It would be hard to pack more phony emotion, contrived plotting, and affected acting into one motion picture. Crying Heart is ostensibly a tearjerker, but the only way to survive from beginning to end is to treat it as some grand tongue-in-cheek comedy. Adding to the hilarity is the Supporting Actress statuette for Best Supporting Actress and the nomination for Best Script at last month’s Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan, proving that critics in Taipei are somehow in on the joke. Of course, if the film does well at the box office, it is producer/director/writer Wong Jing who will be laughing all the way to the bank.

In the tradition of the sobbing heroines she perfected in such 1980s Cantonese pictures as The Truth and its sequel, Deanie Yip returns to the screen in the weepiest role of all. Mrs. Fat (the character’s name sounds better in Chinese) is not only abandoned by her husband, poor, in the final stages of cancer, and bald from chemotherapy, she is the sole support of her mentally retarded son, Bee (Patrick Tam Yiu-man). Bee is a handsome 30-year-old with the intelligence of a pre-schooler, the age group most suited to enjoy the subtlety and nuance of Crying Heart. Mrs. Fat is so worm-like in her acceptance of the hand fate has dealt, so obsequious and whiny, that this viewer found himself rooting for her early demise. At one point, Mrs. Fat laments to the rainy skies, “When are you going to take me back?” Alas, she lingers on for nearly half-an-hour, as if even the heavens above hesitate to open the pearly gates for this irritating creature.

Among her tormentors in the squalid housing estate is the nasty couple across the hallway. May (Suki Kwan Sau-mei) is as obnoxious as she is curvaceous. Her hunky drug-pushing boyfriend Tim (Jimmy Wong Ka-lok) is downright mean. After Bee develops a crush on “Sister May”, the duo teaches him a lesson by spray-painting his genitals. Mrs. Fat takes all this in stride, babbling interminably as she removes the stains with paint thinner.

The cast is rounded out by Blackie Ko as Bee’s errant father. He is a selfish S.O.B., which is about as honest as the film gets. Unfortunately, by the movie’s end he turns “lovable”, and that’s a bit much to swallow. Ko had a huge hit last year with the song “Stupid Little Kid”, which is the movie’s theme song and also Crying Heart’s Chinese title. The song is strong enough that it survives being associated with this film.

Added to the overly manipulative emotionalism is some extremely sloppy plotting. Tim is murdered after stealing and concealing a stash of heroin, yet the drugs are allowed to remain hidden in an obvious place for several months, until the filmmakers deem it necessary for them to be found. Perhaps the director assumed that the audience would be so wrapped up in the drama that no one would notice.

True, much is going on to distract the viewer. Not only is May shot in the head and brain-damaged, she is pregnant to boot. The thespian challenge presented by the script would give even Meryl Streep pause. Not that Suki Kwan will ever be mistaken for Meryl Streep. The sight of May, recently discharged from the hospital, struggling to walk in her expectant state, and slurring her words as she converses with the mentally challenged Bee, should be required viewing by students at the Academy for the Performing Arts under the heading, “Don’t Let This Happen to You”. The film as a whole could be similarly instructive to aspiring auteurs in the Special Administrative Region and beyond.

This review is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul Fonoroff. All rights reserved. No part of the review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.