The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.
... View MoreI am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
... View MoreA lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
... View MoreGreat example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
... View MoreThis is Jack Neo's tenth movie, and I personally think this is his best yet. Like all of his previous movies, this movie topped the box-office list in Singapore.This movie stars Fann Wong, and Gurmit Singh (from the famous Phua Chu Kang sitcom), Moses Lim, Selena Tan and many other famous actors in Singapore.The story goes that Lim Teng Chui (at first played by Gurmit Singh before they changed bodies) hated his boss, Tanya Chew. He didn't believe in bureaucracy, a thing which is very common in Singapore. It caused her boss much trouble because she was accustomed in doing things bureaucratically.One day, after a heated argument, Lim Teng Zui followed Tanya Chew in a high-speed car chase, which resulted in a 'freak' accident.When they woke up from coma, they didn't know that they have changed bodies. Only when Gurmit (now plays Tanya Chew) went to the toilet to do his 'business', & when Fann Wong (now Lim Teng Zui) look into the mirror, they found out that they've changed! So to the doctor they went, only to be told that they were only imagining and that it happened because of the trauma to their head.So what did they do next? Watch this movie to see how they have to adapt in their 'adopted' bodies. It's hilarious! I like this movie not just because of the silly antics by Lim Teng Zui, Tanya Chew and their colleagues, but because of the message of the story that the director wishes to convey. In a country that follow bureaucracy strictly (up to a point in which they believe there's no other way to do things), it takes a jab at this system.In the movie, Tanya Chew requested for a fan, but the clerk said that she must provide three copies of a written letter requesting for a fan, 1 to the Human resources Dept, 1 to the clerk, and the third copy to the manager. Crazy, huh? But that's the current style in Singapore.All in all, I think this is a great movie, with numerous jokes to keep the audiences laughing, and one with a good moral lesson.Don't leave the cinema once the credit is shown, as towards the end of the credit there is a short clip of Tanya Chew & Lim Teng Zui waving to their son, and decide whether they manage to return to their own body or not.
... View MoreThou it's started like a comedy and social criticize of the famous Singaporean 'No U-turn', Jack Neo's movie turn, itself, quickly in a poor copy of Black Edwards' comedies when Fann Wong and Gurmit Singh exchange their souls to find themselves in each others body. Without this 'deja-vu' effect, Neo would have reach his moral easier and more originally.Neo's direction still looks like a newcomer film student who wants to play with the effects and have more the aspect of a TV film than a cinema feature. Even during a serious scene (Gurmit's daughter hit by a car), the cheap special effect starts laughs among audience instead of fear.This movie should have been be produce for TV with a cheaper budget, maybe this could have let a chance for others, and better, Singaporean filmmakers to produce a higher quality feature.But you know they let him do. It's just because, long time ago, Jack Neo made laughs...
... View MoreJack Neo is undoubtedly Singapore's most commercially successful director, having made 10 films (including this one), and almost each time, you'd hear his movies topping the charts and breaking box office records. His films touch the common heartlander chord with his fusion of satire and subtle jabs at topical issues, much akin to his skits during his Comedy Night days, and given a huge fan base built, it's no surprise if local audiences turn up in hordes to lap up his latest offering which set its sights on the civil service.Almost everyone can identify with the frustrations of red tape bureaucracy, that incident of unpleasantness with staff in their less than helpful robotic stick-to-the-rulebook answers, and of course, attempts to shift responsibility and cover their rears. Wait! Doesn't that sound familiar, like what every other company employee will do as well? For the first twenty minutes, it's recounting office politics 101 with spot on accuracy, jazzed up by some special effects, as every tactic in the office politic arsenal get brought out to the table.The story is set in a fictitious government body which is tasked to create jobs and encourage skills upgrading. But the fact is that almost everyone in the department needs a serious upgrade and look at themselves. You can spot the inept CEO, the conniving scheming colleagues, the unskilled miscellaneous workers, the bootlickers, and the elite scholars all having a go at each other. And at times when you laugh at their antics, somehow you're wondering if you're laughing at yourselves, especially when you recall incidents you experienced, or characters whom you see in others.While the idea was there, the delivery was somehow let down. It played out quite childishly, and looked more like mini school skits put together in a very choppy manner. You don't fault the number of ideas the story writers have, but rather at their inability to gel them all together into an engaging narrative from start until end. At times you might think you're watching a tele-movie plagued by too many minor characters, each being a one- dimensional mouth piece for the issues they represent.Casting Fann Wong was a coup, as she's one of the top darlings of Caldecott Hill. And one of the appeal in watching the movie, is to see how she junks her glamorous goody-two-shoes image, for a comedic role requiring her to act like a siao char bor (mad woman). And she pulled it off with aplomb, which is what manages to hold the attention of the audience. She burbs, farts, frequently molests herself by grabbing her boobs, walks like a beng, talks like a beng, swears like a beng too. According to reports, her minders got into fits with her role as Tanya Chew the scholar manager, who got her body swapped with Gurmit Singh's Lim Teng Zui, a lowly employee, as it called for her to act against her image. Well, she sure have thrown caution to the wind and it turned out well, but I thought she could have gone further, instead of having to rely on cheap editing tricks.If Fann Wong acting like a man raised interest, the same couldn't be said for Gurmit's role as a woman, as it sure isn't like Mrs Doubtfire or Tootsie. It's relatively muted, and when the pairs on screen together, there is no doubt as to who is the movie star, with Fann giving the veteran comedian a run for his money. Although they have some chemistry together, I thought the story and dialogue sometimes lapsed into the two characters being their correct selves instead of their swapped ones. The other supporting characters are played by the usual faces from television, and are caricatures requiring As mentioned earlier, scenes are usually made out of mini skits which try to be funny in itself, and then glued together with the lazy fade out transitions for the most parts. While there is a resemblance of a main plot, the subplots display meek attempts at comedy, or stick out like a sore thumb trying to shovel its social message down your throats, at times presenting itself awkwardly in out of place scenes. Being a Jack Neo movie, product placement is never far away, and in his latest offering, there are plenty of opportunities for product placement, which are milked to the max, one of which I thought was a mistake in having Fann seen in an advert. Jack too can't help but to put himself in a cameo, and hammering referential jabs in the script at the government (66.6% for a test out of 84, it doesn't come across any clearer than that).The production values seem mixed though. Despite being budgeted at more than a million dollars, the look and feel at times seem like a million dollars, and at times, just felt cheap. There are a lot of special effects put into the movie, and that probably took a huge chunk from the budget, as did Fann Wong's paycheck. The effects though were rather surreal which brought out some fantastical feelings about the movie, and were also used as substitutes for obvious stunts or backdrops that proved relatively costly to make. For once, I was of the opinion that the songs in the movie weren't necessary as they failed to elicit or enhance the mood of the scene, and was there a recycling attempt at using one of the songs from an earlier film?Just Follow Law will do well, given Fann's against-the-grain role, something audiences would not have seen before, and the fact that it's opening this Lunar New Year period. Fans of Fann, and the usual support base of Jack Neo, will definitely make this movie a hit. A pity that it could have been much better.
... View MoreIt's not everyday that we see a movie so bad that we feel like walking out of the theater barely half an hour into the movie. This movie was one of those bad picks.Why is this so bad? First of all, it's a known fact that Jack Neo gets overtly preachy in his films (semblance of well-thought-out social commentaries). It got really annoying to hear him narrate in the background exactly the point that he was trying to portray in different scenes. It makes one wonder if his script writer is so inept at building these messages into the plot that the director has to summarize the messages for the audience.Secondly, the pacing of the movie was terrible. The movie spent too much time on the goofs after the main characters went through a body swap. The result was a really slow moving, hardly funny, occasionally distasteful half hour that made it hard to any thinking audience to stay watching.Thirdly, you know a movie is bad when it has to resort to creating jokes out of farting, urinating, and hurling swear words in a different dialect. In fact, there were so many expletives that I totally think it deserves an NC-16 rating for coarse language. You know it was a bad movie when the only thing you hear coming out of the theater was a young kid citing the swear words that were repeatedly used by one of the leads.I applaud Jack Neo's intention at highlighting social ills through comedies with mass appeal. But I think he has done it at the expense of art and craftsmanship. The result is a dull and unsophisticated TV drama that happens to be on the big screen.
... View More