This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Owing to constant nagging from her warty old mother, a Princess runs away from the family schloss using random acts of Kung Fu to beat up on the staff, rather than the more obvious but less cinematic approach of walking out the front door. To prevent being hoiked back to the palace and sent to bed without any dinner, she takes on the persona of a man, though it must be said, not a very masculine one.Meanwhile in a village a local restaurateur is a known bad mannered all around bully who has to resort to eating loutishly at his competitor's café as a ploy to entice people to his own eating establishment where he is of course guaranteed not to be.He's also obsessed with trying to marry off his sister and this isn't going well, possibly because she dresses as a man, and is prone to beating up casual visitors using random acts of Kung Fu. In addition he's made it a condition of marriage that suitors put their hands in a furnace without suffering injury. There are no takers but when he throws in a promise to leave the village once his sister is married, a queue forms. Unfortunately all the candidates only succeed in overloading the local burns ward.Propinquitously (??) the Princess wanders into the village and she and the restaurateur form an instant bond. There is much eating and slapping on the back and close eye contact and clinking of mugs. On introducing the Princess to his sister, the three form a tight group and have many frolics and fun adventures, constantly in each other's company.This is where the confusion begins! The brother sees the Princess (remember, she is dressed as a man) as a potential husband for his sister (remember, she is dressed as a man). But secretly, the Princess is getting the hots for the brother (who is not only dressed as a man, but is one), who thinks all the hugging and offers to massage bits of his body are good clean manly fun. The sister also falls for the Princess, longingly wishing she could reveal that she is a she and innocently believing the Princess is a he and not a she and therefore a potential spouse.The audience knows that this will end badly, though sadly not for another 70 minutes. The Princess gets a hint too, when she books in to a fortune teller who incidentally looks remarkably like a woman dressed as a man who seems to know the Princess's identity and prophesies that she will be marrying some totally different man. She is disturbed but determined to persevere nevertheless.The fun and games continue until a drunken cross-dressing party where the Princess gets into drag and comes out as a woman. Everyone laughs and she reverts to her alter ego. The sister comes out as a woman and everyone laughs, but she proves she is. No-one is stressed. The brother then tries the same trick. He is ugly and everyone laughs. They all wake up in the morning in the same bed with bad heads, a general feeling that something is not at all right, and a feeling of "where do we go from here".The Princess realizes things are getting complicated (getting complicated?) and decides to leave to go "somewhere". The brother follows her and this happens for months, with adventures and random acts of Kung Fu along the way. At some point, under a peach tree, which is apparently significant, he catches up and announces to the Princess he has the soul of a woman, and the Princess kisses him. He is still under the impression that the Princess is a man and is understandably confused, though not enough to cease tongue action. She reveals to him she is actually a woman and has to prove it; and what's more, a Princess. He is convinced but now quite distressed because while he looks like he has bagged a woman, he has lost a Brother-in-law.Meanwhile, with the help of the secret service, the Emperor eventually leaves to look for his sister, the Princess. While he decides not to dress as a woman, he does go incognito and in due course comes on the village, where he meets the sister of the restaurateur. She reveals she is a woman and they fall in love though she thinks he is just a general schmo. He reinforces this image by growing an afro and wearing platform clogs. They both do the horizontal tango but privacy seems to be an issue since several members of the secret service insist on sleeping with them, apparently but not convincingly just for his protection.But love flourishes and the Emperor reveals his true identity. She is touched but insists he keep the Afro and goes back to introduce the Restaurateur's sister to Mumsy. Preparation is made for marriage. About this time the Princess turns up at the palace with her new man. Mummikins is not too keen on him for some reason and makes them both try on a set of his and hers rings, which are supposed to slip off if the marriage will fail. The rings do, and the restaurateur is sent packing.The Princess then hangs around the Palace being annoyingly insane and attempting to do injury to herself by self-inflicted random acts of Kung Fu. Finally, she runs away and finds the restaurateur. She has brought the rings. She has a cunning plan. Remembering the incident under the Peach tree, he tries on the "she" ring and vice versa and voila, all is well for some reason which has become lost in translation.Everyone gets married and the bad tempered mother is put into her place, though she appears to now have more warts than at the start of the movie. There is laughing all around and the credits roll. A sequel is threatened.

I have just watched the 2009 release -- 90 minute version -- and what a outstanding movie. It translates well to English -- though I recommend watching it twice (once to read, once to watch the expressions etc).It is very funny, particularly if you know something about Wong Kar-Wai movies, or even movies that feature martial arts fighting (new and old); particularly Chungking Express (story 2) would be wise to have seen before.The story is very very good .. and you have to be a bit on your toes with the dialogue as it features gender switching rolls -- remember the Princess escapes the Palace by dressing as a man.Spoiler: One character -- Solid Gold Love -- my advice, he is introduced early and appears here and there in the movie; pay attention to him when he is on screen -- you will get a feeling that more is going on then the story we are seeing.The cast are just amazing .. they are very good at comedy and you can tell they are enjoying themselves doing it and the chemistry is truly amazing! The 90 minute release has the Chinese opera scene removed, plus some sub-plot jokes. I suspect they wanted to tighten up the story as it is just so effective.

Well, the first time i watched this movie in the cinema during my secondary school days, i thought it was a waste of money because i was deceived by the Chinese title of the movie.But after a few years, i happened to watch it on TV when i was so bored, then i finally understand the true meaning behind the story. Many of the people may think the story is lame and idiotic and the actors and actresses were wasting their time making this movie. What i can say to you people is you guys are just as blind as bat and you must learn to open your eyes.I mean, the jokes are really hilarious (if u understand they purposely overdo it) ,their way of thinking and the story are so true.Oh yea, the word is mirage. We must always see things in other perspective views. Think alternatively and you will find your questions and answers in this movie. : ) P.S Good luck, i found mine, how about you?

OK, here's another Chinese New Year offering that almost slipped through our fingers. The festive period has come and gone, but better late than never (for a review). Judging from what this film has to offer, it's no loss if you missed it in the midst of all that festive bingeing.THE ESCAPE...Royal siblings (played by Faye Wong & Chang Chen) plotting their escape.The story is set in ancient China and centres on two pairs of siblings. Faye Wong and Chang Chen are of royal blood while Tony Leung and Vicky Zhao Wei play commoners from a distant village.The emperor and princess find life behind palace walls too mundane, and are always plotting their escape. Most of the time, the Empress Dowager and the palace guards foil their plans. Eventually, only the princess manages to escape, disguised as a man.In comes the other set of siblings. Lung (Leung), the village bully, is an uncouth and rough man whose ambition in life is to just be a drifter. He has a younger sister, Phoenix, a tomboyish girl who operates a small restaurant and is looking for her true love. COMMONERS...Meet Lung (Leung, left), the village bully and his tomboyish sister, Phoenix (Vicky Zhao Wei).Things get complicated when the princess arrives at the village and meets the siblings. She is attracted to Lung and vice versa. This confuses Lung (she is disguised as a man, remember?), so he sets out to match make his sister with his new friend. At the same time, Phoenix is also attracted to the princess.The situation gets messier when the prince manages to find his way to the village, where he soon falls for Phoenix.As a whole, there is no smooth flow to the story being told. Firstly, the flick jumps from one subplot to the next as and when it pleases. Besides that, mindless gags and jokes are carelessly thrown in and even though they do elicit laughter, the constant barrage of lame jokes gets a little tiring after an hour or so.In a tale like this, the romance between the characters feels like fluff. So when the time calls for some supposedly heart-wrenching moments, it doesn't have much of an impact on the viewer.You can't really develop any sympathy for the characters when everything is one big joke, can you? You tend to expect that the next moment will make you laugh. But sadly, genuinely funny scenes are few and far between. What you get mostly is silly humour. FAIR PRINCESS...Faye Wong looking absolutely lovely when not dressed up as a man.Tony Leung seems to be comfortable taking on a comic role like this. Noted for his performances in artsy and serious films like In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express Leung proves that he's a versatile actor. Chang Chen, who is famous for his role in Crouching Tiger, also gingerly tackles his role as the emperor who sports an Afro.Vicky Zhao Wei (My Fair Princess) is as adorable as ever with her huge, expressive eyes, while Faye Wong is OK as the very feminine looking man. But a good cast does not guarantee a good production if the material they have to work with is bad.A friend summed up the movie very nicely with one word. When asked what she thought about the flick, she replied: `Nonsense.'I agree.