Review: There are men who have witnessed the horrors of war and deal with the scars it leaves behind. Others have come back from the brink of madness, and stared their darkest nightmares in the face. Some have walked the path of suffering, felt true pain, and suffered the cold, harsh realities of this cruel, cruel world. I know how they feel, for I have just sat through ‘Unforgettable Fantasy’, a DVD that I would rather have inserted sideways into my rectum than into my DVD player.

The film starts off as ‘Robert’ (Frankie Chan) joins an advertising agency, and an eternity is spent subjecting the viewer to some untranslatable comedy and pointless ‘comic’ situations.

Strange things happen during an advert shoot, and the company realises that the studio is haunted. Robert is asked to stay in the studio overnight to watch out for ghosts, and suddenly the movie begins trying to emulate Yuen Clan comedies such as ‘Miracle Fighters’. The giant statues on set come to life, and fire balls start flying around the place. For a fleeting moment, ‘Unforgettable Fantasy’ seems promising, but with a fraction of the imagination and choreography of the aforementioned movies, it’s just not enough.

For the most part, the film follows Roberts attempts to woo Cleo (Joyce Ngai), who works at the office, while the Fox spirit (who looks just like Cleo, and is also played by Joyce Ngai) causes a lot of mischief using magic spells reminiscent of ‘60s American comedy show ‘Bewitched’. This is where the movies worst flaws come into play. For a start, it is impossible to empathise with Robert, who doesn’t seem to notice that Cleo is a snooty, obnoxious bitch with a self-importance only outsized by her ridiculous shoulder pads. His stalker like persistence becomes quite creepy, and he is oblivious to the fact that Cleo is not only an awful woman, but both her and her ghostly counterpart are the worst dressed women in movie history.

The Fox Spirit is just as annoying as Cleo, for different reasons. For a start, the pixie-like magical meddling and constant, ceaseless giggling and nose-wrinkling really demands a certain kind of actress. Played by a younger, cuter woman, they might have got away with it, but Joyce Ngai and her suspicious Adam’s Apple just seem out of place in the role. At times I wanted to smash through the TV screen and throttle her with her grey neck tie.

There are also gaping holes in the film’s logic. For a start, why does it not explain why the Fox spirit is sometimes invisible, but sometimes not, at the convenience of the scene. Why does Robert seem to have a bond with the Toaist character, when they clearly hate each other? Why do the advertising executives star in their own adverts? Why does Robert suddenly blame the mirror for the ghostly activity early in the film, when he has been provided no clues whatsoever to the link between the two?