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©ÈÁà¥J (1983)
The Shy Boy


Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 11/03/2001
Summary: Patchy comedy

A very silly mixture of comedy and bedroom farce with some action. The humour is very earthy, with loads of toilet humour and crude-but-tame sexual references.

The result is patchy. Some scenes are utterly hilarious. The scene where shy Green Sleeve is coached by her brash flatmates into cornering Siu Tao in his apartment is one such.

The acting isn't anything flash, except for what must have been the extremely busy David Wu, who manages to make his thief character more than one-dimensional (though still unconvincing), whilst finding time to write the music and edit the movie as well. Sex bomb Margaret Lee coasts on her looks and standard tarty character. Wong Yu (not Jimmy, the other one) alternates between looking pained and bored. Chan Sau Man is beguiling as Green Sleeve, but I got the feeling this wasn't acting.

The story suddenly changes about a half hour before the end, from light comedy to pretty serious. This is just around the time that the thief, named Fu Wo Yau, turns really nasty. This part of the film is so different from what precedes that it appears to have been pasted on from another shoot. Weird stuff.

I detest toilet humour, so if you do as well, be warned. That said, I did find some of it very funny, for instance when Siu Tao conceals a bottle of red wine under his bed, and it spills, and the girls think he is suffering both incontinence and kidney trouble.

Overall, not too bad a no-brain caper.

Reviewer Score: 4