Review: This movie will make you ask one question from the beginning to the end: Why is Cecilia Cheung so sexy? That's a rhetorical question, because her sexiness cannot be justified by petty English words, but by beautiful Chinese poetry. That probably explains her initial attraction to Louis Koo's character in the film. Wait…Louis Koo's first poetry reading in this film was complete and utter crap. Hmm……let's start this review over again shall we?

Lunar New Year films come once every year. Basically, the Lunar New Year films are equivalent to American Summer Blockbusters; they are mostly commercial made films. With the Lunar New Year tag, usually it's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and money-maker. The Lion Roars pretty much delivers what is expected from it, but nothing more. The Chinese title of this film refers to a Chinese proverb that describes a wife's attitude towards her husband. It's not just any attitude, oh no, it's the hard love attitude (beatings, scoldings, etc.). Much like the title suggest, Cecilia Cheung does quite a bit of beating.

Let's be honest here, if the price for marrying Cecilia Cheung is just a couple of bruises, then I say it's worth it. I mean, how can you turn down such a beautiful and sexy woman which possesses Hong Kong's most beautiful smile? You simply can't! Luckily our man Louis Koo, or Seasonal Chan in the movie, doesn't. Good thing too, Koo and Cheung have wonderful chemistry. Then again, in most of Cecilia Cheung's films, she usually has good chemistry with her leading man.

Since they stick together, hilarity ensues. That's where the weakness of the film occurs. The humor is random and very uneven. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. For example, in order to bring about a conflict that changes the story, the writer throws in one of the biggest monkey wrenches in film history! The events come so far from left field that you're left scratching your head and wondering what the hell happened. Sometimes though, the random humor works. For example, having the supporting cast spend five minutes to obtain a secret antidote, only to have Koo trip and fall in the most random spot and shatter the antidote gave me a good chuckle. The humor is just….well…uneven. It'll jump from a heavy emotional-driven scene to Koo dancing like an obese penguin.

The core of the film is a story about how if there is true love, all will prevail. Yes…cliched…..I know. But somehow though, after all the bizarre humor and cliches, this film managed to move me into watery eyes (not tears, because I'm a man and men don't cry unless the movie's My Sassy Girl). Koo's "lover-who-realized-he-lost-something-great-so-he-decides-to-go-beyond-his-capibilities-and-win-back-his-lover's-heart" speech (required in almost every HK romantic comedy) simply touched me and almost made me forget some of the low points of the movie. The keyword in the previous sentence is "almost."