Barbara Wong delivers a flashy joyful rom-com that pays a homage to the 80's yuppie comedies. Perfect Wedding is a Hollywood-style entertainment that does not have any attempts at pretentiousness and thus does not become pompous, but delivers a well-known story that is good enough to pass a few hours. From Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Lady Gaga, through to flashy almost Sex and the City like shopping centres and restaurants, the film's pace and character development is smooth and enjoyable, and combined with the abundance of hilarious scenes, Perfect Wedding might not deliver fundamentally ideological messages, but it is a good film nevertheless.
It would be almost impossible to take this film out of its Hollywood remarkable resemblance, as there are too many elements that follow mainstream cinema, present in this story. But the brilliant cinematography by expert in the field Kenny Tse, who exhibits his personal talents in his amazing work with director Dante Lam, takes a Hollywood production a bit further into a world of flashiness and spectacular environment that is still ordinary and plausible, as opposed to films like Sex and the City, where high-street sparkle is overused and seems unrealistic. The plot is also not too far-fetched, but a realistic story with a sugar-coated ending.
Miriam Yeung stars as Yan, a bubbly humorous woman who engages in a one night stand with a handsome man in a restaurant through their mutual fascination with Dan Brown. Much similar to the Grey's Anatomy first encounter, Yan and Fung realise they are colleagues on the next day. While Fung is dedicated in his pursuit of the woman he finds truly entertaining, Yan has too much cynicism about love to really give into the young man's charm and too much pride and decency to allow her to overcome her shame and step into the outside world hand-in-hand with the handsome man. Naturally, as Yan begins to warm up to Fung's presence, their paths might just not unite, until they resolve their personal issues.
A story in a stereotyped genre that does not deliver any plot twists, but an abundance of cheesy dialogues, funny moments and brand name placements. Despite its plausible story not so much of a man in pursuit of a woman's love, as the fragile human ego and pride that overreact to the simplest of things and act randomly and hasty, one might find Perfect Wedding's characters too implausible – the handsome Fung is depicted as the most wonderful guy in the world, charming, sensitive, dedicated and impossible to seduce by the young Flora, though his competitor, the bohemian looking photographer with autism is presented as an actual threat to him. And the stereotypical setting of cynical-woman-meets-perfect-guy-who-changes-her-life's-beliefs does not help either.
Although built on an unattractive implausible premise of an upper-class urban world, Perfect Wedding does not over-exaggerate and its characters are far less far fetched than what the Westerners have seen in Gossip Girl or Sex and the City. The flashy world references are not insufferable, as they are not many, while the focus on Yan's transformation and change of beliefs is imminently expected from a rom-com of this style. Nevertheless, Barbara Wong's film delivers a perfect amount of laughs and funny characters, while creating a perfect product for all hopelessly romantic female fans. As shallow as a puddle, utterly commercial film, Perfect Wedding sets out to entertain and please, and comes across as an enjoyable piece of Hong Kong cinema.Labels: research |
