Have you ever seen a comedy about Asian prostitutes and various sex workers before? Because, up until the start of the NYAFF, I hadn’t either. Apparently, Hong Kong comedic actress Sandra Ng is famous for her role as “Boobie” Kam in the Golden Chicken film series and, 11 years after the release of the second film, she returns for more sexual madness in the aptly titled third film in the series, Golden Chickensss.
Golden Chickensss follows the life of Kam (Sandra Ng), a sex worker and the Madam of other fellow prostitutes. Known for her massive G-cups, Kam runs a tight ship but as she ages she’s struggling more and more to keep up with the young-ins around her. In an attempt to prevent the competition from taking her women and her business, Kam decides to take a few of her employees to Japan to learn a few tricks from the perverse Japanese sex trade. After a productive trip, Kam returns to Hong Kong to be there for the release of her only love, Gordon (Nick Cheung), a gangster who has been in prison for quite some time, but now that he’s been released he’s determined to return to his former glory, gain back his power and pay Kam back the money she loaned him.
I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the first two films in the Golden Chicken series, but if the humor is anything remotely close to the humor in this one you can count me in to see them. There’s a lot of unadulterated humor and completely un-PC craziness that happens in the first half to two thirds of Matt Chow’s Golden Chickensss that makes it entertaining to watch. The acting might not all be there but the jokes, over-the-top and self-aware approach the film took makes it a fun flick. There are scenes like a blow job parlor (all glory holes) training session with the blow job God, who happens to guy, and other scenes like a guy having an orgasm simply because a woman decided to accept the challenge of smelling his armpits (yes, I’m serious). That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, there are a ton of cameos by famous HK actors that adds just a bit more flair to the film, especially when things start to slow down. One notable cameo involves Donnie Yen spoofing Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster and it is absolutely brilliant for those that get it.
One of the highlights of the film is the supporting cast, there are a handful of outrageous characters that, surprisingly, don’t really overshadow the others, providing a rare character balance that manages to divvy out the laughs equally. For example, there is a character named Bumfuck Louis Koo, a Louis Koo impersonator and singer, played by the actual actor Louis Koo, who is hired to fulfill a rich man’s dying wife’s final wish, which is to get with Louis Koo. His arrival, demeanor and ability to perpetuate all of the Louis Koo stereotypes is hilarious and certainly one of the highlights of the film. An added bonus for the film is the plethora of very good looking women throughout, it certainly made sure I never looked away from the screen. The acting itself is inconsistent across the board but that just adds to the ridiculous nature of the film, generally providing more laughs than not.
All that being said, Golden Chickensss has a severe identity crisis that brings the quality down quite a few notches. What starts off as a raunchy sexy comedy sharply shifts to a romantic drama with dabs of humor scattered throughout once Kam’s love interest is released from prison. Not only that, the film begins to focus almost entirely on him and his mission to return to his former glory even though the world has drastically changed. The reason this is such a huge problem is because the women go to Japan and learn how handle various sexual situations, like working at a blow job parlor. After that they go out and celebrate Kam’s birthday by visiting a place with male escorts and prostitutes, run by an old friend of Kams and at that point you think they’ll all go back and we’ll witness a sort of sexual revolution from Kam and her girls in Hong Kong. Instead, nearly everything that happened in the first half of the film is thrown out and we cut to Kam standing in front of the prison waiting for the release of her lover. It’s a completely abrupt and sudden shift in pace, story and focus that it derails the film for quite a while. It’s an incredibly frustrating thing to witness and a very weird decision from the perspective of a screenwriter and director. There is always going to be conflict or drama in a comedy but the transition and way they shifted the story in this film isn’t simply a minor dip, it’s a straight freefall from everything you had seen thus far.
On paper, Golden Chickensss sounds like a really fun, out-of-the-box film that would likely provide some unexpected and crazy humor, which it does. The issue with the film lies in its inability to stay focused on the comedic path and slowly work in the conflict or drama, instead the drama comes in like a wrecking ball, completely changing both the pace and story, making you wonder how the first half relates to the second. Though I can’t compare it to the first two films, as a standalone comedy Golden Chickensss has a very promising start that fizzles out by the end, missing out on all the potential it had built up early on.
Rating: A raunchy HK comedy that disregards the wild and fun first half to become a cheesy romantic drama in the second (5/10)
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