The ideal cinema trip after new year festivities should be filled with fun and merriment, so how fortunate that Ying Chi-wen's “Everything Under Control” has arrived at the dawn of the Year of the Rabbit. Straddling the line between wacky comedy and old-fashioned adventure, it has arrived just in time for international audiences to jumpstart their cinematic year against the grain of Oscar season. This is a film that couldn't be less concerned with awards prestige, and instead, with just using every traditional mode of blockbuster entertainment, it can to stimulate a good time: action, comedy, adventure, horror, musical, it's all here…even if it is spread a little too thinly to form its own distinct identity.
If any Asian Movie Pulse reader has seen Fu-Hsiang Hsu's “Treat or Trick” or Shin Jung-won's “To Catch a Virgin Ghost”, then “Everything Under Control” might seem more than a bit familiar. Ostensibly a remake of both, it hits the ground running by bombastically introducing a mismatched team of heroes working for the ambitiously-named So Good Security. Sliding into action on their knees and pulling off some quick-fire gunplay that would make the cast of “The Matrix” blush, an impressive opening set-piece taking down a team of masked criminals soon turns out to be pure fantasy, and instead our heroes are simply a bunch of schmucks that crumble under pressure. An unfortunate run-in with a group of very real criminals sees one of their own steal a fortune in precious diamonds, and under the supervision of the film festival-loving gangster Monk (Michael Ning), the gung-ho Yau Shing (Hins Cheung) and the rule-abiding Penguin (Jeffrey Ngai Tsun Sang) travel deep into the wilderness to get them back. It's not long before their adventure takes them to the quirky secret village of Ah Ye Fak, where the locals are hiding more than just a cache of diamonds…
Within that fast-paced opening act, “Everything Under Control” tries to jump a lot of difficult hurdles. Not content with being a straight-forward cops-and-criminals buddy comedy, Ying brings in a ghostly little girl (a direct lift from “To Catch a Virgin Ghost”, but feels straight out of early noughties J-horror) to push the plot along, finds time for an endearing musical number to introduce the inhabitants of Ah Ye Fak, and stops the action dead for a slapstick sequence with an unconvincing CGI squirrel who would feel more at home in “Ice Age” than in here. A lot of this feels like a live-action cartoon, which is a dizzying experience that's not without its high points, but when so many different elements are thrown at the screen before the title card even appears (clocking in here at 35 minutes), there's a difficulty in grappling with exactly what the film wants to be.
While it's ironic that the overall vision of “Everything Under Control” is absolutely out of control, a strange harmony is found in the comic performances across the board. Hong Kong pop star Hins Cheung fits the vibe of a post-John Woo action hero perfectly, and the fact that he has a Chupa Chup-sucking habit instead of a cigarette-smoking one is the key to figuring out most of the film's irreverent comedy. He bounces off Jeffrey Ngai Tsun Sang's nervy geek nicely, and their frustrated odd couple dynamic anchors a lot of the sillier parts of the story. However, the show is stolen by Ivana Wong's stern matriarch Wong Cool, whose diminutive frame and discerning scowl define the film's scrappy, well-meaning heart. Despite being a ferocious martial artist that deals out a significant amount of the action's ass-kicking, Wong Cool hits hardest when she gives someone what Paddington might call a ‘hard stare' and muttering: “Don't touch other people's stuff.”
That request forms the anti-capitalist center of “Everything Under Control”'s ethos, which is reinforced by an in-film podcast that the characters tune in to at regular intervals. Forming a wry satire on the mechanical nature of many blockbuster films, the host proposes the idea that “Hong Kong cinema is about passion, not money”, and when the majority of the movie's farcical conflict stems from the futility of fighting over a handful of shiny rocks, it's quite evident that Ying Chi-wen is far more enamored with the idea of having fun than making a big splash at the box office.
There is something in the chaos of “Everything Under Control” for everyone, and while it might only be a successful action/comedy/adventure in fits and starts, it's undeniable that Ying has taken a huge swing in trying to capture his passion for his favorite genres in this energetic work.
