Film review: Barbara Wong's Girls shows its female protagonists in a bad light
Conventional wisdom has it that a film focusing on three female friends should have engaging female characters — especially when it has a female director, producer and scriptwriter.
Starring: Fiona Sit Hoi-kei, Ivy Chen Yi-han, Yang Zishan, Shawn Yue Man-lok, Vanness Wu Jian-hao
Director: Barbara Wong Chun-chun
Category: IIA (Putonghua with some English)
Conventional wisdom has it that a film focusing on three female friends should have engaging female characters — especially when it has a female director, producer and scriptwriter.
But it's the men who come off best in Barbara Wong Chun-chun's , mainly because the movie's three female leads act so childishly, emotionally and illogically that if director-producer-scriptwriter Wong were male, she would probably be accused of misogyny.
The film begins the day that Kimmy (Fiona Sit Hoi-kei), Xiwen (Ivy Chen Yi-han) and Xiaomei (Yang Zishan) graduate from university. While the rest of their class celebrate, Kimmy declares that she wishes to commit suicide because her father is sending her to the US against her will.
A tragic outcome is prevented by the intervention of close friends Xiwen and Xiaomei, with whom Kimmy goes on to share a spacious flat after they find employment — as a hotel staffer, an assistant film director (to Barbara Wong, who's shown filming a sequel to her documentary ) and a high-flying executive.
From then on, the crises in the young women's lives stem from their interactions with certain men, as well as from the conflicted relationships they have with each other.
Xiwen is traumatised when she discovers her handsome fiancé (Wallace Chung Hon-leung) has been cheating on her, while trouble brews after Jiu Tian (Vanness Wu Jian-hao), the charismatic star musician that Kimmy is attracted to, prefers to lavish his romantic affection on Xiaomei.
Even while upset and very drunk, the good-looking Xiwen is able to meet an extremely nice fellow who gives her his coat to wear, although he's clearly feeling cold himself. Qiao Li (Shawn Yue Man-lok) has a liking for tight trousers and other proclivities that make Xiwen and her flatmates suspect that he's gay — but the three females seated next to me at the screening provided audible proof of his heterosexual appeal.
has a couple of charming moments, a few funny scenes, and some lines that pack a punch. These include, "If you got paid for sex, you'd be filthy rich by now", which is directed at Kimmy, who spends far more time in the company of her female friends than male lovers, but is still known for her promiscuity. Her free-living image is bolstered by pronouncements such as, "I haven't been able to have an orgasm for two weeks. How tragic."
The film has sections that are meant to be dramatic, but they feel tonally wrong and misplaced. There's also the sense that some well-scripted scenarios have lost their emotional impact because they are badly directed.
Most problematic is that none of the immature twenty-something women at the centre of seem worth caring about — at least, not until they rid themselves of their irresponsible, risky ways and learn to take better care of themselves.
opens on August 7
