Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? OK.
Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? No.
Score: 3.0/5
Secret ending? No, but the credits are interesting.
Running time: 100 minutes (~1.75 hours)
“Chongqing Hotpot (火锅英雄)” is a Chinese heist drama about the events that lead to four friends robbing a bank. Unfortunately, a whole host of obstacles stand in their way. It stars Chen Kun (Liu Bo), Qin Hao (Xu Dong), Yu Entai (Four Eyes), Bai Baihe (Yu Xiaohui).
“Chongqing Hotpot (火锅英雄)” is a deceptively friendly title for a caper film, and it gets rather dark at times. What anchors all of its visuals is the relationship between the three buddies in the film, and the strong friendships that tie them together. Oddly enough, you don’t really get mouthwatering shots of actual Chongqing hotpot dishes in the film, but that’s a minor quibble.
Highlights
Friendship and brotherhood
The friendship between the three friends is the stuff of childhood dreams, yet they pull it off without an iota of corniness in it. They’re just so sincere and familiar with each other that you can’t help hoping they succeed, even if they’re technically committing a crime. Fortunately, the film allows them to resolve the issue ethically, while still providing a satisfying ending for the trio.
The romance is just nice
Face it — this isn’t the sort of movie where you’d be expecting a full blown romance of any sort. But a film without a love interest can get too intense, skewing too much to the proclivities of either gender. Here, female ex-classmate Yu Xiaohui (Bai Baihe) is the object of romantic interest for the characters, but she’s still a necessary character in her own right. There are hints of attraction, but no tearful proclamations of eternal sacrifice, which are enough to keep the dynamic interesting without going overboard.
Letdowns
Too many coincidences
The central premise of the film is dependent on a fairly huge coincidence, which is acceptable since every inciting incident is a conflux of circumstances. But later on, the characters just happen to be in the right place at the right time, and this continues to escalate all the way to climax, where multiple groups of rival characters literally turn up on cue. If any of the protagonists bought lottery tickets, they’d have struck the first prize midway through the film.
Stylisation goes to the extreme
Yes, the colour correction and choice of shots combine to give a distinct, stylish look to the film, something that straddles the line between artistic visuals and mainstream slickness. Then it suddenly goes into a fit of indulgence in the climax, giving us one long uninterrupted take of a fighting sequence like it were a Korean arthouse movie. Huh?
Lacks a strong message
The problem with “Chongqing Hotpot (火锅英雄)” is that while it has beautiful themes of friendship, it doesn’t actually say anything with its story. You don’t leave the cinema enriched or encouraged. There’s no point to the events of the movie, when it felt like it was actually building up to something.
“Chongqing Hotpot (火锅英雄)” is a mixed bag that focuses on relationships, but everything else is rather unbalanced.
“Chongqing Hotpot (火锅英雄)” opens in cinemas 14 April, 2016 (Thursday).
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