„72 Tenants of Prosperity“ is a complete mess!

(Hong Kong – David Wong, VFC)  After a successful start to produce movies and to fill theatres again (the 2009 production “Laughing Gor - Turning Point” did indeed fairly well at the box offices) Shaw Brothers and Shaw owned television powerhouse TVB wanted to please the audiences with a special treat for the Chinese New Years period.

“72 Tenants of Prosperity” was deemed to start a new Shaw craze throughout Asia and the rest of the world, and/or at least to make it big with Chinese speaking audiences. Alas, after seeing this flick, me and a lot of critics are surely inclined to say, that the choice to remake the 1973 box office wonder “The House of 72 Tenants” was a catastrophic one. Maybe Shaw Studio should refrain to try their hands on comedy, on drama or musicals forever and try to stick to what they did best in past decades. Perhaps they should make action, martial arts and costume Wuxia Pian instead. Because “72 Tenants” sinks like a torpedoed ship and never gets going at all.

Director/actor Eric Tsang completely fails to revive the spirit and the lightness of the predecessor, he tries too much to put together a story and by doing so, he screws up more than he makes good. The only things which are working – if only to a certain degree and only because one has seen the original and has good intentions to embrace this flick at the beginning – is the opening sequence, the opening credits and the first gag. Those fragments are done in good old Shaw style. But the rest of this movie is forgettable and moreover totally annoying. The story about the love triangle between Jackie Cheung, Eric Tsang and Anita Yuen is lame, the evil landlord inclined to raise the rent is a figure which is rather laughable, the hunt for a criminal is awkward and the few musical numbers, the rather short martial arts showdown and the cameos (sadly almost none of them done by stars who acted in the original movie!) can’t rescue a movie which goes in many directions and confuses the audiences instead of taking them on a enjoyable ride.

At the end of the day, this movie is a complete failure. Its plot is disjointed, haphazard and ridiculous. Watching this disaster is a complete waste of precious time. As one critic in one of Asia’s leading entertainment magazines currently states: “We see petty attempts to make a dead horse race. “72 Tenants of Prosperity” is at best absurd and at its worst a complete mess. Save you money for a good packet of “Bak Kwa” instead!”

Enough said!

Rating: 1,5 out of 10 Stars (and those only as a gesture of appreciation towards Shaw Brothers and their effort to come back!)