Review: Fat jokes is a type of universal language we all have grown accustomed to. Remember how we teased that one fat kid who laughed and his whole body bounced up and down while his fatty titties jiggled left to right? Or how he always managed to walk into a classroom on a cold day drenched in sweat for no reason. The very funny movie, Love on a Diet, brings back that sense of nostalgia we've been missing for so long. Directors Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai delivers a heartwarming look into the trials and tribulations of a fat person's attempt at dieting. And at the same time, that attempt can be very hilarious, in a guilty-pleasure kind of way.

First thing first, when we think of fat movies, we ultimately think of fart gags and "Hercules, Hercules!" kinds of jokes. We come into the theaters wanting to see our tub of lard heroes stand up for themselves against the overbearing masculine villains. But, we also expect and demand an impeccable amount of gut-wrenching "You're so fat . . ." jokes (I do). The problem with this is that we have our minds set on a raucous movie of nothing but lard, pork chops and pie-eating contests. Love on a Diet drops that type of humor from the plot and dives into a more relationship-building atmosphere. The directors mainly focused on the relationship between Fatso, a.k.a. Fatty, and Mini Mo, a.k.a. Fatty (both are Fatties if you're wondering).

The gist of the movie is to get Mini Mo, played by the Queen of Hong Kong romance movies Sammi Cheng, back in shape. It's going to be a difficult task to overcome because she only has three months to lose 200 pounds. Even with the help of her new friend, Fatso, played by the incomparable pimp daddy of Asian Cinema Andy Lau, the diet seems impossible and dangerous at that. Fatso enlists his friends to help in the matter at hand. What these men brings to the table with their "expertise" is hilarious to say the least. They have Mini drinking colon cleansing liquid that makes her use the bathroom constantly and they also have her eating a humongous tapeworm that'll eat out the food she has in her stomach. The grueling diet sequence is the building block of their relationship. Not surprisingly, the two begin to develop an unlikely attraction toward each other. How you ask? I don't have a clue; why don't you just ask your fat friend why he's going out with that fat girl, what's her name?

What makes this movie legit and believable are the performances of Lau and Cheng. Are you surprised at that? This is their second pairing after the smash hit Needing You and they don't leave anything behind on this one. Lau and Cheng are the perfect couple, if you ask me. The chemistry between the two is so beautiful and poetic. They have an unspoken bond that is so wonderful and amazing that it rivals the bond of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. If you're gonna make a romantic love story without considering these two gifted actors is pure blasphemy.

I can't say the same thing for their costumes, though. The make-up person couldn't quite match up the skin color of the actors and what they end up with is a Michael Jackson "through the years" photo montage. The "fat suit" was also a let down. I say this probably because I'm comparing it to the likes of Nutty Professor, which I shouldn't but have to. Andy looks like somebody injected thirty pounds worth of McDonald's quarter-pounders around his neck and arms, while Sammi, on the other hand, looks realistic enough. Notice I added "enough."