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Category: Chrissie Chau Sau-Na

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Plot: three friends order custom-built robot girlfriends. Hilarity ensues!

For the last quarter century Hong Kong producer, director, screenwriter, and actor Jing Wong has been a force to be reckoned with. His natural affinity in catering to audience tastes and his eye for female beauty made him one of the consistently profitable cinema industry powers. Since starting out in the early-to-mid eighties Wong has capitalized on every fad, movement, and big budget Hollywood movie of note and gave them his own unique Hong Kong spin. He launched the careers of Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Stephen Chow. In the eighties and nineties he introduced Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching, Joey Wong, Sharla Cheung Man, Brigitte Lin, and Valerie Chow to the world. In more recent times he has worked with Maggie Q, Jennifer Tse Ting-Ting, and Candy Yuen Ka-Man. Towards the close of the nineties Wong’s features have been slumming at the domestic box office and he has since focused on the Mainland China market. Ever the crowd-pleaser Jing Wong returns his old stomping ground of the broad comedy, and as such iGirl (夢情人) is both boorish and sentimental in equal measure.

Never shy about capitalizing about an ongoing cinematic trend Wong uses the 2005 six-volume manga 絶対彼氏 or Zettai Kareshi (or Absolute Boyfriend) from Yuu Watase as the basis for iGirl. iGirl, of course, being his broad comedy take on the ongoing, decade-long (and counting) Mainland China cyborg girlfriend craze following the release of Jae-young Kwak’s seminal My Girlfriend Is A Cyborg (2008) with Haruka Ayase and Hirokazu Kore’eda’s humanist fairytale Air Doll (2009) with Bae Doo-na. iGirl is built from the I’m Your Birthday Cake (1996) template in that it mixes romance with broad comedy. The slapstick never gets quite as odious as some of Wong’s more irritatingly juvenile comedies, and it’s certainly a lot better of what passes for comedy in Mainland China, but that doesn’t change that iGirl is pretty terrible at times. The star, and much of the focal point, of iGirl is Chrissie Chau Sau-Na (周秀娜). Chau has worked her way up from the dregs of Mainland China cinema and iGirl was the first sign her career was finally moving forward. Whether or not she’ll become the new Jing Wong muse is up for debate, but it’s good seeing Chrissie in something that isn’t monitored by the Film Bureau for once. Chrissie is a decent enough actress, she cuts a dashing figure (something of which Wong is acutely aware) – but many of her movies rarely played up to her strenghts. This was sweet Chrissie’s first truly big break.

Lin Xiao-Feng (Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin), Johnny (Dominic Ho Hou-Man), and Zhu Yun (Lam Tze-Chung) are lifelong friends that continue to live in a state of arrested adolescence. One night the three go out clubbing and find themselves dumped by their respective girlfriends. The three drink and dance the night away to forget about their current amorous predicament. Lin Xiao-Feng (Evan in some versions), the most upwardly mobile of the trio, in his drunken stupor orders his dreamgirl from a site called “Get Your Dream iGirl” by typing in a few meager criteria. Believing the enterprise to be a practical joke he’s surprised when his order is shipped and delivered overnight. After following the instructions of the iGirl manual his new companion 001 (Chrissie Chau Sau-Na) comes to life. Johnny and Zhu Yun (Irwin in some versions) are astonished by the functionality, adaptability, and compatibility of Evan’s cybernetic companion and immediately see the possibilities. The two order their own iGirl and before long 002 (Connie Man Hoi-Ling) and 003 (Joyce Cheng Yan-Yi) complete the trio’s social circle. With their new cyborg girlfriends at their side the three men have the time of their life, much to the chagrin of their former girlfriends. Janice (Jeana Ho Pui-Yu), Chili (Iris Chung Choi-Hei), and Rebecca (Yam Giu) break into the iGirl laboratory, nearly killing iGirl creator Dr. Intelligent (Anders Nelsson) in the process, kidnapping their ex-boyfriends, and vowing to exact their revenge on the iGirls.

Director Kam Ka-Wai assistant directed under Wilson Yip Wai-Shun on Ip Man (2008) and under Marco Mak Chi-Sin on Naked Soldier (2012). It’s never a question of whether Kam Ka-Wai is competent enough to helm a production of this kind. If anything iGirl is hampered by Jing Wong’s retrograde writing. It could have been a lot worse, certainly, but that doesn’t excuse the lazy writing in the slightest. Most of the cast all worked with Jing Wong on prior occassions. Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin worked with Wong as far back as the lamentable Future Cops (1993) with Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching and the original Young and Dangerous (1995). Chrissie Chau is known around these parts for her triple role in the low-key and occassionally atmospheric Lift to Hell (2013). Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin and Chau shared the screen in Break Up 100 (2014) whereas Dominic Ho and Connie Man were paired up earlier in The Gigolo 2 (2016). Chrissie Chau Sau-Na, and Iris Chung Choi-Hei worked together earlier on Mr. and Mrs. Player (2013). Had this been released in the eighties or nineties Wong would probably have played Lam Tze-Chung’s role himself. The sole action scene in the third act was choreographed by Jack Wong Wai-Leung and his two decades of experience are clearly visible on screen. Comedy and action after all have been Wong’s trusted allies since he started out in the mid-1980s. If there’s ever going to be a fourth Naked installment we wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if it ends up starring Chrissie Chau Sau-Na. The Naked franchise has been insteady decline since Naked Weapon (2002) and she might just be what is needed to restore the series to its former Naked Killer (1992) glory.

Mainland China comedies are hit-or-miss, and romantic comedies even moreso. The ascent of the Film Bureau and production companies as Q1Q2 have spawned a swamp of comedies that are either irritating in their reliance on slapstick, cheap beyond description, or plain lacking in any sort of talent – or a combination of all three. iGirl is good enough for what it is but it never had any artistic aspirations as, say, Suddenly Seventeen (2016) with Ni Ni. Neither, for that matter, does it lower itself to the slapstick absurdities of Fetching Nurses (2018). Chrissie Chau Sau-Na conforms to the beauty ideal of every Jing girl following that of his one-time mistress and longtime muse Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching and it’s telling that only she has an isolated nude scene (optically fogged out in the domesic cut for all the obvious reasons). At times it feels as if Connie Man Hoi-Ling is but a placeholder for Candy Yuen Ka-Man. The casting of plus-size Joyce Cheng Yan-Yi is good in that it sets the stage for the casting of rounder girls as, Yang Ke (杨可) and Zhu Ke Er (朱可儿) in Wong productions. Yan-Yi’s father is Adam Cheng Siu-Chow (鄭少秋) from Tsui Hark’s Zu: The Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983). iGirl obviously gets the most mileage out of Chau Sau-Na and Hoi-Ling and at no point does Yan-Yi get traded in for a slimmer model. It’s probably a matter of time before we’ll see Mavis Pan Shuang-Shuang (潘霜霜), Frieda Hu Meng-Yuan (胡梦媛), and the considerably more A-list Ada Liu Yan (柳岩), turn up in a Jing Wong production. Equal but opposite maybe one day we’ll see Pan Chun Chun (潘春春) in a Sino comedy or action feature that actually knows what to do with her.

There’s something inherently funny about Chrissie Chau Sau-Na, an actress frequently lambasted for her robotic acting, playing a robot. Chrissie’s far better than people are willing to give her credit for. The truth is if you were to accuse anyone of stilted and minimalist non-acting Miki Zhang Yi-Gui (张已桂) is the actress to look for. Not that Chrissie’s one of the great new Chinese actresses. Betty Sun Li and Ni Ni, to name but two, are way more versatile and talented than Chrissie will ever be. The problem that Chrissie, and many Chinese actresses like her, has is that she’s only fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. On her social media Chrissie can be seen posting in English from time to time but her usage of it is rare enough to make it an outlier. Unlike Fan Bingbing, Yu Nan, or Ni Ni, few commandeer the language well enough to appeal to Western audiences and most only are fluent in their national languages. Elder stateswoman Gong Li famously rejected a Hollywood career because she didn’t command the language well enough, as did Chiaki Kuriyama (who’s Japanese, but the point stands). Unfortunately the same rings true for South Korean television actresses as Shin Min-a (신민아), Ko Sung-hee (고성희), and Chae Soo-bin (채수빈) who should have pierced the Western cultural landscape by now, but somehow haven’t. In times of globalism China and the Koreas remain staunchly isolationist. In any case iGirl has elevated Chrissie Chau Sau-Na to the mainstream and Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (2018) from director Yuen Wo-Ping is probably her most prestigious project yet. Not too bad of an career advancement for a girl that spent a decade or so in the dregs of Chinese cinema.

The other retroactively famous star was the late Yam Giu (Xiong Hua-Hua, Zhiyi Ren, or Ren Jiao, depending on your preference) who passed away on October 16, 2017 after falling (under dubious circumstances) from the 13th floor balcony of the Howard Johnson All Suites hotel in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. At the time Yam Giu (who sort of looked like, but is not, Angelababy) was staying at a different hotel and merely visiting her actor-friend Yang Xuwen who was in the city for filming. Yam Giu had been romantically linked with Yang Xuwen and was visiting the city with her mother. On the morning of October 16 her nude body was discovered on the hotel lawn and immediately led to widespread speculation about the circumstances surrounding her passing. Everything from alcoholism to suicidal depression was mentioned in the tabloid press, yet as of 2017 no clear cause of death was determined. One of the last productions that Yam Giu was involved with was the Fang Mo horror-action trilogy Hello, Mr. Vampire (2016), Hello, Ms. Vampire (2016) and Beauty in the Doomsday (2017). Perhaps Yam Giu could have been a Chinese superstar, perhaps not. Just like Iberian cult queen Soledad Miranda in 1970 Yam Giu was cut down in her prime.

After the controversial The Gigolo (2015) and its 2016 sequel iGirl seems incredibly restrained in comparison. Connie Man Hoi-Ling and Iris Chung Choi-Hei both are allowed to keep their clothes on. For the majority of the feature Hoi-Ling wears a deeply cut red dress while Chrissie Chau Sau-Na has the most diverse wardrobe and Joyce Cheng Yan-Yi the exact opposite. The Jing girls are as gorgeous as they’ve ever been and the grandmaster hasn’t lost his eye for spotting promising female talent. iGirl is one of Wong’s better romantic comedies in the post-Chingmy Yau age and it’s good seeing reliable second-tiers as Chrissie Chau Sau-Na in a leading role. Granted, iGirl doesn’t give her a whole lot to work with, but that’s hardly a fault of her own. To go from Lift to Hell (2013) and The Extreme Fox (2013) to this must be called progress. That she won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress for her film 29+1 (2017) a year later was indicative that her career was at long last going places. Chau Sau-Na should probably do another Kick Ass Girls (2013) or full-blown Girls with Guns action movie, whether it’s in Hong Kong or Mainland China. Obviously iGirl isn’t the new Jing Wong comedy classic. The writing’s immensely retrograde and the comedy seldom hits the mark. All things considered iGirl is more than decent enough for what it is. In the wildly divergent and fluctuating robot girfriend subgenre; you could do far, far worse than this…

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Plot: scholar falls in love with a beautiful girl who might, or might not, be human.

The Extreme Fox (非狐外传) is about the last thing you’d expect from actor-producer-director Wellson Chin Sing-Wai. Chin started out as an assistant director under famed action choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping and actor-producer-director Sammo Hung Kam Bo, and is a specialist in action and comedy, or some combination thereof. Wellson Chin is mostly known around these parts for helming the enduring action comedy franchise The Inspector Wears Skirts (1988-1992) or the Police Academy (1984-1994) from Hong Kong as well as the delightfully insane Girls with Guns actioner Super Lady Cop (1992) with Cynthia Khan. In recognition of his human interest features The Third Full Moon (1994), Once In A Life-Time (1995) and The Day That Doesn't Exist (1995) Chin has received multiple Film of Merit awards (in 1994 and twice in 1995) from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. While primarily active in the environs of Hong Kong Chin occassionally branches out into Mainland China and The Extreme Fox is a good example of a director doing a genre he isn’t typically associated with.

As far as we can tell The Extreme Fox is a loose adaptation of the short story The Painted Skin from Liaozhai Zhiyi, or Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, from Qing Dynasty writer Pu Songling. Songling’s writing has been the basis for a variety of adaptations including, among others, The Enchanting Shadow (1960), and its famous Tsui Hark reimagining A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), Green Snake (1993), Painted Skin (2008), Mural (2011), and Ghost Story: Bride with Painted Skin (2016), and is considered a timeless monument of Classical Chinese literature. The beauty of many of Songling’s stories is that they can be interpreted as either tragic romances or horror stories, depending on how you choose to read them. The Extreme Fox chooses the romantic aspect with only the bare minimum of horror scenes required to tell the story. While Ghost Story: Bride with Painted Skin (2016) was the more faithful adaptation it never quite reaches the heights of The Extreme Fox, which as far as perfectly serviceable period-costume romances is concerned, is on the smoother end of unremarkable and utilitarian. It never exhibits the creativity of A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) neither does it possess the thick fairytale quality of Green Snake (1993). In those times before the hypnotically beautiful The Enchanting Phantom (倩女幽魂：人间情) (2020) this was a fairly faithful adaptation. Filmed in Hong Kong and aimed at the Mainland China market The Extreme Fox is extremely well-produced and beautiful to look at for what, for all intents and purposes, is a cheap webmovie.

Over the years we’ve taken quite a shine to Chrissie Chau Sau-Na (周秀娜). Chau rose to fame as a lang mo model with her 2009 and 2010 photobooks. Even though sweet Chrissie debuted in 2006 it wouldn’t be until Womb Ghosts (2010) four years later until it became apparent that she wasn’t just another model that stumbled into acting. Chau - famous for her 32D figure and the once-and-future queen of cleavage - was a spokesmodel for luxury lingerie brand Lamiu and in 2012 released her own lucrative bra line. In 2013 Chrissie appeared in 11 (!!) movies, among them Cold Pupil (2013), Lift to Hell (2013), and Kick Ass Girls (2013). In a career now spanning over a decade and sixty-plus productions Chrissie has worked everywhere from Hong Kong, and China, to Taiwan and Malaysia. Chau has played everything from the imperiled love interest, the enchanting spectral maiden, and the tough as nails action girl to more stereotypical romantic - and comedic roles. To our knowledge she never played a mermaid when that was something of a minor thing in Chinese webcinema a few years ago. Hampered by the same problem as Betty Sun Li (孙俪) and many far less than prominent (or talented, for that matter) Mainland China actresses Chrissie’s only fluent in her native Mandarin and Cantonese and she seems content to remain in regional and cultural borders. It’s unclear whether Chrissie speaks English (her Western social media at least suggest some basic knowledge and mastery of English, but her usage of it is inconsistent) and, if so, if she would be able to break into the Anglo-Saxon world in the same capacity as Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Q, Fan Bingbing, Yu Nan, and Ni Ni have.

In ancient Beijing narcoleptic Confucian scholar Wang Sheng (Alex Fong Lik-Sun) remains steadfast in his ambition to become a public servant in the bureaucracy of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Unfazed by the fact that he has failed the Imperial Examination three times in a row already, he travels to a small, sleepy farming hamlet in the village of Liuxian in the province of Wuxia. Liuxian has apparently been haunted for some time by a Kitsune or a fox spirit (why refer to it by its Japanese name if this is supposed to be ancient China?) if the Mayor (Lam Suet) is to be believed. Unable to afford bed and board Wang attracts the attention of gambling con artist Xiao Cui (or Glitter of Dawn) (Renata Tan Li-Na) and a very superstitious local girl (Cai Zi-Fen) before tavern hostess Li (He Mei-Tian) throws him out into the streets. He travels to the Miduo temple and is stunned to meet the beautiful Xianer (or Rosy Clouds Inside) (Chrissie Chau Sau-Na). What Sheng doesn’t realize is that Xianer is actually Princess Xianxia (Noble Summer or Noble Glow of Sunrise) who has spurned her lover General Wu Zhen (Huang Jun-Qi) and now exists as a húli jīng or nine-tailed fox. As Wang Sheng and Xianer face dangers, both ethereal and terrestrial, together a deep romance blossoms between the embattled fox spirit and her virtuous mortal suitor.

That The Extreme Fox is heavily redolent of A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) goes almost without saying. Chrissie gets to wear a few beautiful dresses, there’s plenty of shots with Chrissie in a mist-shrouded forest, a condensed variation on the bathtub scene, but there’s no instances of Chau playing a guqin or singing. Neither are there any instances of martial arts, swordsplay, or characters breaking into impromptu song-and-dance numbers. Understandable as this was shot on the budget of the average television movie. The Extreme Fox is, fortunately, vastly superior in every respect than the ghost horror Ghost Story: Bride with Painted Skin (2016) while never reaching the epic scope of Painted Skin (2008), and Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012) either. The Extreme Fox sits comfortably in between and truly makes the best of what it could accomplish on a limited budget. To its everlasting credit it’s far more faithful to its source material than Wilson Yip Wai-Shun’s A Chinese Ghost Story (2011) with Liu Yi-Fei (劉亦菲) from two years before. The production value is surprisingly decent for a webmovie for the Mainland China market. Had this been produced in Hong Kong it probably would feature a lot more action, but The Extreme Fox works the best as a supernatural love story. The two female name-stars apparently ended up on opposite ends of the cinematic spectrum. Renata Tan Li-Na would end up in the well-intended Girls With Guns action feature Angel Warriors (2013) and hasn’t acted since 2016, whereas Chrissie Chau Sau-Na has become a respected and respectable A-lister.

If your only exposure to Wellson Chin Sing-Wai was the The Inspector Wears Skirts (1988-1992) franchise and the loopy Cynthia Khan HK actioner Super Lady Cop (1992) you’d never expect him to be able to conjure up something as delightfully old-fashioned as this. It never quite reaches the lofty heights of Tsui Hark’s A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) but that doesn’t stop it from at least trying to channel its essence. The Extreme Fox is closer in spirit to A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) than the ill-fated 2011 remake was. Joey Wong’s performance as the condemned ghost maiden is legendary for a reason, and Chrissie Chau Sau-Na does a close approximation of it here. On average (and given its slightly higher budget) Chau does a better nine-tailed fox than Shin Min-a (신민아) in the South Korean television series My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (내 여자친구는 구미호) (2010). We would have preferred a prosthetic mask for the partial transformation scenes but digital is the way of today, so there’s that. Alex Fong Lik-Sun is tolerable enough as the clumsy and kind-hearted scholar but he’s no match for the late Leslie Cheung in one of his most memorable roles. Perhaps it’s the nature of the beast with this being a Pu Songling adaptation, but at key points The Extreme Fox re-enacts scenes from A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) sometimes almost verbatim. The most notable among these are the opening kill of an intrepid male wanderer, the truncated bathtub scene (albeit without the drifting rose petals, Chrissie Chau losing various articles of clothing, or any of the situational humour), and the scholar warding off various unholy forces of evil with a merry band of different allies. For reasons largely unexplained the nine-tailed fox (狐狸精) is referred to here by its Japanese name. Even the Korean gumiho (구미호) is more recognizable on average.

As it stands The Extreme Fox not only is one of the better Pu Songling adaptations, but also a Chrissie Chau Sau-Na feature that can be actively recommended for the casual viewer. It never becomes an epic or grand adventure on the scope of Mural (2011) but it compensates its lack of impressive setpieces with an abundance of dream-like atmosphere and a screenplay that understands the strengths of the story it’s adapting. It might not possess the oneiric, fairytale quality of Green Snake (1993), and in fact etches closer towards the stageplay quality of the Shaw Brothers classic The Enchanting Shadow (1960) from some five decades earlier. Mainland China has an abundance of fantasy wuxia on the small – and big screen, and the quality tends to be wildly divergent depending on any number of variables. The Extreme Fox comes to us by way of the Film Bureau which is usually never an indication of quality. Thankfully the opposite is true, and The Extreme Fox is a fantasy wuxia for a general audience. It might not be a match for Tsui Hark’s most celebrated works but it admirably rises to the occassion of transcending any number of limitations imposed upon it. That should count for something, and there’s Chrissie Chau Sau-Na too. Let’s not forget her….