Opening Day: 23 March 2006

Synopsis:

2 BECOME 1 is a woman’s odyssey of her fight with breast cancer. The story centers on a regular white-collar woman named BINGO (Miriam Yeung), who leads a carefree city life that includes guarding her turf in the office and dating and gossiping with her three girlfriends. However, her carefree life soon turns upside down when she found a lump in her breast. Everything begins to fall apart as she tries to cope with the loss of femininity in a series of bittersweet events. With the help of a happy-go-lucky doctor V (Richie Jen) and a shy but talented teenager SING-PING (Justin Lo), Bing begins to find new meanings in her turmoil and the will to face her own demons.

Movie Review:


When it comes to comedies about breasts, Hong Kong films seem to be churning quite a few movies that focus on that certain female body region. There was the Lau Ching Wan’s “La Brassiere”, Francis Ng’s “Beauty and the Breast” and now “2 become 1” from Miriam Yeung and Richie Ren, sharing similar fasciations with women’s breasts with a more noble intention than the previous two movies.

Think of “2 become 1” as a pink ribbon project, promoting breast cancer awareness to the masses in the most entertaining manner possible.

The protagonist, Bingo (Miriam Yeung) is a tough advertising executive by day but a loner by night. Surrounded by friends and yet pining for a companion. Her love life seemingly improves when she meets with handsome doctor, V (Richie Ren) and before too long, they were tumbling onto the bed for a potential passionate love making. Just before they could consumate their new found love, V detected a hard lump in her left breast and eventually leads to her discover of her breast cancer.

Playing the roles that Miriam Yeung is well known for, her character Bingo initally handles her terrible situation with cheerful outlook. But alas, there won’t be much of a movie if everything was all that plain sailing. A few couple of obstacles were thrown in her way and pretty soon, depression sets in.

Lucky for her, there’s V who is always there to catch her when she falls, a role that’s happy-go-lucky and extremely supportive which suits Richie Ren’s on screen persona just as well too.

Both Miriam Yeung and Richie Jen once again prove their longevity and main stay in a dwindling Hong Kong film. They are effortlessly charming, seamlessly alluring the audience to watch their performances, making this journey of overcoming breast cancer enjoyable.

However their performance and the lighthearted situational comedy with the breast cancer issue wasn’t enough to stretch into a substantial movie and a few more subplots (such as the return of an old lover, a traditional medicine con artist, friends fighting over the same guy, a difficult working environment faced with cut throat colleague and a challenging advertising project) were added to emphasize the importance of staying positive during the most difficult and trying times.

While most of the subplots worked relatively well with the overall theme (notably the one with Lam Ka Tung as Bingo’s old lover), one especially stood out as a sore thumb and it involves one of the current hottest singer and songwriter in Hong Kong, Justin Lo. His segment as a shy talented singer that feared audition after being rejected badly by Bingo felt like a very forced product placement in this movie which has simply got be edited to keep the pace smoother.

Even though it’s a film with breast cancer as the main theme, don’t expect to learn any information about breast cancer awareness or even its treatment in this lighthearted comedy. However it does contain some heartwarming messages for the breast cancer patients – that loving support is all around, and staying positive instead of holding on false hopes might be just the right way to face this horrible illness.

(A breast cancer awareness movie with a lighthearted comedic touch to it)

Review by Richard Lim Jr