What Is a Good Teacher (2000)
Reviewed by: David Harris on 2001-04-18
I'm the first person to review this film - cool!!!

"What Is A Good Teacher?" is the second film in the directorial career of Hong Kong stalwart and personal favourite Francis Ng. His debut film as a director ("9413") was an edgy left-of-centre Category III cop movie whereas this is a Category I - suitable for all ages - comedy about a supply / relief teacher. You can't get more of a contrast than that can you? Well probably not but they are most definitely products of the same mind!

The teacher genre of movies is littered with more cheese than a take-away pizza box (or if you want a healthier alternative - more corn than Kellogg's). For every "Stand And Deliver" (which starred Edward James Olmos) there is a "To Sir With Love" or a "Dangerous Minds". If I see another film where the new teacher turns the kids into exam passing swots I think I'm going to hurl - thankfully Francis Ng has saved me from reversing my lunch.

One of his first acts as their teacher - after cowering in a toilet - is to take the class onto the streets to beg. Each must have their own gimmick - those featured include a guy with a heartbreaking message on a bit of card, a band, a fake Buddhist and a girl asking for bus fare home - to test on the unsuspecting general public. They meet later after the fake Buddhist was rumbled, people all but ran away from the band and the girl asked the same person twice and compare their "earnings" - the guy with the message on the cardboard had won by a mile when all he did was put the cardboard on the floor and sleep (as their teacher points out when one person stops to read others stop to read what the other person has stopped to read - the power of propaganda).

Featured in a hilarious cameo is Cheung Tat Ming ("F**k Off") as a insurance salesman posing as a teacher or vice versa and Anthony Wong as a serious by-the-book teacher who rumbles a succession of desperate if actually rather creative attempts at cheating which include writing the answers on a stick of gum and my personal favourite - writing the answers on a piece of square paper and trying to pass it off a slice of cheese in a burger!

The implicit message which isn't hammered home is that it is better to get kids to use their minds rather than just memorize and recite. Whilst it is a comedy don't let that or the rather misleading VCD cover put you off if you've never really tried Hong Kong comedies before as this isn't the more usual crazy slapstick style but is a slower more observational kind of humour. I'm not sure that Francis Ng will ever direct a blockbuster - I'm not sure that as a director that broad kind of material would really interest him - but if his first two films are any indication he will continue to make from a film making perspective interesting and from a script writing perspective thought provoking and satisfying work. Recommended.