[KFCC] F***/Off Review

Story: Li Ka Sing is a shy bank clerk living a simple life. But because of his naivety, he trusted a man in some investment program and lost all his money. Now in debt and owing 3 millions to a sinister and ugly debt collector working for the triad, he has one week to find the money or else he will get killed. One day, he meets PaPa, an ex-crook who is always trying to prove his worth to both his girlfriend and his ex-rascal mate LoLo. Ka Sing explains his problem to PaPa who suggests helping him find the money by robbing a bank. But before executing the plan, PaPa will have to train Ka Sing to be a bank robber. During the following days, Ka Sing will follow a strict training from PaPa. But during the days passed together, Ka Sing will begin to loose confidence in PaPa and doubt his real capabilities, but the final day is coming very soon and they will have to decide if they finally execute the robbery or not.

Review: Asian humor is something that not everyone can enjoy, sometime too slapstick or stupid or sometime too subtle, I can understand why it is not a favorite for everyone. I, myself don't like slapstick humor too much, it can be good for a couple of jokes during the movie, but I can't watch a movie that only bases its humor on slapstick comedy. Hopefully for me, F***/Off doesn't fall in the slapstick categories too much, which I found surprising, cause the majority of humor coming from HK is usually slapstick jokes.

Using a not so original story of too imbeciles who want to rob a bank, the movie never stop to be interesting and even with a simple premise like this. A good part of the movie and also the best one is of course the whole stupid training that Ka Sing will have to follow. These events will give us the chance to really know these two characters. In a whole, I could say that it is a comedy about bank robbery but also a comedy about friendship and trust. But the only point where I think the story really fail is the ending, it is a kind of open ending in which we are not really sure what really happened at the end. Some people will probably not mind, but I found it really unclear and looked really rushed in the movie, I think that the story could have used a better ending than this. In all, even if the story doesn't hide any real surprises in is plot, it still fun to follow and also have some great memorable comical moments.

The movie doesn't include a large cast, but every character was there to support the movie. The story centers on the comical duo of Dayo Wong and Cheung Tat Ming and their performance was excellent. The chemistry between the two actors was great and it really showed on screen. Both characters were really different but they completed each other so well that every time something wrong was happening to them, you could just not stop laughing at their stupid behavior. Angela Tong was also very good in the short role of the girl friend of PaPa, as for the rest of the supportive cast; they were also great in their respective role. I can't remember any character that really annoyed me in the movie unlike in some other comedy of this genre, where there's always this kind of annoying character to ruin a good joke., F***/Off doesn't suffer from any bad acting at all.

Hong Kong comedies usually base their humor on slapstick jokes and this kind of humor is not really my favorite type of humor. I was really surprised about the comic aspect of F***/OFF, the movie based more his humor on the situations and dialogues from the actors than trying to use weird editing and speedy fast forward to show his humor like in most slapstick comedy. A lot of jokes were very unpredictable and sometime subtle too. Making allusion to the triad world and HK cinema in general, I would say that you have to know a little about Chinese culture and HK cinema in general to understand and appreciate every joke in the movies. In all, most of the jokes were realistic, in a way that it could have really happened, ok maybe not every joke but at least most of it.

This movie is maybe not a great classic of all time like some other HK comedy, but it is the kind of movie that needs to be discovered by a wider HK fan audience. Asian humor is really something that not everyone appreciate but if you are still skeptical about how good an HK comedy can be, then you should give a try to F***/Off. With his great cast and consistence in his humor all along, the movie is a very good production from HK. If you don't like slapstick humor, you will probably be very surprised by the humor of this sweet little comedy from Hong Kong.