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Cast:
Ronald
Cheng
Cherrie
Ying
Lau
Ching Wan
Francis
Ng
Chui
Tien You (Shine)
Wong
You Nam (Shine)
Cecilia
Cheung
Shing
Fui On
Tommy
Wong
Producer:
Wai
Ka Fai
Director:
Wai
Ka Fai
Score:
 
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HIMALAYA
SINGH
AKA:
N/A
Year:
2005 Reviewer: Andrew
Saroch
After
not only enchanting audiences with the glorious 'Fantasia',
but also playing no small part in the current renewal of
interest in the Hui brothers films, Wai Ka Fai returns with
another New Year extravagance. 'Himalaya Singh' attempts to
capture lightning in a bottle again, reuniting most of the
cast of last year's box-office smash and employing an even
greater preoccupation for the grandiose. To say that 'Himalaya
Singh' is not in the same league as 'Fantasia' though is a bit
like the obvious disparity in comparing the elegance of AC
Milan with the marauding crudeness of a particularly barbaric
Sunday pub team.
Singh
(Ronald Cheng) reaches an advanced stage of enlightenment in
his distant Himalayan retreat. His guardians, and fellow
recluses, send him down to Yoga City to find the woman he is
betrothed to, India Beauty, and learn more about the wider
world. As Singh sets out on his journey, his naive outlook is
immediately noticed by beautiful, yet unscrupulous Tally
(Ying) who is keen to upset the future happiness of her rival
India Beauty. Tally takes Singh under her dubious wing and
starts to change him from wide-eyed innocent to arrogant thug,
all in an attempt to satisfy her jealousy. Meanwhile three
visitors to India (Lau Ching Wan and Shine) encounter a
variety of con-artists and opportunists who manage to turn the
uncle into a semi-dazed wanderer and the nephews into complete
amnesiacs. While the uncle has great difficulty distinguishing
between reality and the strange hallucinations that plague
him, the youngsters start to follow a fellow victim (Ng) of
local conmen in the mistake belief that he is their father.
These various strangers find their lives inter-woven when
Indian Beauty holds a contest to find a husband, with all of
the participants eager to succeed.
It's
astonishing when one considers just how vast the gulf in
quality is between 'Himalaya Singh' and 'Fantasia'. Last year,
audiences were wowed and critics mostly bowled over by
'Fantasia', a comic cornucopia that was brimming with wit and
effective homage to the Hui brothers. 'Himalaya Singh' is, by
contrast, a tirade of tiresome extended sketches and desperate
humour that attempts to bludgeon the viewer into a state of
dazed conformity. Eventually, after 90 minutes stagger past
with the sophistication of a headbutting contest, the initial
indifference turns to maddening frustration.
The
luscious setting - easily the films greatest asset - is
evidence that money was lavished on this production, but
precious few cents seem to have splashed in the general
direction of the screenplay. The story is slight, stretching
the bumbling buffooneries of a cast of uninteresting
characters into a full length feature, something that is a
reminder of the very worst conventions that Hong Kong cinema
can be guilty of. The forced brand of humour - filled, as it
is, with hammy grimaces and gurning - is unrelenting in its
banality, turning seasoned performers such as Lau Ching Wan
and Francis Ng into unappealing puppets. For a supposed
comedy, this latter flaw is especially hard to stomach.
In
terms of characterisation (if that isn't too optimistic a
word) 'Himalaya Singh' is peppered with the age old problems
that lesser Hong Kong comedies have often been saddled with.
Cherrie Ying plays the ubiquitous waif who, in films of this
nature, spends the first 80 minutes treating the hero
dreadfully only to fall in love at the last moment. As the
viewer we are meant to forgive all of her selfish atrocities
towards Singh and actually feel moved by her closing
admissions of love towards him. Such a ridiculous plot device
has scuppered more than a few similar such comedies. Lau Ching
Wan and Francis Ng both overact to within an inch of their lives, the former coming across like a poor Mr. Bean take-off
while the latter just flails his arms around wildly. To turn
two of Hong Kong's finest actors into the blubbering idiots
they play here should be made a capital offense punishable by
beheading.
If
Wai Ka Fai's criminal misuse of his cast and location doesn't
rile most viewers, the appalling CGI will. 'Fantasia' used a
few moments of computer trickery which, while reasonably well
integrated, still proved to be the weakest component of an
otherwise superb film. 'Himalaya Singh' is never so sparing
though and the actual quality of the effects are considerably
worse than its predecessor; it seems as if every other scene
has some incongruous use of poorly rendered CGI, turning an
already floundering production into a near disaster. The
advancements in computer effects have made Hollywood
film-makers lazy, but the rest of the world is in no better
position. At least Hollywood can mostly call on superior
special effects rather than the bottom-of-the-barrel, ZX
Spectrum variety we're faced with here.
Hong
Kong appears to be awash with directors who can switch from
grand achievements to miserable productions. James Yuen's
excellent 'Crazy N' The City' was a stark contrast to the
director's earlier abomination, 'My
Wife Is 18', while Dante Lam also has a disturbing
unpredictability that makes every new film a risk to potential
viewers. Wai Ka Fai has now joined this debatable list of
film-makers. 'Himalaya Singh' is a depressing fusion of noise
and colour that Hong Kong cinema can ill-afford to keep
churning out. With the local market still struggling, it can
no longer tolerate such costly catastrophes.
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