Review: The Fantastic Water Babes (出水芙蓉)

Director Jeff Lau recently returned to the postmodern, existentialist, "mo lei tau" film genre he perfected in the 1990s with the spoofs on Journey To The West with "Just Another Pandora Box" and "The Fantastic Water Babes". While Pandora Box felt like a spoof on his earlier spoofs (if such a thing was even possible!), Water Babes is a more original film (with only the "Limitless Sea" line connected to Bridget Lin's annoying line in "Eagle Shooting Heroes").

The result is a mess of a movie with an incoherent plot that shouldn't work... but... it does. After all, it's Jeff Lau. If anyone can throw in so much nonsense into a movie and yet make the whole thing feel so magical, it's Jeff Lau. I don't even know how to review this nonsensical film. Again, it shouldn't work... but... it does. Maybe because Jeff Lau cares about every scene in the movie (no matter how nonsensical) so the camera work, the CGI, the music, the facial expressions, etc. are all perfect. Watch the MV above to see what I mean. Really, it shouldn't work... but... by this time, you don't even care! You just want Jeff Lau to shoot a nonsensical comedy the way he wants and to hell with the artsy-fartsy critics who don't understand Hong Kong film-making. It's insane, it's incoherent, it's messy but it's still very moving and passionate in the way that only Jeff Lau can make it. I don't know how he does it but... it does work!

I know that this is not much of a review. A review would comment on Gillian Chung's comeback performance or the cameo by Olympic diver Tian Liang. A review would comment on how the gorgeous Eva Huang is wasted in a role as an ashmatic girl. A review would comment on how "attractive" Stephen Fung looked in drag! But no. This is a Jeff Lau movie. It's set in Cheng Chau. It begins with a reference to Coppolla's "Apocalypse Now" and it ends with a message on faith and saving the environment! It's true, I swear it's true!

Like I said: a film that is this messy and incoherent shouldn't work but boy, does it work. This film is fantastic. And so are the water babes. :)