Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 04/24/2002 Summary: Original concept, but... Damn, what a name! But is Chinese Orthopaedist And The Spice Girls any good? Well, yes and no. It’s hard to work out exactly what director Chow Wing was trying to achieve in this, but as suggested by the name, it’s supposed to be a drama/comedy. But it takes a good 25 minutes until it’s reasonably clear what’s going on, as there are several muddled up scenes going on, which sort of introduce each of the characters, which is a good idea, but the way he goes about it isn’t so clear at first. In fact I came very close to giving up on this, but suddenly it got interesting. It’s basically about a girl, Tweety (Ho Pui Han) growing up with everyday life and its problems, including her triad boyfriend, Mark (Cheung Ho Lung). She has some problems too with her mother, Eva(Cecilia Yip) and her new boyfriend (Shing Fui On – boy, is he looking old!), who is a cop. There are some flashbacks in the film, including the relationship between her mother and her husband (Kenny Bee – but only a cameo), before he died. The rest of the film shows the involvement she and her friends get into with her boyfriend’s triad boss, and things start getting serious. Unfortunately, after the first hour, it becomes clear that not much of a story has developed, and that one wouldn’t start at that point either. It's not until the last 30 minutes until something big does happen, and when it does it looks like another gangster film. It’s very youth orientated, looking at times like another Young & Dangerous film. But it’s worth checking out for sure, but be prepared for something that might bore the hell out of you – you have to stick this one through. This is only the 4th new film I’ve seen of this year, but out of those this is the best so far. Now, back to the title, the English one is very strange, but to explain it a bit better, the mother is an orthopaedist, and all her friends are the Spice Girls. Make sense? Probably not, I’m still trying to put it together myself! Rating: [3/5]