. As always there are scenes set in coffee shops and hawker centers, and dialogue and cameo appearances played just for laughs, like the appearances of "Brother Hui" and Mark Lee, regulars in Neo's troupe, and the Lao Zar Bo also seen from Neo's latest 2007 movie Just Follow Law.
But for a lacklustre movie with its key message focused on not giving up the forest for a flower, it's compensated for its revelatory scene at the end, after you have to course through cliché after cliché in its storyline. The nifty special effects were a treat too, though it does also get cheesy at times when coupled with song and dance.
The Code 3 DVD from Scorpio East contains decent audio and visual transfers, which does not offer you any choice of formants or languages. You only have a scene selection from 8 chapters, as well as subtitles available in either English or Chinese. It's relatively bare bones, and I'm not sure why to date locally pressed DVDs still call standard fares like the inclusion of theatrical trailers and useless photo stills "Special Features". Just so you know, the trailer runs 2mins 10s, and the photo gallery contains 20 stills. Hardly what I call special.
