All's Well End's Well '97 was a big success at its' time of release, taking in over HK$40 million, a huge sum for the period. But looking at it now through admittedly slightly-jaded glasses, this entry in Stephen Chow's filmography begs the question, "why?"

This isn't a bad movie per se, but there were certainly better pictures around the time (a good number of them featuring Chow himself) that might benefitted from some of the attention -- and, perhaps more importantly, money -- All's Well End's Well '97 garnered.

This is a Hong Kong Lunar New Year comedy done to the formula's tee, in that it has a huge cast, even more cameos, and a throwaway plot that uses lots of topical jokes to please local viewers looking for something non-offensive to soothe their hangovers with.

The film concerns the Lo family, which is headed by Tau (Roy Chiao), a retired wealthy businessman who just wants to drink tea and putter around the garden, but instead must continually help out his sons. Leung (Raymond Wong) is smart in finance, but neglects his wife, Yinsu (Christine Ng). Fei (Francis Ng) is a perpetual student who falls for a bad girl named Kam (Amanda Lee) who treats him like dirt.

Tau's biggest problem is his youngest son, Kung (Stephen Chow), who is a lazy mooch that spends his days playing "Street Fighter" and his nights with a series of women. In order to help their dad get Kung out of the house, Leung and Fei hatch a plan to fool Kung into thinking that he's won the lottery.

The plan works, and Kung heads out to celebrate, but ends up running up a large gambling debt with a local gangster, Smartie (Simon Lui) instead. After Kung realizes that he's been tricked by his brothers, he decides to play his own trick, fakes being mentally ill, and hilarity ensues.

Or so that's how All's Well End's Well '97 would like to proceed. However, there are so many characters and sub-plots flying about that it becomes hard to develop any real feelings about the proceedings. Complicated plots are kind of a given in these types of movies, but All's Well End's Well '97 seems to really lack an encompassing arc to reel in the tangents.

It doesn't help that the comedy is extremely hit-or-miss and Stephen Chow comes off as a bit of an arrogant asshole. Of course, it's a given that as an English-speaker, a lot of the jokes and puns here flew over my head, but Chow's better films always seem to overcome this.

Yes, there are some very funny bits (such as Chow imitating Bruce Lee, which is always guaranteed a laugh no matter what language you speak) but then you have some parts which just fall with a thud, like one scene that tries to get a bit serious about the then-pending handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China by poking fun at a couple of nouveau-riche HKers.

Still, there is a certain charm to the proceedings, which makes the viewer forgive some of the shortcomings. And it was pretty fun trying to spot all of the cameos, of which there are a ton. There's even a bit of decent action thrown into the mix, via a scene directed by Chin Kar-Lok, in which the lovely Christy Chung beats the crap out of a group of thugs at a pool hall.

Overall, All's Well End's Well '97 doesn't come close to the apex of Stephen Chow's output, but it's worth checking out if you're a fan of his work.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]