Review | Lost and Found in Tokyo film review: Michelle Wai can’t save this awful comedy
- The film is terribly scripted and many of the characters are no more than sight gags
- Directed by Charlie Choi, it is saccharine sweet, unrealistic, and certainly not funny
1.5/5 stars
One of the most underrated and underappreciated actresses working in Hong Kong today, the ever-reliable Michelle Wai Sze-nga, now 35, deserves any break she can get that would finally propel her to movie stardom. Lost and Found in Tokyo, despite Wai featuring in almost every scene, is not it. This grating and astonishingly inane piece of storytelling isn’t going to do anyone’s career any good.
Written and directed by Charlie Choi Kit-ling, who made her directorial debut with the Patrick Kong-produced PG Love in 2016, the film offers a cartoonish account of a heartbroken Hong Kong woman’s travel experiences in Tokyo.
While the scenario is a promising one that offers the possibility of a scenic travelogue or a whimsical tale of soul-searching, Choi passes up those opportunities in favour of one of the most atrociously scripted comedies in recent memory.
Wai plays Tao Sa-sa, a 29-year-old illustrator and vlogger who has an unhealthy obsession with Korean actor Song Joong-ki – this turns out to be one of the film’s many throwaway “gags”, as it is never brought up again after the opening scene. After her boyfriend of 13 years, Paul (Lawrence Chou Chun-wai), suddenly breaks up with her, Sa-sa takes up the offer of a fully paid-for trip to Tokyo to record her recovery process.
