This mystery comedy from 1986 stars Lucy Sheen, and has some pointed comments on the racism Chinese communities faced in the UK
There’s a sweet charm to Leong Po Chih’s 1986 mystery-comedy Ping Pong, set in and around the restaurant businesses of London’s Chinatown, now rereleased. It was produced by Film Four, who two years later brought out Mike Newell’s comparably set Soursweet, based on the Timothy Mo novel, although that is more serious. Ping Pong is eminently likable, though for me there is something perhaps a little soft-edged and carefully paced which dampens the energy a bit. It is a cheerfully far-fetched caper that could have taken some influence from the Alistair Sim classic Laughter in Paradise, and there’s sharp comment on the racism and enforced invisibility for Chinese communities in Britain, then as now.
Lucy Sheen made her acting debut here as Elaine, a law...
There’s a sweet charm to Leong Po Chih’s 1986 mystery-comedy Ping Pong, set in and around the restaurant businesses of London’s Chinatown, now rereleased. It was produced by Film Four, who two years later brought out Mike Newell’s comparably set Soursweet, based on the Timothy Mo novel, although that is more serious. Ping Pong is eminently likable, though for me there is something perhaps a little soft-edged and carefully paced which dampens the energy a bit. It is a cheerfully far-fetched caper that could have taken some influence from the Alistair Sim classic Laughter in Paradise, and there’s sharp comment on the racism and enforced invisibility for Chinese communities in Britain, then as now.
Lucy Sheen made her acting debut here as Elaine, a law...
- 2/7/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
To mark the release of Laughter in Paradise on 29th June, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on Blu-ray.
The four remaining relatives of famed practical joker Henry Russell are brought together to hear his last will and testament, revealing a £50,000 inheritance for each of them, if they can complete a set task that is completely at odds with their character. The assignments are designed to reflect their greatest shortcomings and test their ability to adapt, and ultimately change for the better.
Law-abiding retired army officer Deniston (Alastair Sim) secretly writes scandalous novels, until he is given a week to get himself arrested for an actual crime and jailed for exactly 28 days. Haughty Agnes (Fay Compton) must find employment as a housekeeper in a middle-class home and retain her position for a month despite her disdain. Simon (Guy Middleton), a penniless womanising rogue, has to marry the first single woman he speaks to,...
The four remaining relatives of famed practical joker Henry Russell are brought together to hear his last will and testament, revealing a £50,000 inheritance for each of them, if they can complete a set task that is completely at odds with their character. The assignments are designed to reflect their greatest shortcomings and test their ability to adapt, and ultimately change for the better.
Law-abiding retired army officer Deniston (Alastair Sim) secretly writes scandalous novels, until he is given a week to get himself arrested for an actual crime and jailed for exactly 28 days. Haughty Agnes (Fay Compton) must find employment as a housekeeper in a middle-class home and retain her position for a month despite her disdain. Simon (Guy Middleton), a penniless womanising rogue, has to marry the first single woman he speaks to,...
- 6/11/2020
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
A last request to scatter their best friend’s ashes leads to some surreal and startling moments on the road
This confident, relaxed British feature debut by director Chanya Button and screenwriter Charlie Covell is a sort of millennials’ mashup of Laughter in Paradise and Last Orders. Cynical twentysomething Dan (Jack Farthing) has just died of cancer, and has posthumously ordered his two best friends Seph (Laura Carmichael) and Alex (Chloe Perrie) to go on a road trip across Britain to scatter his ashes in personally important locations, for reasons he announces in separate videos which they have promised to watch in each place. In engineering this cathartic quest, Dan plans to sort out their personal issues from beyond the grave. It’s not the most original premise, but it’s very nicely acted by Carmichael and Perrie (who was the lead in Scott Graham’s 2012 movie Shell). There are...
This confident, relaxed British feature debut by director Chanya Button and screenwriter Charlie Covell is a sort of millennials’ mashup of Laughter in Paradise and Last Orders. Cynical twentysomething Dan (Jack Farthing) has just died of cancer, and has posthumously ordered his two best friends Seph (Laura Carmichael) and Alex (Chloe Perrie) to go on a road trip across Britain to scatter his ashes in personally important locations, for reasons he announces in separate videos which they have promised to watch in each place. In engineering this cathartic quest, Dan plans to sort out their personal issues from beyond the grave. It’s not the most original premise, but it’s very nicely acted by Carmichael and Perrie (who was the lead in Scott Graham’s 2012 movie Shell). There are...
- 10/27/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It aspires to Borat and Jackass, but this contest for money is just crass bad taste, and humourless with it, writes Peter Bradshaw
There is – possibly – a grisly fascination in seeing Gary Coleman in his last-ever role, sending himself up in this dismal grossout-prankster film, pinched partly from Borat and Jackass, with a premise taken from the 1951 British comedy Laughter in Paradise. The idea is that a deceased porn star who is of, ahem, restricted growth declares in his will that he will leave his millions to those of his family and fellow vertically challenged buddies and colleagues who can compete in horrible events in full view of the unsuspecting public. The star is of course Coleman, who isn't used very much. It has neither the comic invention of Borat nor the genuine daredevil likability of the Jackass crew. Just depressing.
Rating: 1/5
ComedyGary ColemanPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News...
There is – possibly – a grisly fascination in seeing Gary Coleman in his last-ever role, sending himself up in this dismal grossout-prankster film, pinched partly from Borat and Jackass, with a premise taken from the 1951 British comedy Laughter in Paradise. The idea is that a deceased porn star who is of, ahem, restricted growth declares in his will that he will leave his millions to those of his family and fellow vertically challenged buddies and colleagues who can compete in horrible events in full view of the unsuspecting public. The star is of course Coleman, who isn't used very much. It has neither the comic invention of Borat nor the genuine daredevil likability of the Jackass crew. Just depressing.
Rating: 1/5
ComedyGary ColemanPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News...
- 1/6/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
"There is no Hollywood movie more insouciantly amoral than Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 Trouble in Paradise, screening at Lacma on July 9 to open the four-week series Laughter in Paradise: The American Comedies of Ernst Lubitsch." J Hoberman for the La Weekly: "Originally released in the depths of the Great Depression, Lubitsch's urbane comedy concerns a swank pair of thieves, played by Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins, who not only live together in sin but — after successfully fleecing Kay Francis's rich and equally charming widow — taxi off into the sunset utterly unrepentant.... At once sophisticated and vulgar in his taste for orientalism and theatrical bric-a-brac, Lubitsch was a cannier, less pretentious and more cosmopolitan entertainer than his peers Fritz Lang and Fw Murnau — closer in his showbiz sensibility to the Hollywood moguls."...
- 7/8/2010
- MUBI
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