Overrated and overhyped

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

In Ming Dynasty China two pairs of siblings are strangely destined to be together; one the emperor and his sister, Wushuang, and the other Phoenix, a restaurant owner, and her wayward brother, Li Yilong AKA King Bully. The princess escapes, dressed as a man, and finds herself befriended by Li Yilong who is trying to find a nice man for his sister to marry. While he is trying to get Wushuang interested in his sister it is clear that she is actually falling for him; she even tells him she is a woman but he thinks she is joking. While they are away the Emperor, travelling incognito, finds himself in the same town and befriends Phoenix! Over the course of the film there are many misunderstandings and even when Li Yilong finally learns that Wushuang really is a woman it looks as if they won't be able to get together as the dowager empress strongly disapproves of him.This comedy of misunderstandings manages to be funny at the same time as being quite silly. An example of the silliness is the magistrate's son who has an ear almost the size of his head! It is also hard to believe that anybody would mistake the beautiful Wushuang for a man whatever clothes she was wearing. If you aren't put off by such things this film is a lot of fun; the cast do a fine job; especially Tony Chiu Wai Leung who plays Li Yilong, Faye Wong who plays Princess Wushuang and Wei Zhao who plays Phoenix. There are some fight scenes although these too are played for laughs rather than excitement so there is no real sense of danger. Overall I'd say that this film was a lot of fun and is well worth watching although I suspect the silliness might put some viewers off.These comments are based on watching the film in Cantonese with English subtitles.

Owing to constant nagging from her warty old mother, a Princess runs away from the family schloss using random acts of Kung Fu to beat up on the staff, rather than the more obvious but less cinematic approach of walking out the front door. To prevent being hoiked back to the palace and sent to bed without any dinner, she takes on the persona of a man, though it must be said, not a very masculine one.Meanwhile in a village a local restaurateur is a known bad mannered all around bully who has to resort to eating loutishly at his competitor's café as a ploy to entice people to his own eating establishment where he is of course guaranteed not to be.He's also obsessed with trying to marry off his sister and this isn't going well, possibly because she dresses as a man, and is prone to beating up casual visitors using random acts of Kung Fu. In addition he's made it a condition of marriage that suitors put their hands in a furnace without suffering injury. There are no takers but when he throws in a promise to leave the village once his sister is married, a queue forms. Unfortunately all the candidates only succeed in overloading the local burns ward.Propinquitously (??) the Princess wanders into the village and she and the restaurateur form an instant bond. There is much eating and slapping on the back and close eye contact and clinking of mugs. On introducing the Princess to his sister, the three form a tight group and have many frolics and fun adventures, constantly in each other's company.This is where the confusion begins! The brother sees the Princess (remember, she is dressed as a man) as a potential husband for his sister (remember, she is dressed as a man). But secretly, the Princess is getting the hots for the brother (who is not only dressed as a man, but is one), who thinks all the hugging and offers to massage bits of his body are good clean manly fun. The sister also falls for the Princess, longingly wishing she could reveal that she is a she and innocently believing the Princess is a he and not a she and therefore a potential spouse.The audience knows that this will end badly, though sadly not for another 70 minutes. The Princess gets a hint too, when she books in to a fortune teller who incidentally looks remarkably like a woman dressed as a man who seems to know the Princess's identity and prophesies that she will be marrying some totally different man. She is disturbed but determined to persevere nevertheless.The fun and games continue until a drunken cross-dressing party where the Princess gets into drag and comes out as a woman. Everyone laughs and she reverts to her alter ego. The sister comes out as a woman and everyone laughs, but she proves she is. No-one is stressed. The brother then tries the same trick. He is ugly and everyone laughs. They all wake up in the morning in the same bed with bad heads, a general feeling that something is not at all right, and a feeling of "where do we go from here".The Princess realizes things are getting complicated (getting complicated?) and decides to leave to go "somewhere". The brother follows her and this happens for months, with adventures and random acts of Kung Fu along the way. At some point, under a peach tree, which is apparently significant, he catches up and announces to the Princess he has the soul of a woman, and the Princess kisses him. He is still under the impression that the Princess is a man and is understandably confused, though not enough to cease tongue action. She reveals to him she is actually a woman and has to prove it; and what's more, a Princess. He is convinced but now quite distressed because while he looks like he has bagged a woman, he has lost a Brother-in-law.Meanwhile, with the help of the secret service, the Emperor eventually leaves to look for his sister, the Princess. While he decides not to dress as a woman, he does go incognito and in due course comes on the village, where he meets the sister of the restaurateur. She reveals she is a woman and they fall in love though she thinks he is just a general schmo. He reinforces this image by growing an afro and wearing platform clogs. They both do the horizontal tango but privacy seems to be an issue since several members of the secret service insist on sleeping with them, apparently but not convincingly just for his protection.But love flourishes and the Emperor reveals his true identity. She is touched but insists he keep the Afro and goes back to introduce the Restaurateur's sister to Mumsy. Preparation is made for marriage. About this time the Princess turns up at the palace with her new man. Mummikins is not too keen on him for some reason and makes them both try on a set of his and hers rings, which are supposed to slip off if the marriage will fail. The rings do, and the restaurateur is sent packing.The Princess then hangs around the Palace being annoyingly insane and attempting to do injury to herself by self-inflicted random acts of Kung Fu. Finally, she runs away and finds the restaurateur. She has brought the rings. She has a cunning plan. Remembering the incident under the Peach tree, he tries on the "she" ring and vice versa and voila, all is well for some reason which has become lost in translation.Everyone gets married and the bad tempered mother is put into her place, though she appears to now have more warts than at the start of the movie. There is laughing all around and the credits roll. A sequel is threatened.

This is a brilliant movie! Not only are there references to Wong Kar Wai's previous works and romantic kung fu films, but the story and characters are from an old Chinese tale and 1960's musical called Jiangshan Mei Ren (The Beauty from Jianshan) which is about the emperor who ventures out disguised as a commoner and falls in love with Pheonix, a lovely girl from the restaurant. The musical numbers and the continuing musical themes (including the La-la parts) are taken from the old 1960's movie and that type of Chinese musical genre. Chinese Odyssey 2002 puts a new spin into the musical numbers as well as developing the story between Pheonix's brother (Tony Lenug) and Princess Wushuang (Faye Wong). This film is enjoyable on its own, but when aware of the references, it just makes it that much funnier and witty. I highly recommend watching the original film and Wong Kar Wai's other works for their own sake, if not to just appreciate this multi-faceted film.

Ok, what was good about it? All 4 leads were perfect, the settings were gorgeous, the costumes were amazing, the story unfolded not quite as I thought it would, the witty one-liners got some good belly-laughs, and yes, that singing/dancing opera piece had me in stitches when in any other film it would get turned off. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I had a good laugh watching this, now that the DVD is out I'll be ordering it. 9 out of 10!