Opening Day: 25 January 2009

INTERVIEW WITH FANN WONG AND CHRISTOPHER LEE

Synopsis:

A glorious, delightful and touching romantic comedy that unveils the truths behind the year’s most anticipated celebrity wedding, THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR begins when Jack (Christopher Lee) publicly proposes to Vikki (Fann Wong) during the live telecast of a regional awards show. Surprised but happy, Vikki accepts – much to the delight of the public who has been following and rooting for the two superstars’ much publicized romance.

What the public doesn't know is that the entire love affair is an elaborate and meticulously planned ruse designed to further the careers and fortunes of the two ‘lovebirds’ by their ambitious managers May and Tom. In reality, Jack has disliked Vikki from the first day they met and vice versa!

But through it all, the two stars keep up with the charade. Both of them are sure they have nothing to lose – not when they’ve signed a pre-nuptial agreement to protect themselves and their fortunes.

Just when everything is going so well, an incident has rattled some of the fans and the media. There is doubt now lingering about the authenticity of this love match.

Will they succeed in fooling a nation, and come away richer but not wiser? THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR will have you rolling down the aisles with laughter and touch your hearts with tender moments of emotional truth. Come join the Party. You and your entire family are cordially invited!

Movie Review:

Some say that reel life is usually more interesting than real life. But let’s hope that for the sake of celebrity couple Fann Wong and Christopher Lee, it’s the other way around- because their romantic comedy The Wedding Game is unfortunately quite devoid of laughs or excitement.

The idea of the movie is no doubt an interesting one- two celebrities Vikki (Fann Wong) and Jack (Christopher Lee), who have always kept their private lives secret, are now about to get married after Jack proposes to Vikki. The public cheers, the media applauds. Alas the much publicized wedding is no more than a ploy coined by their respective managers, Tom (Blackie) and May (Alice Lau).

Yes if you’re a regular reader of celebrity news, you’ll definitely see the similarities with the real-life couple themselves.  Pity then that with such a rich premise for satire, the movie fails to develop beyond its central conceit to deliver a credible enough story.

Instead, it is content to let the two stars bicker and brawl for more than half the time in various childish means. There’s Vikki and Jack quarrelling at a photo-shoot at the beach, there’s Vikki and Jack quarrelling over another photo-shoot at a studio...and the list continues. Not to mention the physical gags that they play on each other just to embarrass or get back at the other. Endearing to a certain point, they eventually get tiresome and then just tedious to sit through.

Perhaps the worse tedium is the lack of any character development of Vikki and Jack. Besides the fact that Vikki has a softer, much gentler side to her antagonistic nature with Jack, we know very little about who these two characters are. It is as if the audience is forced to rely on their knowledge of Fann and Chris to infer the nature of their onscreen personas.

It doesn’t help too that the two supporting characters, Tom and May, are equally, if not more, monotonous. Setting May up as the 40-plus year old manager secretly holding a torch for Jack may seem like a good idea but it comes off here as particularly uninspired. Ditto for Tom, Vikki’s gay manager who turns out to be straight after all (no prizes for guessing whom he eventually ends up with).

Of course, The Wedding Game was designed for Fann Wong and Christopher Lee. And I’m glad to say that true to form, they are the reason that this movie remains watchable. Whether it is trading barbs at each other or falling in love with each other, the pair shares an onscreen chemistry that makes the farcical events more appealing than it has a right to be. Fans of Fann and Chris will also not be disappointed- although they will probably not be invited to the real wedding, the final 5 minutes of the movie will certainly give them something to cheer about.

Indeed, there is no doubt that Fann Wong and Christopher Lee was the reason The Wedding Game was made. But what’s unfortunate is that besides the originality of the premise, there is simply not enough inspiration to be found elsewhere in the movie. Where it could have been ripe fodder for poking fun at the culture of say celebrity endorsements, it merely panders to them in blatant product placements.

When the funniest scene is of Jack in a motorbike driven by Vikki’s first love (Saiful Apek in a very funny cameo) chasing after Vikki, you get the feeling that this Game was no more than a gimmick.

Movie Rating:



(Unless you’re a fan of Fann or Chris or the Fann and Chris wedding, don’t bother to RSVP)

Review by Gabriel Chong