Tending more towards a
family drama than a ghostly tale, A Fantastic Ghost Wedding is Singaporean
filmmaker Meng Ong’s second feature and the movie is a collaborative effort
between Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
Known for bringing television
series Police and Thief to fill local households with laughter, this movie of
Ong’s is no exception as it banks heavily on comedic moments between the
various characters instead of scare factors. So if you are looking forward to
having a scary time, you might be disappointed.
Viewers follow the
emotional journey of ex-singer Mrs Wu (Hong Kong actress Sandra Ng) as she
tries her best to cope with the sudden passing of her son Peng Peng (Taiwanese
actor Wang Bo-Chieh). Convinced that getting a wife for her dead son will help
him rest in peace, she hires well-known boy medium Boy (new-comer Keane Chan)
and his father Master Wong Fei Hong (local actor Mark Lee) to search for a
living bride. As the search gets complicated and things get lost in miscommunication,
trouble starts brewing and strange encounters start to occur.
Simple and
straightforward, viewers will find the story easy to follow and that helps
direct most of the attention to getting the humour and the comedic moments that
happen every so often. The cast did a good job fleshing their individual
characters, especially Sandra Ng and Mark Lee – they were the heavyweights that
kept the show going and filled in the potential gaps.
However, there were portions
that seemed placed deliberately just for laughs , which chopped up the pacing
of the movie as whole. If there was a weakest link, it would have been the
slow-paced and uneven editing. Certain moments lingered too long, and there
were post-punchline moments when we were staring at the actor way too long
after the laugh had been delivered.
The movie also
faltered on its ending. Even though the movie’s ending wrapped the whole story
up nicely, it was unnecessary and was simply milking the short heartfelt
message for whatever it was worth. Instead of being able to indulge in the
touching moment that Mrs Wu and Peng Peng shared, it began to feel like the
National Kindness Movement had a message for us. The film’s underlying moral of
the story could have been delivered with more restraint and economy, which was
a bit of a pity since the film achieved a moderately suspenseful buildup in the
first half when the hovering big question was: ‘Who would the prospective wife
be?’
The best part of the
movie would be centering the storyline on a cultural practice that does not get
much attention in this age of technology and modernism. Reminding viewers of
practices that are still existing in Singapore and bringing it onto the big
screen is a great idea, so kudos to the script writer and the team on bringing
it all to life.
All in all, A
Fantastic Ghost Wedding is a local movie worth supporting and will get you
laughing with some moments from beginning to end despite its flaws.
Review by Dawn Teo
