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.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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