Love Matters

The trailers may have fooled audiences into believing, like the rest of his films, this is a laugh-fest. The funniest bit in the theatrical trailer is nowhere to be found in the film, as are other scenes too. One wonders if they were trimmed for run time reasons (this clocks in very close to 2 hours), but the decisions to have kept whatever made it to the theatrical cut, were strange indeed because they were very tired jokes, recycling some from Jack's past films, and most turned out to be terribly expected, cliché and rancid.

The story's a simple one, running along three arcs keeping all the characters distinctly segregated with little interaction between them. Henry Thia's Bo Seng and Yeo Yann Yann's Jia Li are husband and wife of many years, and they experience marital woes of not being appreciated and witnessing their sex life evaporate. Throw in some male ego-centric anxieties, and that sums up the first arc, a subject matter that Jack had tackled with That One No Enough. Alex Leong plays their son Benny, a nerd who is infatuated with the school belle Jennifer (Natalli). Rehash I Not Stupid 2's mobile phone moments, which is the crucial plot element here, coupled with technology, instead of blogs, to video hosting sites, with a dash of scintillating sex scandal, and there you have the issue of the bedroom voyeurs of today.

The third arc involves Seng's god-brother Jeremy (Jack Lim), a good natured person with a penchant of helping anyone, but harbours a perverse hobby of porn surfing and trawling online sites for, you guessed it, sex. He meets Benny's teacher Ms Wong (Cheryl Lee) when posing as a parent, and struggles to woo the woman of his dreams, while grappling with the hopes of meeting up with his latest online acquisition. This arc had some potential even though it was coasting along the predictable, but got bogged down by an elaborate hoax, and poor delivery, plodding all the way to the end which lacked suspense, was expected and everyone waiting for it to just happen. Precious minutes could have been shaved to pace it tighter, and its Hard Candy / Audition moments just cheapened the story many notches down.

Henry Thia has to date played supporting roles with some of the best speaking lines, but to headline a film, that's something new. While most will associate him with being the comedic dim-wit, he continues his dramatic streak from Money No Enough 2, though of course you shouldn't be looking out for award winning performances. Yeo Yann Yann is grossly underutilized here, being no more than a menopausal "auntie" who has husband issues to settle, no thanks to gossipy friends.

The one who stole the show here, is Jack Lim. And unfortunately I believe many of his comedic moments got left on the editing room floor, which is a pity, because there were glimpses on what he was capable of in the comedic and dramatic department, but alas, his character here, like all the others, are caricatures. The two youngsters in the movie were extremely painful to watch as well, with the lack of charisma and acting ability, that one wished that their screen time would be severely limited. Cameos by Mark Lee who plays a Thai gigolo was a much welcomed addition, and Lai Ming continues to be a Jack Neo film favourite lately, with "Lao Zha Bor" absent despite being featured in some stills.

Production values were surprisingly average at best. While many have chided in the past that his movies looked and felt like tele-movies, I shan't deny that this one reinforces those sentiments. I had no qualms about the quality of the audio, which I suspect a number of dialect speaking moments were redubbed to make it Mandarin-friendly here, until one really awful ADR hack-job of a line spouted by Benny really turned many people off. You can literally hear the bewildered groans in the cinema, and I felt that this corner shouldn't have been cut. Really poor execution again.

Love Matters is far from being Jack Neo's best film, and given his worry of having it rated NC- 16, which has its impact already felt when the evening sneaks at a heartland cinema where his traditional fan base hails from, only had it 33% filled, I think it might struggle to make a dent at the box office, which his previous films had done quite effortlessly. Given the economic glum and the appeal for family friendly comedies during the festive season, audiences may vote with their wallets for something a lot more entertaining. I would recommend this only if you really have nothing to watch this week.

Right, well I sat down here in 2023 to watch the 2009 Singaporean movie "Xing Fu Wan Sui" (aka "Love Matters") believing that I was in for a comedy movie. I had never actually heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it. So I wasn't sure what I was in for here.

However, I have to say that writers Boris Boo, Gilbert Chan and Jack Neo put together a script and storyline that fell short of entertaining me. There was not really any comedy present throughout the course of the movie, which made it a very different viewing experience than what I was expecting. And on top of that, then the drama storyline that "Xing Fu Wan Sui" turned out to be wasn't really interesting or captivating.

The movie had a good cast ensemble, though I was only familiar with Henry Thia and Jack Lim. But it should be noted that the acting performances by the actors and actresses on the cast list was good.

I found "Xing Fu Wan Sui" to be a very difficult movie to sit through, as the narrative was rather slow paced, and there wasn't really anything interesting happening as the narrative dragged on. And the lack of comedy was just a blow to the face. And with a runtime of 113 minutes, then it was quite the ordeal to sit through the movie.

My rating of directors Gilbert Chan and Jack Neo's 2009 movie "Xing Fu Wan Sui" lands on a three out of ten stars.

"Love Matters" the latest addition from director Jack Neo, is nearly a mixed bag. I haven't seen the trailers, but I did laugh myself silly in the theaters, but still there were quite a lot of flaws in this movie. This is not one of Neo's brightest marks, however it is a far cry from being abysmal.

It is a sex comedy without nudity. Most of the sex is off the screen or referenced by dialog, for that, it is fine, because the film does have some big belly-laugh moments. However the some of the film's flaws comes from its technical aspects. The editing and sound mixing (you'll hear why in one scene) are poor, and it looks like an expensive telefilm. Also, the film keeps referencing some of Jack's previous films, like "That One Not Enough" and his best effort, "I Not Stupid 2". However the pace is fine, assuring that the audience will not be bored. Neo's trademark story structure (laughs to drama to laughs again) is evident.

However the acting and directing is a mixed bag. Henry Thia and Yann Yann Yeo are some standouts. Jack Lim is good, though like a fellow commenter said, most of his jokes seem to be cut out for time constraints (the movie is 2 hours long!). A cameo from Mark Lee is hilarious. The young actors, however, can't act their way out of a paper bag. The direction is mixed, as Neo has brought in newcomer Gilbert Chan to co-direct the film with him. In some scenes the direction feels forcibly rushed, and in others it is fluid.

In short, the film is a mixed bag, but I laughed at most of the jokes in the film, meaning it is NOT a waste of time and money. I hope that Neo, however, does a better job than this, because he can.

Entertainment value: 8/10

Overall: 6/10