Thrills and grins for a new year

IT MAY seem inauspicious to watch a movie filled with gunfire and a lingering threat of an epidemic during the Chinese New Year.

But if you're hankering for an action-packed Chinese-language flick, The Viral Factor should be your choice over madcap comedies from Singapore or Hong Kong.

Sadly, leading man Jay Chou's acting hasn't improved since his appearances in The Treasure Hunter (2009) and The Green Hornet (2011).

This deficiency is even more apparent when you compare his wooden performance as special operative Jon against Nicholas Tse's gritty, realistic turn as a Malaysia-based hoodlum called Yang.

It turns out that Yang is the long-lost brother that Jon is trying to track down in Kuala Lumpur.

Jon lives with his mother and he hasn't seen his father and elder brother since his parents' acrimonious separation decades ago.

And it is in the Malaysian capital that Jon crosses path again with Sean (Andy On), a fellow agent who had betrayed the team of operatives that Jon was a part of during a mission in Jordan.

Resurfacing in KL with a stolen virus, Sean holds a Malaysian doctor (Lin Peng) hostage to perfect a mutated virus strain that he plans to unleash on the world.

The plot, involving family secrets and international crime, can get overly complicated and melodramatic. Director Dante Lam (The Stool Pigeon) pulls out all the stops to deliver pulsating car and helicopter chases set against KL's bustling cityscape.

Some dialogue understandably occurs in Malay, but the concurrent use of Mandarin (spoken by Chou) and Cantonese (spoken by Tse) is disconcerting, especially when accompanied by the English spoken by On's villain.

If laughter is more to your taste when it comes to welcoming the Year of the Dragon, try All's Well End's Well 2012.

This newest instalment in the long-running Hong Kong film franchise is made up of four disparate stories, populated with strangers who meet up via online ads and pick up lessons on love and life.

For example, Raymond Wong plays a divorced lawyer who rediscovers his paternal instincts while posing as fake dad to screen potential suitors of a beautiful woman (Yang Mi).

Here's a rare chance to watch Donnie Yen ham it up, complete with a shaggy hairdo.

He is an over-the-hill musician who still hopes to fulfil his dreams by partnering a former girl-band member, played with the usual wackiness by seasoned comedienne Sandra Ng.

The jokes range from lame to mildly amusing to downright silly. What works is a hilarious scene in which hunky construction supervisor (Louis Koo) tries to make an indecent proposal over dinner to a photographer (Kelly Chen) who he's modelling for.

Fans of classic Hong Kong comedies from the 1970s and 1980s should, however, know that those gems are things of the past.

Scenes in which Yen's character sings Samuel Hui's hit songs from Michael Hui's popular 1970s comedies serve only to remind us how the current crop of Hong Kong comedies pales against those of days gone by.

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