| After acclaimed features Over The Rainbow, Under The Skirt and The Golden Girls, Joe Ma took a nosedive into mediocrity but not commercially as the twentysomething's rom/com Feel 100% (based on a comic book) became a success at the local box-office. Starring Ekin Cheng, Eric Kot and Sammi Cheng, they portray three friends since school who are now living life in a shallow way and not growing up. All not breaking pattern except Sammi's Cherie who is feeling the crush she has on Ekin's Jerry. He is feeling nothing but to fool around and Kot's Hui Lok goes on a risky venture by meeting up with a phone flirt (Christine Ng) who turns out to be all out insane. The "I learned something today..."-statements are not far away.
From a hot year for in particular Ekin Cheng, star of Young And Dangerous, the main men Andrew Lau and Manfred Wong behind that franchise perhaps looked to spawn more series but thankfully stopped early (Feel 100%, Once More followed, then key personnel except director Ma were out) despite the figures being in their favour. Feel 100% attempts a mix of upbeat, light and clownish behaviour mixed in with so called drama as our characters finally understand what the true love is in their lives. All fine and well but striking that balance in an awful way, Ma's film is the equivalent of tasteless chewing gum and that's not enough to earn any acclaim. Decent parodies of A Moment Of Romance and Mission Impossible rises the off-beat nature of the flick but lacking devotion towards anyone hurts it severely. The cast is pretty, wacky and are not asked to venture far outside of that realm. A sappy end montage offends the viewer, Christine Ng is earlier basically seen raping Eric Kot and then trying to commit suicide with him in the most odd tangent of the flick. Watch Ng, better style and emotions in Riley Yip's Love Is Not A Game, But A Joke instead. |
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