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Plain Jane to the Rescue
Hong Kong 1982
produced by Josephine Siao, Louis Sit for Hi-Pitch Productions, Golden Harvest
directed by John Woo
starring Josephine Siao, Ricky Hui, Li Ming-yang, Charlie Cho, Woo Fung, Lau Hark-Sun, David Wu, Yuen Ling To, Chou Chi, John Woo, Roman Tam, Li Lin Lin, Chen Sing
written by Lau Chun-Wah, John Woo, music by Tang Siu-Lam
Plain Jane
review by Mike Haberfelner
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After trying herself in a couple of jobs and failing royally in all of
them, Jenny (Josephine Siao) is hired by rich businessman Sha (Charlie
Cho) to teach his father (Li Ming-Yang) some manners. An odd job regarding
Jenny's lack of qualifications one might think, but Jenny is nothing if
not resolute. So against all odds, she becomes friends with the old man,
and actually manages to teach him some manners ... enough for him to make
it to his birthday party, where he is then drugged and shipped to a
company-owned hospital by his son. But why does sonny do that? Because
daddy owns the company, but with him out of the way, his little boy can
take over. And once he has taken over the company, he tries to take over
all of Hong Kong, tearing down shanty towns, taking over business afer
business ... all on the legal side, but still the wrong thing to do!
Jenny, her friend Fang (Ricky Hui) and an inept lawyer (Woo Fung) soon
figure the only way to stop Sha is to have his father sign a paper that
would revoke Sha's takeover - but he's held in a maximum security
hospital, and all attempts to break in there fail ... until our heroes
become hostages of an arsonist wanting to blow up a tunnle, and they
persuade the arsonist to make it one of his demands to get old Mr Sha to
them ... of course it ends happily. The third film in the Plain
Jane serious is pretty enjoyable and rather hilarious in the
beginning, when Jenny fails in job after job (a scene in which she's a
stuntgirl is especially great), and Josephine Siao shows her full comic
potential. Unfortunately, when the plot sets in, the film gets a little
choppy, marred by the lack of a proper build-up, and the whole thing is a
bit far-fetched, too. And as for John Woo's direction - he does an
adequate job, sure, but his action sequences aren't half as elegant as
only a few years later. In all, quite amusing, but anything but a
masterpiece.
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