Starring: Jackie Chan, Louis Koo Tin-lok, Michael Hui Koon-man
Director: Benny Chan Muk-sing
Category: IIA (Cantonese)
Two men and a baby are weighed down by ponderous plot points in this mildly diverting action comedy. The movie heralds a welcome return to a more carefree Jackie Chan, after the bleak adventures of such recent celluloid escapades as The Myth, but cute baby antics ultimately prove a poor substitute for the sublime balance between laughs, drama, and thrills that was a hallmark of Chan's best features - a blend that once again eludes director Benny Chan Muk-sing, who collaborated with the star on New Police Story.
The scenario (co-written by the director, Jackie Chan and Alan Yuen Kam-lun) begins lightly enough, with thieves Thongs (Chan) and Octopus (Louis Koo) going from crime to crime till fate leads them to rescue a baby snatched by the ex-boyfriend (Terence Yin Chi-wai) of the child's mother (Cherrie Ying Choi-yee). . The sequence sets the stage for one of the film's better Chan stunts, a slide down a hospital atrium's long and curving banister.
The presence of Michael Hui as Landlord, the thieves' partner and mentor, ups the comedy potential - but the potential is progressively bogged down by sermon-like moralising and maudlin sentimentality. Rather than going for the screwball potential of a duo adept at battling baddies but way out of their depth with a toddler, the filmmakers heavy-handedly manipulate the heart strings via weepy subplots about Thongs and his estranged father (Kuk Fung), Octopus and his estranged wife (Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin), and Landlord's mentally unbalanced spouse (Teresa Carpio).
