Story:
A job desk at the Lost Property Department is the only
opportunity that L.K. Fong could get after graduating
from the Police Academy and god knows how boring that
job is. But one day an opportunity strikes her, when
the Special Crimes Division chief chooses her for an
undercover mission. The mission is very simple, try
to sneak a microphone to a dinner table where the Godfather's
son, Ah Kuen is making a deal, even a simple recruit
can do this, right?
But thing turn out into a complete mess and Ah Kuen
is starting to fall for Fong. The chief see this opportunity
and decide that Fong should play the game. But with
spending time with Ah Kuen, Fong is also stating to
have real feeling for the gangster, which is making
the situation very complicated as she will have to
choose to follow her duty over her feelings.
Review: Since the last few years, Hong Kong
production had some poor results at the local box
office. But only one genre is still making assured
profits and gathering a minimum of attention every
time, and that genre, unfortunately for avid action
fans, is the romantic comedy. Hong Kong is now producing
this genre in mass quantities and has put on the side
more risky big box office production. But out of all
these movies, there is still some that are worth watching,
such as Love Undercover.
The premise of the movie is rather simple; a female
undercover cop falls for the suspect she is investigating.
But even with a basic storyline like this, the movie
still surprises and is able to reach the viewer with
a lot of great comical and touching situations. There's
also no real slow down in the movie and the progression
of the storyline is very easy and fun to follow. The
only small problem of the story is the ending, which
seemed a little bit rushed and could have been a lot
better.
The team behind the movie Dummy Mommy Without a
Baby, who had a great result at the box office, is
back. Director Joe Ma, who mostly directs romantic
comedy, surpassed their last production without a
doubt. And with the success of Love Undercover, it's
no surprise that a sequel is also being planned. But
the real shine of this movie are the actors themselves.
Surprisingly there's a lot of characters in the movie
and there's not that much time allowed to each of
the characters, except for the two main cast members,
but the performance of the actors was just enough
to make them the highlight of the movie.
With less than ten movies in her background, Miriam
Yeung, is now becoming the queen of romantic comedy
in HK. Interpreting L.K. Fong, the main character
of the movie, it was very apparent that Miriam Yeung
was having a blast during the production. She is the
kind of actress that brings so much heat and vitality
in her play that makes her character a lot more human
and loveable. And of course her facial expressions
and comical behavior were as funny as usual.
Daniel Wu, who was far from his usual role of bad
ass action hero, played the son of the triad kin ping
that L.K. Fong was investigating. But even if I prefer
him in action movies, Wu is a very versatile actor
that is pretty convincing when the time comes to show
emotion. I won't hide the fact that I felt a certain
pity for him when Fong was playing with his feelings
like a yo-yo.
The secondary characters were also very present
and play an important part in the movie. The best
one is the police chief, played by Hui Siu-Hung. This
type of role fits him so well and his over-acting
was great and funny.
A good thing for those who don't like romance too
much is that the comedy factor is very present all
along in the movie. Of course the movie gets a bit
more dramatic near the end, which is something to
be expected from this kind of production. One thing
that is good about the comedy factor is that the type
of humor you find in HK production is usually slapstick
and easy jokes. In this production, the slapstick
humor is of course present but at least it is not
over-used and a lot of jokes work very well too, even
for the people who are not used to HK humor.
Love Undercover is maybe not the best HK production
of the year, but it still gets some recognition at
being a success in a genre that is now too common
in HK. Korean filmmakers are still the best at making
romantic comedy but if HK would put a bit more effort
in their scripts, HK romantic comedies could really
become as popular as the Korean ones.