Search - Needing You on DVD

A Deserving HK Box Office Hit

07/12/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Though they've begun to dabble in commercial cinema, Milky Way Productions has never done a movie this fluffy and inconsequential. Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai have adapted a Metro Radio audio play about workplace romance and gossip, and even brought in the two stars who performed said play: Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng. The result is probably the most satisfying and enjoyable HK romance since The Golden Girls.

Lau is Wah-Siu, womanizing top sales manager of an HK electronics firm. Cheng is Kinki, one of his newly transferred assistants, who finds her boyfriend Dan (Gabriel Harrison) cheating on her. Kinki is an emotionally unusual girl. Given to fits of pathological cleaning, Kinki is a perpetual doormat but a pure-hearted girl (is there ever any other type in an HK romance?). Though Wah-Siu initially finds Kinki an awful employee, he eventually recognizes her kindness and work ethic, and proceeds to befriend and mentor her in resolving her situation with Dan. Meanwhile, old flame Fiona (Fiona Leung) arrives and senses that Kinki may be occupying to much to Wah-Siu's time. She arranges to have internet mogul Roger Young (Raymond Wong) squire Kinki, which drives Wah-Siu into his own romantically-depressed spiral.

This airy movie sounds like a typical weeper, but Johnnie To and Wai-Ka Fai find new ways to entertain. Wah-Siu and Kinki are both overdrawn but likable and identifiable characters, and their romantic trials are told more through incidental action than verbal affirmation. Leave it to the Milky Way guys to pioneer a cinematic romantic comedy. When whole pages of exposition can be substituted by one finely-timed gesture or action, it makes moviegoing all the more enjoyable. Sammi Cheng and Andy Lau manage to find some genuine chemistry, with Cheng turning in a delightfully endearing performance. Her goofy charm and girlish grace make her the most winning HK romantic comedy lead since Anita Yuen. At the halfway point of 2000, Needing You qualifies as the best Hong Kong film of the year."

It's all in the execution

Leonard E. Sackett | Pasadena, CA USA | 08/02/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It could be argued that there has not been an original movie plot since the silent age. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the realization that it's not the story you tell, but HOW you tell the story. Of course this movie is predictable, it's a romantic comedy. If a suspense or mystery film is predictable then it ceases to to be suspenseful or mysterious. But 99% of romantic comedies end the same way and everybody knows it. The pleasure is in the journey. Your traveling partners on this journey are the dependable Andy Lau and the mesmerizing Sammi Cheng. Ms. Cheng is a wonderful, quirky actress who commands your attention every time she's on the screen, even if she's just sipping a soda through a straw. The writing is crisp and funny. The direction is brought to you by that wonderful duo Johnny To & Wai Ka-fai, who are responsible for some of the best HK movies in recent years, including "Beyond Hypothermia" and the gender bending "Wu Yen" which also starred Sammi Cheng. If you like romantic comedies, then this is your film."

Squeeky Clean, Funny and Fun

Charles Scott Bennett | New York, NY USA | 04/29/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you're looking for a sweet, light-weight distraction in your movie life, this one will do. This film succeeds, with appropriate casting for the material, good pacing, and laughs, because it's not trying too hard. Some Hong Kong romantic comedies try too hard to be funny and sweet. This one simply is."

One of my favorite chinese movies

Dana Lau | Berkeley, CA USA | 11/19/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was probably the cutest, fluffiest, and most random...but so funny...Chinese movies I've ever watched. I had already watched two of the three Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng, Johnnie To "Golden Trio" films before, but this one beats Happy Dieting and Yesterday Once More."