Everyday Is Valentine 情迷大话王

Real estate agent OK Lai (Leon Lai) makes his living by lying — and he lies beautifully and passionately, spinning tall tales on the spot and telling them with such fervor that it's impossible not to believe him. Yet his gift for spinning yarns doesn't help him in matters of the heart — his girlfriend (Kristy Yeung), tired of his constant deceit, spontaneously decides to marry another man. Some time later, OK meets another woman — the charming Pretty (Cecilia Cheung) — but from their very first encounter, a lie creeps into their relationship. The thing is, Pretty and her flighty friends mistakenly take him for a famous tycoon, and OK decides not to dispel their doubts. What will happen when the deception is revealed?

Impressions: Since this is a Wong Jing picture, we already know perfectly well what will happen when the deception is exposed, so the question above was purely rhetorical. After sulking at each other for propriety's sake, OK and the Beauty will make up, kiss, and live happily ever after unto eternity. Being a Wong Jing film, Everyday Is Valentine is one hundred percent predictable, utterly unoriginal, and lacking in scriptural coherence, though it remains watchable all the same.

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we. Those already familiar with Jing's directorial style know well what to expect – tons of sex-themed jokes, comedic violence (the sort where a face gets bloodied and we're supposed to laugh – or at least ought to), topped off with some unhealthy fixation on money and the size of one's fortune. Wong Jing couldn't leave Hollywood hits alone either – this time he swiped a couple of ideas from the Jim Carrey comedy Liar Liar. One could go on listing the other hallmarks of Wong Jing's "signature" style indefinitely, but I'd rather stop here – those who have seen even one film by this director already know what to expect, and for the rest, well, better to see once than hear a hundred times.

Be that as it may, the movie turned out quite amusing, and a couple of episodes are genuinely witty. By and large, though, that's thanks not to Jing himself but to the actors – as you can see, the picture is packed with stars, and almost everyone gets a chance to shine. Strangely enough, Leon Lai comes off very decent – by the finale his character shrinks noticeably under the pressure of the obligatory "change for the better" he must undergo, but in the first half of the film he's far from the grey, faceless stiff we're used to seeing. Cecilia Cheung, by contrast, is plain and unremarkable – but such is the fate of all central heroines in Wong Jing's films. All they're allowed to do is sigh over their prince, cry when he hurts them, and dutifully rejoice at the reconciliation.

As you can already see, all of this is fairly conventional, and Jing doesn't even try to breathe life into the old-fashioned plot – it's not in his interest. In his view, since we keep paying every time for what we've already bought many times before in slightly different wrapping, there's no point changing a thing. I have no objection to raise, especially since I got exactly what I expected – a typical romantic comedy of the kind that's easy to watch and doesn't particularly flaunt its shortcomings, yet is forgotten the moment it's over. I recommend it first and foremost to fans of the actors involved; everyone else needn't hurry – there are other ways to kill an hour and a half of your life.