Film review: Comedy 'The Midas Touch' gives lacklustre effort
Edmund Lee
Starring: Chapman To Man-chat, Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin
Director: Andrew Fung Chi-keung
Category: IIB (Cantonese and Putonghua)
No stars are born with The Midas Touch, a witless showbiz parody which distantly recalls the ineptitude of producer Chan Hing-kai's earlier travesties, such as 2008's La Lingerie and 2009's Poker King.
Developed from an original story by Chan - whose La Comédie Humaine (2010) helped establish Chapman To Man-chat as a top comedy actor in Hong Kong - this scattershot film provisionally charts the rise to stardom of a seven-member girl group, christened Oh My Girls (or OMG), over a five-year period.
Somehow, this second directorial effort of veteran scriptwriter Andrew Fung Chi-keung - which reunites him with his leading man from The Bounty (2012) - also manages to keep these actresses unrecognisable through a vacuum of personalities, as well as a lack of meaningful back stories or discernible talent.
The Midas Touch follows no-nonsense debt collector Mak Chiu (played by To) as he decides, for reasons unknown, to take over a modeling agency from a penniless client. He also inherits managerial rights and responsibilities for the eight beautiful but laughably childish young women who are signed to the company.
The headcount drops to seven as one is tempted away by a porn director, never to be seen again. Although the aspiring entertainers' specialities range from barking like dogs to belching over and over, Mak Chiu is determined to "make stars out of them all".