Spy Dad

Rating: 5/10
Year: 2003
Genre: Comedy
Director: Wong Jing
Cast: Tony Leung Ka-fai, Jordan Chan, Candice Yu, Eric Kot

Wong Jing, a notorious yet successful icon of Hong Kong cinema. With his name attached to this comedy, everything becomes so predictable. You are right, Spy Dad is another no brainer comedy that makes a spoof of all the recent popular movies in Hong Kong.

007, Matrix Reloaded, Infernal Affairs and some other hit movies you should be familar with, are spoofed by Wong Jing in this mixture of High Risk and God of Gambler-alike story (Interestingly, both of these two films are Wong's work). Bong (Tony Leung) is a movie star who possesses a heroic image in his movies, but in reality, he is a coward at home who is looked down by even his own kids. One day, he becomes involved in a terrorist case when a government agent (Jordan Chan) is found injured in the backyard of his house, and it soon provides him an opportunity to regain his masculinity... As usual, with a group of goon-like characters, tons of hilarious scenes can be expected, but there is actually not a single moment that can genuinely make you laugh out loud.

Similar to Wong's other comedies, the story is quite illogical, and a weak ending is more or less forseeable. Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised when you see Edison Chen figuring out the toxic weapon even though he has no prior knowledge of it before, or when you see Chapman To and the group doing the rescue mission successfully even though they are not told where Tony Leung is detained. In Wong's comedy, the story is always not the emphasis, it is the stars that make the difference. Overall speaking, the cast of this movie is quite attractive, Casting Tony Leung Ka-fai as the comical protagonist is a wise choice. His recent resume, with notable cameo appearance in numerous comedies like Golden Chicken, Men Suddenly in Black and Good Times, Bed Times, has proven to us that he is capable of doing any whimsical roles. Jordan Chan, Teresa Mo and Eric Kot are also first-class comedy actors. Together with popular idol Gillian Chung, the commercial calculation is without doubt very precise. However, for some reasons, these people just fail to give out their best in this movie. Tony Leung's disguise as Bruce Lee is funny, but other than that, there really isn't much for him to do, or I should say, the script just doesn't provide any opportunities for him to exhibit his talent. The same happens to Jordan Chan, Teresa Mo and Eric Kot. It is not that they fail to carry out their duty, but the script fails to allow them to maximize their value. Gillian Chung remains as a "human prop" who has nothing to do other than showing her sweet smile here and there. In short, the cast is totally wasted because of a poorly and hastily written script.

Just the same old formula being repeated again, Spy Dad is simply another product of this century that was produced with the logic and production style of the 1980s. Perhaps a good reminiscence for the fans of Wong Jing who are still crazy about his classics like Romancing Star, on the other hand, there really isn't much for the audience of the 21st century to care.

Reviewed by: Kantorates