Lost in Thailand

Jesus Christ, it seems that the Chinese will laugh at anything. It's a load of childish sort of humour, with little intellect behind it. The main star, who is also the director, Xuan Zheng (bald head in the above picture), is actually quite good and charismatic as a guy that cannot believe his endless bad luck, but the other two are quite silly and unfunny. I laughed maybe twice. The ending is pretty good, the part in slo-mo, which is also rather funny, is stylishly created. The part in the hotel room where Xuan Zheng is hiding from the foreign man and his two ladyboy friends, that's very good and probably the best scene.

It's an innocent enough film so I can't ever really dislike the movie. On a humour level, it's just not my style. It's possibly too innocent and silly, which is what the Chinese seem to like - more slapstick and not enough intellect. But the story is a good one and I did enjoy the movie on some level even if it didn't get me to laugh as much as other people. The film has a sweetness to it towards the end when Baobao (blonde hair in the above picture) is revealed as on a mission for his mother, but all of his actions leading up to that are quite annoying.

Oh, and Fan Bingbing has a cameo at the end (above with Wang Baoqiang). I can't understand why she's so adored. She's pretty plain if you ask me and not even that attractive (in the movie at least). Overall, I suppose it's fresh to see that the Chinese have their own brand of comedy that they love, regardless of how immature I find it. It's making some huge money at the box office - $73m at the last check, and it's poised to go well beyond $100m even with Jackie Chan's CZ12 coming into the marketplace to take away some of its biz.

C