Frankie CHAN Fun-kei hasn't made any movies since his "How to Meet the Lucky Stars" (1996). Now he is back directing "I.Q. Dudettes", focusing on secondary students as his subject and casting a new group of performers together with existing stars like Kristy YEUNG Kung-yu and Mark LUI Chung-tak. Some people consider it the Hong Kong version of the Japanese popular drama "G.T.O". Will this be the case? Let's take a look!

Mister AU (Frankie CHAN Fan-kei) joins a Band at school and is assigned by Principal LAM (Spancer LAM Sheung-yee) as the subject teacher for Form 5E, a class with lots of problem students. Under the shadow of the death of Albert AU in the previous year due to pressure from school, students have no interest in study but enjoy teasing their teachers. In the school, there are lots of interesting teachers -- Miss LAU, a teacher from a Band 1 School, always pressures her students to get lots of distinctions in the public examinations. Music teacher Mister BEI (Mark LOUI Chung-tak) is interested not only in music but also his students. Can AU solve the problems of the student?

"I.Q. Dudettes" is a school movie in which Frankie focuses on two areas; first, the problems facing secondary students today and secondly, that caring for the students is the solution by solving problems of all his students.

"I.Q. Dudettes" presents some plot points well. For example, the dancing in the movie is well done for the rock version of LEUNG Shan-pak and CHUK Ying-toi. Where Frankie CHAN helps the students to solve their problems is often quite touching. One example is the portrayal of May whose dad is a X-rated movie critic; this succeeds mainly due to the strong performance of Eric TSANG as May's father.

However, the major problem of the movie comes from the structure as well as the time control.

In terms of the structure, audiences who have seen the drama "G.T.O." will find that the structures of "I.Q. Dudettes" is too similar to that for "G.T.O." This kind of duplication is not appreciated. The part with Eric TSANG is okay but others are lacking detailed follow-up. The love between Mister BEI and the student could be further developed.

The biggest problem comes from the pacing which is sadly lacking. At first, the movie shows how the whole class teases Mister AU and Miss LAU. When it comes to Mister BEI's music class too much time is spent showing the dancing stills of the students. The ending rock version of "Butterfly Lovers" is good but it runs too long and further damages the pacing of the movie.

"I.Q. Dudettes" takes a good look at the education system in today's Hong Kong. Some of the individual performances are good. However, the duplication of structure from Japanese Drama and the poor pacing affects the overall enjoyment of the movie.

Written by Ryan Law, from Hong Kong Movie DataBase, on 7 January 2000.