Another example of another series going down the tubes. If, for comparison purposes, the first Feel 100% gets 100 points, the following year's Feel 100%…Once More deserves about 70. The new millennium's Feel 100% barely scrapes by with 25. Based on a Japanese comic book, the buoyant look at young "adults" facing life and love in the big city had a nice feel and provided some good vibes when director Joe Ma first took on the project in 1996. But Jerry (Eason Chan, in the role originated by Ekin Cheng) and Hui Lok (Daniel Chan substituting for Eric Kot) are now so unattractively "cute", their adventures so chock full of contrivances and lacking in human warmth, that they-and the film-can be best summed up in one word: obnoxious.

Matters are not helped by the women in their lives. Miriam Yeung is Hui Foon, Lok's sister who holds a torch for Jerry. Her screen presence comes across as sham Sammi Cheng (who, incidentally, played the love interest in the first Feel 100%), so grating that it is no surprise Jerry has eyes for So (Joey Yung), a university lecturer who takes him on as a research subject. Joey Yung is virtually the only cast member who emerges from Feel 100% II unscathed, her innocent intellectual almost endearing.

Lok falls head over heels for the pretty Felicia (Chow Lai-kei), finding himself the third corner in a love triangle with her ex-beau (an unamusing cameo by Eric Kot). When Lok moves his tent into her living room to provide a wedge between Felicia and her now ex-ex (who once again shacks up with Felicia), the filmmakers handle the situation in such a juvenile manner that one wishes they'd just copy Friends or some other well written sit-com. Situations are ripe with dramatic-comic-zany possibilities, but director/co-writer Ma seems to have phoned this one in.

Not unexpectedly, the various loose ends are tied up into a neat little package in typical sit-com tradition, ending up with a predictable but unconvincingly mawkish speech in which Jerry declares his love for Foon. One cannot help but suspect the real reason for his sudden ardour is Foon's unconvincingly sudden surge to fame as a best-selling author. Jerry and Foon deserve each other. The audience deserves better.

1 1/2 Stars

This review is copyright (c) 2001 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.