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| Source: http://kazuohk.blogspot.hk/2015/06/wonder-mama.html |
Releasing in 2015, Wonder Mama, directed by Clifton Ko, did not hit the box office very well, but with its very local family-themed and comedic plots, it is indeed a decent film to watch.
Wonder Mama begins with Lovely (Petrina Fung Bo-bo), a 49-year-old librarian on the verge of retirement, who lives with her reclusive 30-year-old unemployed son Brad (Babyjohn Choi Hon-yick), and her violently incompatible parents (Kenneth Tsang Kong and Susan Siu Yam-yam). Things quietened down after her parents' divorce and her father moves to Zhongshan, and Lovely is kept busy putting Brad back to social life and gaining information about her long-disappeared husband. Situation went tense again when Lovely’s father announces that his housemaid is pregnant with his son.
Source:《媽咪俠》預告片 Wonder Mama Trailer 6月4日 媽咪我愛你,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76tkmZ0tIb0
Focusing on Lovely’s family, the film is a family melodrama, a genre of film that set in domestic households centering on family. Such genre centered on matters of family ethics, and relationships between husband and wife, parents and children, siblings, relatives and elders. Wonder Mama focused on the former two – Lovely’s incompatible parents (husband and wife), Lovely and her parents and Lovely and her son (parents and children). The realistic family-themed is a comedy with optimism, family value and moral teaching – learn to let go.
Comical credit is due to director Clifton Ko’s experiences and reputation in filming comedies focusing on family moral in the 1980s and 90s, in the period when comedy was most popular. Regarding as a comedy genius, Ko’s films, notable work included Chicken and Duck Talk (1988), All’s Well Ends Well (1992), It’s a Mad Mad Mad World I & II (1987 & 1988), gave a huge impact to Hong Kong comedy films. Similar to Ko’s previous work, Wonder Mama is a comedy with exaggerating acting, movements and dialogues of the characters: Lovely's mother's dancing tutor is acting like a gay, neighbours of Lovely's family has huge panda-eyes makeup to indicate their sleep are disturbed by Lovely's parents' argument, and the exaggerated walking style of Lovely. Plots such as revealing the doctor is gay and the way Lovely’s mother promotes her concert, also creates the comical elements of the movie. The lines of Lovely's son is filled with Cantonese dialogical gags which put the movie into a contextualized text and provide a point to apprehend the culture of modern Hong Kong. The slang”講呢D" (translated as “Seriously?”) is used in the movie and it is a popular expression in recent years. The dependence on Cantonese dialogical gags is a special feature of Hong Kong comedy. Actions comics moments can be appreciated by audiences all over the world, but verbal comics moments can only be appreciated by local audiences.
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Wonder Mama may not be the cup of tea of nowadays Hong Kong audiences as they tend to fall for plots that reveals social status quo, such as Ten Years (十年) predicting the Hong Kong’s future. Yet, Wonder Mama still managed to grab the attention of those who like old days family movies, the delicate acting of Fung Bo-bo, explosive acting of Tsang Kong and Siu Yum-yum, and simple, non-nonsense comedies.
By Leung Yan Chi Nathalie
10613362/ 21620729
Words:519
Reference:
Kwok, J. 1998 “Besides Fists and Blood: Hong Kong Comedy and its Master of the Eighties”, Cinema Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 18-25
Reference:
Kwok, J. 1998 “Besides Fists and Blood: Hong Kong Comedy and its Master of the Eighties”, Cinema Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 18-25
Dear Nathalie, The blog entry is pretty focused. Auteur's style and genre's special features are touched. The review is also related to current local context. In terms of organisation, materials are put in nice sequence. My suggestion is to revise the arguments about gay so that you can address the question of how comedian presentation style could give a fresh touch on a traditional genre/story.
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