20 Jun 2007 - 'Simply Actors' Learning to Humor

Source: Ming Pao

20th June 2007

'Simply Actors' learning to humor

The currently popular stage comedian, Chim Sui Man debuts his first comedy film with quite a lot of support from the audience. In fact, Hong Kong audience has always liked to laugh, comedy films have once been popular locally. However the old humoring tricks were no longer selling well in Hong Kong, thus they need to learn new humoring tricks, and train new comedian stars.

Chan Hing Ga and Patrick Leung (Leung Paak Gin) both co-directed 'Simply Actors' when there is a shortage in the movie industry in reality as well, attempting this to be a production for improvement and training. In actual fact, the era of 'Fight Back to School' is long outdated, now, Hong Kong needs to re-enter the schooling phase and accept proper education.

This film is like an overage student who has yet graduated, and definitely yet to restore Hong Kong's initial confidence. The result earns praises once in a while, and can be said to have the innovative spirit, but is not humoring enough on the overall, it needs more refining.

The storyline is quite interesting, it tales about the 'poor acting skills' of the Hong Kong police force undercover, and was murdered when exposed by the black society. Thus, they sent Chim Sui Man who loves acting to study in an acting institution.

Besides Chim Sui Main, there was also Charlene Choi who plays a porn star, and also became a student at the institution to learn acting together.

This film invited a lot of stars as casts, including stage performer, Chan Suk Yi, Yeung Si Man, Siu Mei Kwan, etc, as well as movie king, Anthony Wong and chief director of Infernal Affairs, Alen Mak as lecturers and demonstrators.

However it is a pity that the plot was unprofessional, and did not manage to upraise the standard of comedy. In reality, they focused on making fun of Hong Kong's police-bandit films, gamble-fraud films and porn films, and also depended on several new as well as old movie stars as their guest stars to enhance the appeal as they usually act far vividly than those in the institution.

Eric Tsang acts as a lecturer and keeps criticizing Chim Sui Man to be over exaggerated, this becomes among the most interesting scenes. Hui Siu Hung and Ha Cheun Cau also demonstrated outstanding performance. The most interesting part was the mahjong scene which is popular in most Hong Kong films, where Chapman To played the big brother of a dark society, the scene was full of dark humor.

In comparison, the acting students were not professional enough.

This film has let me feel that everything needs education, but mere training in school and yet gaining the experience from the actual society, and yet having the chance to put their learnt skills into daily practice, they need to work harder to supplement their weak points.

Chim Sui Man's vexing smile is still way too stage-like, his girlfriend played by Michelle Ye has a far more natural expression. Charlene Choi changed her image this time, and intentionally acted with Diana Pang's (Pang Dan) and Shu Qi's manner of voice, and achieved to perform it quite naturally, it was not a challenge for her.

Shi Qi/Sek Kei