GIRLS VS GANGSTERS (闺蜜2之单挑越南黑帮) (2018)

Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director: Wong Chun-chun
Cast: Fiona Sit, Ivy Chen, Janine Chang, Mike Tyson
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Rating: TBA
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 22 March 2018

Synopsis: A bachelorette weekend party spins out of control when three friends wake up naked on a beach — two of them handcuffed to a locked briefcase. They soon become the target of local gangsters as they try to retrace their drunken steps and make it back home.

Movie Review:

We’re not quite sure what prompted director Barbara Wong to turn the sequel of her modest 2014 relationship comedy hit ‘Girls’ into a remake of ‘The Hangover’ and ‘The Hangover: Part II’, but that’s essentially what the long-delayed ‘Girls Vs Gangsters’ (otherwise known as ‘Girls 2’) is.

The similarities are glaring. Swapping Vegas for Vietnam, Wong has transplanted those of her characters from her earlier movie whose cast have (not quite so wisely) opted to return into a mystery that begins with a bachelorette night gone wrong. Cue the hard night of drinking, the dazed-and-confused morning after, the subsequent time unpicking what happened the night before, and even Mike Tyson’s fictionalised version of himself with a few cultural tweaks to get past the Chinese censors. Only the tiger and the baby doesn’t seem to have survived the translation.

For what it’s worth, Yang Qishan had chosen not to sign on for this sequel, so her character Xiamei is only ever mentioned but never seen, apparently off at a film shoot somewhere in the country. Ditto the original’s Shawn Yue, whose character Qiao Li is only present as a plot device to give the girls an excuse to travel to Vietnam in the first place, as well as flimsy reason for fiancée Xiwen (Ivy Chen) to express her insecurities and have her ‘sisters’ rally around her. Oh yes, it is Qiao Li and Xiwen’s upcoming nuptials that the feisty Kimmy (Fiona Sit) and her egotistic mortal enemy Jialan (Ning Chang) are supposed to be celebrating, with Qiao Li’s taciturn younger sister Jingjing (Wang Shuilin) along for the ride.

Wasting no time to get into the shenanigans, the quartet of Kimmy, Jialan, Xiwen and Jingjing find themselves at the house party of a wealthy mobster (Tran Bao San) on their very first night in Vietnam. Before they find themselves naked on the beach with no memory of how they got there, Kimmy will have gotten herself inebriated enough to eat a dead scorpion and misplace her host’s heirloom ruby ring. There’s also the question of whose briefcase full of gold bars Kimmy and Jialan find themselves handcuffed to, and the fact that Jingjing is nowhere to be found. Without asking where Kimmy had found her handphone, she receives an anonymous call threatening Jingjing’s life unless they spend the entire wealth in gold within the next 24 hours.

What follows is, unsurprisingly, a series of comic set-pieces in and around Ho Chi Minh City, including a vehicular chase that continues on water in motorised sampans, a stopover at a church for love offerings that leads to Xiwen kissing a dead person and last but not least, a God-of-Gamblers spoof that sports a cut-rate Chow Yun Fat lookalike. None of the aforementioned are even mildly amusing, and the same can be said of the bunch of colourful supporting characters that the girls meet along the way – among them, the mobster’s busty henchwoman (Elly Tran), a bunch of beaten-up male strippers, and last but not least Tyson’s Korean-pop-culture-loving former boxing champ Dragon. It is patently obvious how the film is straining to be funny, and the frenetic editing from sequence to sequence as well as the actresses’ perpetually exaggerated expressions also emphasise how painfully unfunny the gags are.

In fact, we dare say that ‘Girls Vs Gangsters’ is a surefire contender for one of the worst films of the year. Not only do the jokes fall flat on every level, the filmmaking is simply horrendous – there is little logic or continuity in the story; the scenes are haphazardly composed and shot; the action choreography is laughable; and the CGI looks like it was stuck in the 90s. Not even some last-ditch effort to inject sentiment into the cartoonish proceedings can save the film from itself, so those hoping this to be some affirmation of sisterhood or even female empowerment can ditch those expectations.

Like we said at the start, we’re not sure what made Wong think that it was a good idea to slavishly copy ‘The Hangover’, or for that matter, them R-rated female-oriented comedies cast from the same mould. Either way, she is grossly out of her depth here, and for those who loved her earlier works like ‘Break Up Club’, ‘Girls Vs Gangsters’ confirms that Wong should probably stick to simple and straightforward stories around her signature themes of relationships and friendships. Unless you just want some eye candy (in particular of Fiona Sit and Ning Chang) or are tickled by the thought of an effeminate Tyson, you’ll do well to avoid this sheer and utter misfire.

Movie Rating:

(An unabashed copy of 'The Hangover', this painfully unfunny comedy is a classic example of incoherent scripting, shoddy direction, hysterical acting, poor action choreography and laughable CGI all rolled into one)

Review by Gabriel Chong