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first glance, "49 Days" has very little
going for it, especially given that it features
not one, but two pop stars as leading cast
members. Mercifully, neither displays their
questionable singing talents, and the film turns
out to be far more entertaining than expected,
mainly due to some unintentional hilarity and a
return to the high camp style of 1980s Hong Kong
horror.
Set against a historical
backdrop, the story follows Lau Sing (Stephen
Fung, recently responsible for the lacklustre
"House
of Fury"), a medicine man who leaves his
family to head down the river and start a new
business in the provincial capital. Unfortunately,
a few years later, just as he is about to return
to his family, he finds himself framed by the
villainous Pang Sei (Raymond Wong, turning in a
hilariously overwrought performance) for
involvement in an insurance fire which kills seven
of his colleagues.
Lau Sing is thrown into
prison, where his only hope rests in the incapable
hands of a young, criminally inexperienced lawyer
named Siu Chin (Gillian Chung, one half of pop duo
'The Twins'), and a moronic but honest prison
guard (Steven Cheung of pop group 'Boy'z').
Predictably, the trial goes badly, and Lau Sing is
sentenced to death, but is given a last minute
reprieve by the mysterious executioner, who tells
him to return to his home town. Arriving back home
with Siu Chin in tow, Lau Sing finds his house a
tomb and his wife in a catatonic state, with evil
forces closing in and threatening to take away all
he holds dear.
The main problem with the
plot of "49 Days" is that it can never
make up its mind as to what kind of film it should
be, and around the halfway mark the viewer is left
wondering whether the box art suggesting it to be
some kind of supernatural thriller has been part
of an elaborate hoax. Although the horror elements
do eventually materialise via a predictable twist
which most will see coming from the very start
thanks to the rather self-explanatory title, the
film is basically a melodrama, with more in the
way of domestic angst and prison scenes than
scares.
Visually, the film looks nice
enough, albeit in a tourist information video sort
of way, with quite blatantly airbrushed sunsets
and the like. The period setting is never
particularly convincing, mainly since everything
looks so clean and colourful. Even the supposedly
deserted, decaying house set seems to suffer from
nothing that a quick once over with a duster
wouldn't cure. The historical aspects of the film
are further undermined by the patchy use of some
rather pointless visual gimmicks such as split
screen work, and Chinese characters appearing
cartoon-like onscreen.
The whole affair has the
distinct feel of a 1980s
Hong Kong
spooky film, in the manner of a decidedly poor
relative to Tsui Hark's classic "A Chinese
Ghost Story", packed with dodgy cultural
references, neon lighting and inappropriate toilet
humour. The soundtrack in particular, which sounds
at times to have been composed using an electronic
keyboard, only adds to this impression. However,
this is by no means an unwelcome comparison, and
is in fact quite refreshing in a genre which has
come to be overbearingly populated by po-faced
female ghosts.
More than anything, "49
Days" is, though undeniably nonsense, a lot
of fun. Although it's various plot threads never
come together, revolving around far too many
inconsistencies and inanities, the whole thing
moves along at a merry pace, with plenty of action
of one sort or another. Add in a few odd gore
scenes and amusingly unconvincing characters,
notably Gillian Chung as one of the most
improbable lawyers ever committed to celluloid,
and a cast whose idea of acting seems to consist
mostly of eye-rolling and teeth-gnashing, and the
end result is a piece of cheerfully entertaining
trash, which should appeal to anyone with a soft
spot for this sort of thing.
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