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4-01-05: Movie Review: Beyond Our Ken
You have to weigh Gillian Chung against Daniel Wu, I guess.
I had high hopes for Beyond Our Ken. Besides starring the fantabulously cute Gillian Chung in a purportedly more sophisticated and adult role than she's ever before been given (teen comedies are her usual milieu), the movie was directed by Pang Ho Cheung, whose previous film was the hilariously clever dark comedy Men Suddenly In Black. That movie, about a group of men determined to cheat on their wives (played as a parody of serious cops versus gangsters films) was highly original and smartly directed, and was a far cry from the banal sort of cinema that is unfortunately typical of the Hong Kong film industry these days.
Beyond Our Ken, sadly, is an inferior film. The concept has potential but is not particularly original, the narrative is irregular (a huge wad of storyline is forced down the audience's gullet in the last few minutes), the direction seems languid, and, worst of all, perennial adolescent Daniel Wu stars as the male lead. Ack!
All joking about Daniel Wu and his bad pretty-boy acting aside (I am capable of looking past my personal prejudice against HK pretty boys if I really put my mind to it), there simply wasn't anything really striking or unique about the film that succeeded in grabbing my attention. That's not to say it doesn't have a few good qualities; Gillian Chung and Tao Hong both do fine acting jobs here, and I suppose the twist ending may appeal to some people, although in my opinion it didn't make up for an otherwise slow-moving and listless plot.
The movie's basically about three characters: Ken (Daniel Wu), Ken's current girlfriend Shirley (Tao Hong) and Ken's bitter ex-girlfriend Ching (Gillian Chung). Ching tells Shirley that after unceremoniously dumping her for no reason (for this I had to put aside my skepticism: would any sane man dump Gillian Chung?) Ken proceeded to post a nude photo he took of her to a website, which quickly got her fired. She's ostensibly worried that the same thing will happen to Shirley, and the two of them eventually become friends as they hatch a scheme to steal the rest of the nude photos Ken took of Ching. That's about all. The growing friendship between the two women, and their attempts to outwit Ken, comprise most of the movie.
I won't give away the ending, except to say that there are several twists and turns involved. This sort of complicated everything-you've-seen-so-far-is-wrong twist ending can work very well on occasion, but I don't think it really works in this particular film; apart from being somewhat implausible, it just seemed like gimmicky storytelling to me. Moreover, because there are no lives at stake (and because none of the characters in the film really end up any worse for wear) the various twists revealed at the end lack the punch that is generally associated with film endings of this type.
All that said, Beyond Our Ken isn't an out-and-out bad film; there are a few thoughtful moments and scenes amidst the mostly boring middle section of the movie, and, as I said, there is some decent acting to be found in a few places (I wouldn't call this Gillian's breakout role, exactly, but it was nice to see her in something a bit more serious and dignified for a change, and Tao Hong evinces some surprising depth at times).
I suspect that if director Pang Ho Cheung were dealing with some stronger, more edgy story material, he might have really gotten somewhere with this one. As it is, Beyond Our Ken (I can't resist noting that the film's English title is pretty darn clever, if you're aware of the essentially archaic meaning of the word "ken") isn't much more than an average, if slightly uncoventional by Hong Kong standards, film.