Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

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Watch this if you liked: "Flirting Scholar"

With what part of a man's body should he use to feed his baby son when the toddler wakes up hungry and crying in the middle of the night? You'll be devastatingly tickled by the answer. This isn't "Seeding Of A Ghost" or "Picture Of A Nymph" but there shouldn't be a single Hong Kong cinema fan that isn't going to have a good time watching this new Wong Jing comedy!

Set in the days of lavish brothels and palace politics, the James Bond here is not a suave British spy like the movie's 1969 Ian Fleming namesake "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" but good ol' Louis Koo in a comedic role as a bumbling scientist-cum-emperor guardsman 009 (Zero Zero Dog in Cantonese) who knows more about inventing strange impractical devices than practical kickass kungfu.

For this outing, Wong Jing doesn't indulge in his usual multiple-siren lineup to drive the humour, like he did in "Beauty & The Seven Beasts" or "My Secret Admirer Is A Vampire". That's because if a movie is going to star the brash and bewitching Sandra Ng, you're best off letting her steal the screen!

This enjoyable nonsensical story about a royal coup d'etat benefits from having an old school storytelling format and some credible performances from its cast, not to mention some token fighting sequences. Even the cutesy beauty Barbie Hsu (who plays Louis Koo's disgruntled love interest) pulls her own weight beyond just smiling stupidly.

Faux lesbianism and overdone eunuch jokes aside, "On His Majesty's Secret Service" is one of the funniest Hong Kong movies so far this year. This is a real Cantonese movie so forget it if you have to read the mistranslated subtitles. If however you're in on the lingo, it's time to go update yourself with some top-shelf Canto banter.


Cinema Online, 05 August 2009