Dung sing sai tsau 2011

East Meets West is a genre mashup comedy from director Jeffrey Lau. Lau made the classic Steven Chow films A Chinese Odyssey 1 and 2. His specialty seems to be mixing comedy with heartfelt mythmaking, elements which made his Chinese Odyssey films cult favorites. He revisited the Sun Wukong theme in 2005 with A Chinese Tall Story.

Here Lau thankfully has left the Sun Wukong fixation behind in favor of a new kind of mythology.. superheroes. The film works best early on as a parody in the vein of Mystery Men or Kickass. These are everyday people who become superheroes with somewhat dubious powers. The humour is hilarious, offbeat and incredibly energetic in the first half hour or so. Lau adds a bit of commentary on pop music, HK nostalgia and kung fu in the mix. The CGI is better than expected for a HK comedy and works well in the cartoonish moments.

Lau overplays his hand with the romantic angle though, leaving most of the cast with nothing to do for the second half to last third of the movie. Most of the 'heroes' have good backstories but little to no development and closure. The film undergoes a tonal shift and drags on a bit too long. The romance has some payoff, though not enough to justify the amount of screen time it gets.

On balance, it's still a worthwhile flick just for the well-done offbeat humour, something we don't get enough of these days from HK film.