Ba xing bao xi (The Eighth Happiness) (1988)

• 44% of users liked it
  (100 ratings)

Hong Kong filmmaker Johnny To directed this all-star holiday comedy, another in a string of popular Lunar New Year entertainments for actor/producer Raymond Wong, who engineered the similar All's Well, Ends Well series. As usual, the plot line is just an excuse for a series of amusing cameos and… More Hong Kong filmmaker Johnny To directed this all-star holiday comedy, another in a string of popular Lunar New Year entertainments for actor/producer Raymond Wong, who engineered the similar All's Well, Ends Well series. As usual, the plot line is just an excuse for a series of amusing cameos and comic routines, but provides a number of laughs as it tells the story of three brothers, the mincingly effeminate Fang Chien-lang (Chow Yun-fat), cartoonist Chien-sang (Jacky Cheung), and their middle-aged older sibling, Chien-hui (Wong). Chien-lang romances both a stewardess (Carol Cheng) and a hedonistic department store saleswoman (Cherie Chung) who has a boyfriend (Lawrence Cheng); Chien-sang falls for a jogger named Ying-ying (Fennie Yuen); and Chien-hui romances a Chinese opera singer (Petrina Fung) whom he isn't aware is the same person who has been crank-calling him. As a result of some telephone problems, all three brothers experience some wild ups and downs in their respective relationships before finally attaining romantic bliss following a climactic opera performance involving all the main characters. As with Wong's other holiday films, genre aficionados will have a field day spotting familiar faces, including Karl Maka and Teddy Robin Kwan in the audience, and City on Fire director Ringo Lam as Fung's husband. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi