Writer: Casey Lee

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Watch this if you liked: “Marrying Mr. Perfect” and "Mrs & Mrs Gambler".

The spiritual sequel of sorts to Wong Jing's "Mr & Mrs Gambler" (with has the same Chinese title), "Mr. & Mrs. Player" is one of the many crowd pleasing titles being churned out from Wong's moviemaking machine to meet the annual quota, who is obviously here to just make the quick and lazy buck by having his name credited as the producer, writer and director of this sleazy romantic comedy.

Carson (Chapman To), a televised Feng Shui master and veterinarian Chi-Ling (Chrissie Chau) are hopeless in relationships with an instinct to shun away from sticking to a single partner. After a chanced meeting of the two while they were on double dates, Chi grows a fondness for Carson but has little faith that he would be able to let go of his flirtatious nature as a reliable and loyal partner. To test his loyalty, Chi invites Carson to live and share the same bed with her, but must abstain from all physical contact (besides a kiss or a pat on the head) and other women, for a hundred days before coming to the decision if they should officially date.

The progress of their romance, along with the other tests by Chi's housemates that Carson has to put up with to prove his undying love, runs the gamut of the flimsy plot that is almost inconsequential. Not that it has to be poignant about exploring the dynamics of being in a non-physical relationship, but even just being able to step out the boundaries to make a comedic commentary or two about it would have surely increased its value somewhat. Even so, it should be evident that the plot and the premise isn't the real reason why you are there to see "Mr & Mrs Player" when continuity and the efforts to recreate a flashback scene is thrown out of the window, purely for comedic effects.

As expected, "Mr & Mrs Player" is far more content to give Chapman every opportunity to sustain the comedy with his brand of silly humour of witty lines, political pokes and self-parody with varying effectiveness, while Chrissie's holds up the raucous side of things by being in skimpy outfits that our censors allow you to see. Despite having her own temptations to deal with, Chrissie is never entrusted with more development for her character, which just regulates her role as nothing more than just being a beautiful vase that is nice to look at, while Chapman and his wingmen are funny to laugh at.

"Mr & Mrs Player" doesn't stand on winning bigger laughs from some of the more outrageous and classical comedies that Wong has ever done, so to anyone who isn't here to see Chapman, or having the vain hope to see seductive skin (in a Malaysian cinema of all places), you would scoff at being offered the challenge to go watch this in the cinema and close your eyes throughout the run time.


Cinema Online, 01 November 2013