Foolish Plan แผนคนโง่ล่าอัจฉริยะ (2016) [พากย์ไทย บรรยายไทย]

REVIEW

A corkscrew caper in the post-Crazy Stone 疯狂的石头 (2006) mould, Foolish Plan 呆呆计划 doesn’t run out of puff halfway (like so many of its ilk) and just about maintains interest thanks to its cast. But despite a script that shows signs of being well-worked, and actually makes sense in a wacky way, there’s not enough new or special here to make it stand out from the pack, and there’s a lack of final polish and big-name cast to make it stand alongside the best representatives of the genre. Financed, written and directed by Mainlanders, and set on South Korea’s “honeymoon island” Jeju, it features a couple of South Koreans among the Chinese cast and was in large part actually shot in Shenzhen, China. Unlike the similar black comedy Bad Guys Always Die 坏蛋必须死 (2015), also set in South Korea, Plan feels like a Mainland production with a handful of Korean actors rather than the other way round – largely thanks to the unpretentious direction by Sen Dao 森岛.

It’s the best and most ambitious undertaking yet by Mainland mainstream journeyman Sen, a writer-director-producer who’s worked all over Greater China, starting with the Mainland/HK comedy I’ll Never Let You Off 绝不放过你 (2003, co-directed with Taiwan quickie maestro Zhu Yanping 朱延平), and starting to find his own feet with the rom-com Whoever 爱谁谁 (2012) and rural light comedy The Struggle of 80’s 80后的独立宣言 (2014). With five writers on the job (including Sen), the intricately plotted script – full of the usual coincidences, people crossing each other’s paths, and time shifts as everyone’s backgrounds and motives are gradually revealed – is nicely laid out. Unfortunately, after the first hour doing that, there’s not much else left, and after a brief finale the movie is pretty much over by the 75-minute mark, with the rest of the time filled up by explanations and general padding.

That wouldn’t be so bad, but the film is also weakened by unnecesssary mugging, led by South Korea’s Bak Mun-heui 박문희 | 朴文熙 as a gay gangster and supported by China’s He Jun 何军 as his sleazoid sidekick. Luckily, other performances are more straightforward, with Hong Kong veteran Chen Xiaochun 陈小春 [Jordan Chan], now 49, managing to give the whole yarn some grounding as a middle-aged petty crook who gets drawn into the plot by his pretty young Mainland wife, played OK by Deng Jiajia 邓家佳 (aka “little Zhou Xun”, the accused in Silent Witness 全民目击, 2013, and detective in Lost in White 冰河追凶, 2016). Taiwan actor-singer-model Wang Dongcheng 汪东城, 35, is on the weedy side as a tourist from the Mainland who also gets drawn into the chaos (his Taiwan accent is explained by making him from Fujian province), so the only serious male competition to Chen comes from South Korean light comedian Yi Beom-su 이범수 | 李凡秀 (Singles 싱글즈, 2003), who’s terrific as the louche make-up artist forced to pose as a hitman. Yi, now 47, expertly balances the comedy between mugging and more serious stuff, and it’s a pity he’s not in the character-heavy film more than he is.

The production package, with several of Sen’s regular crew (editor Qian Fang 钱芳, art director Yao Yibo 姚一博), is the smoothest to date, jazzed up with an animated introduction and enhanced by the widescreen photography of Chen Zhoufei 陈宙飞 who takes over from veteran Hong Kong d.p. Fan Quanxin 范铨鑫. Local box-office was only a lame RMB4.5 million, better than the disastrous The Struggle of 80’s (RMB400,000) but below Whoever (RMB17 million), Sen’s top earner so far. The film shouldn’t be confused with another Mainland caper film Foolish Plans 发条城市, directed by Jiang Tao 江涛, also released in 2016.