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Edmund Lee


The beloved characters from the hit TVB drama Return of the Cuckoo (2000) make a wholly avoidable comeback in this exploitative big-screen sequel. Written and directed by the talentless rom-com veteran Patrick Kong Pak-leung, who had no connection whatsoever to the original, this tearjerker-wannabe is an opportunistic product that takes great liberty to rain on your treasured memory.
WATCH Return of the Cuckoo trailer

The Macau-set TV series saw nice guy Man-cho (Julian Cheung Chi-lam) – who was traumatised as a kid into being temporarily mute by his birth mother and then raised by former nightclub singer Aunt Q (Nancy Sit Ka-yin) – fall deeply in love with the adoptive sister he grew up with, Kwan-ho (Charmaine Sheh Sze-man), before conceding her to a more resourceful friend, Lai-shun (Steven Ma Chun-wai).
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While the original story savoured the wisdom that the greatest love is the unrequited kind, the new film summons the characters for an unwarranted onslaught of misery – just so the will-they-won’t-they hook can live on. Indeed, viewers may be appalled from the start, when they learn that Lai-shun and his two children with Kwan-ho have been handily killed in a car crash that she feels responsible for.
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With much of the main cast back to reprise their roles, the story resumes in 2007 and quickly turns into a tortuous drag as Man-cho patiently nurses Kwan-ho – who is in grief but obviously single again! – back to life, although it would take several more years (on top of a landslide and a potentially fatal injury) to bring the star-crossed would-be lovers really together, family pressure be damned.
In a vicious twist that speaks volumes about Kong’s tasteless emotional manhandling, the film also sees Man-cho heartlessly lead on his long-time admirer Kiki (Joe Chen Chiau-en), a Zhuhai-born bakery girl who was born mute, while perpetually keeping her in the friend zone. No one comes out of this travesty looking good; Return of the Cuckoo is simply not the follow-up that anyone was asking for.
Return of the Cuckoo opened on November 12


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Film review: Return of the Cuckoo – Patrick Kong’s sequel treads on your love for the hit TV series

No Caption Available.

(From left) Nancy Sit, Julian Cheung and Charmaine Sheh in Return of the Cuckoo.

Film review: Return of the Cuckoo – Patrick Kong’s sequel treads on your love for the hit TV series

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Big-screen sequel to much loved TVB drama from 2000 is tortuous and tasteless

Big-screen sequel to much loved TVB drama from 2000 is tortuous and tasteless