OUR SISTER MAMBO (2015)

Genre: Drama/Comedy
Director: Ho Wi Ding
Cast: Michelle Chong, Moses Lim, Audrey Luo, Ethel Yap, Oon Shu An, Joey Leong, Siti Khalijah Zainal, Rani Singam, Muhammad Mahfuz Mazlan, Nelson Chia, Jonathan Leong, Shankara Ebi
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 15 July 2015

Synopsis: Our Sister Mambo is a modern-day romance comedy inspired by the Cathay classic, Our Sister Hedy, a 1957 Hong Kong production about a middle-class family with four unmarried daughters. Directed by Ho Wi Ding from a screenplay by Michael Chiang, the movie will star talented actress-director Michelle Chong, popular comedian Moses Lim (acting as Michelle’s father in the movie) and acting talents from Singapore and Malaysia. Set against the backdrop of modern Singapore, Our Sister Mambo follows the well-meaning efforts of the spritely second daughter, Mambo (Michelle Chong) to get her sisters – big sister Grace (Ethel Yap), third sister Rose (Oon Shun An) and baby sister June (Joey Leong) hitched, with hiccups and misunderstandings along the way. Watch Our Sister Mambo to find out how Mambo, with the help of her BFF Siti (Siti Khalijah) tries to steer things back on track.

Movie Review:

80 years is a long way to have come, and ‘Our Sister Mambo’ is specifically commissioned by Cathay’s filmmaking arm Cathay-Keris Films to celebrate its parent company’s milestone. You’ll do well to remember that as you sit through this self-congratulatory excuse of a movie, which is really better at paying tribute to the great tradition of Cathay moviemaking than for any actual merit. Indeed, how much you ‘ja jambo’ to this local re-telling of the studio’s 1957 Hong Kong classic ‘Our Sister Hedy’ will depend on how nostalgic you are of actresses such as Grace Chang and Dato Maria Manado Abdullah as well as classics such as ‘Mambo Girl’ and ‘The Wild, Wild Rose’ from the studio’s heydays in the 1950s and 1960s; and if these names don’t mean anything to you, well let’s just say this vanity project will leave you unmoved. 

The titular Mambo (Michelle Chong) is the second of four unmarried daughters in a middle-class household, who starts off the most settled of the lot with a cushy job as a lawyer in a top legal firm. Somewhere along the way however, Mambo will surprise the whole family by quitting and enrolling as a trainee cook in Willin Low’s restaurant, the latter a real-life lawyer-turned-cook of ‘Wild Rocket’ fame. Mom, as played by theatre vet Audrey Luo, will go into a fit, and turn to the temple gods to pray for wisdom to come upon Mambo. And so it goes for each one of her other daughters, a la Mambo’s other sisters, as well – each will take turns to assert their own independence, which in turn causes Mom to be an even more pious Buddhist as she heads repeatedly to the temple to ask for divine intervention.

Grace (Ethel Yap), the oldest, has hooked up with a Mainland divorcee with a ten-year-old daughter. Rose (Oon Shu An) is a hardcore party animal who is content to casual date any ‘ang moh’ she fancies. And last but not least, June (Joey Leong), the youngest, is dating an Indian whose mother happens to be Mom’s professional rival in the same company. That may seem like the set-up for a riotous family comedy, but playwright-turned-screenwriter Michael Chiang plays it tame, too tame in fact. No sooner has he set up each conflict between mother and daughter does he resolve it almost instantaneously with a family dinner, which pretty much diminishes any and all dramatic tension. Chiang’s screenplay also plays it too safe, taking each conflict in turn rather than letting them explode all at once, so much so that one never feels as if anything between the family is ever at stake.

With Mom being pretty much running the whole family, there is also little for Dad to do except sit in front of the TV watching (what else but) Cathay classics and ferrying his wife and daughters to work each morning. And that is truly a pity, for the film wastes Moses Lim’s rare appearance on the big screen with a role that hardly demands anything of his comedic talent; instead, Moses gets more screen time playing a museum guide at the Cathay Gallery cum cinema hall manage at The Cathay, where he talks about his love for the old Cathay archives and how the cinema exhibition business has changed over the years. And like the rest of the members of the Wong family, it is a role under-written and under-developed, that turns out not just tame but also plain boring.

Yet if the movie turns out more tolerable than its thinly written script, that is because the cast of stage and TV veterans do their darnest to keep the energy up. Luo is the scene-stealer here, the 32-year-old actress playing the domineering matriarch with aplomb while revealing a particular gift for deadpan comedy. Her timing is spot-on, and despite the obvious age difference between her and Lim, she oozes a sweet chemistry with the veteran star more than twice her age. On the other hand, Yap, Chong, Oon and Leong have plenty of sass and spunk among them, and the scenes with all four sisters bantering with each other are both fun and delightful to watch – although it should be fair warning to Chong’s fans that her role here is much more down-to-earth than those she usually plays when she is Lulu or Barbarella.

On his part, Malaysia-born Taipei-based director Ho Wi Ding does an admirable task staging the proceedings, in particular the dinners around which the Wong family are supposed to resolve their quarrels, such that there is palpable tension in one of the earlier ones when Mambo announces that she has quit the legal profession to learn the culinary arts and genuine awkwardness in one of the later ones when Mom dresses in a traditional Korean costume to welcome June’s new boyfriend eagerly before she realises his race and identity. Ho opts for a naturalistic style of comedy than one that is over-the-top, and it is to his credit that we can therefore empathise with the various sisters as they take turns to cross paths with their assertive mother.

Like we said at the start, this isn’t a movie in its own right, but one saddled with the burden of commemorating Cathay’s 80^th anniversary. That is the only explanation why it culminates in a dinner party celebrating the great Cathay film legacy, where no less than the regal Grace Chang makes a surprise video recording to express her congratulations. It is also why one of the minor supporting casts is called upon at the party to sing ‘Ja Jambo’ and why the cast are seen dancing to that very tune in front of The Cathay building right at the end. Yep, Cathay’s got its self-congratulatory wish of a movie that’s for sure; the rest of us, however, are left with just half a movie.  

Movie Rating:

(Less a full-fledged movie than a self-congratulatory tribute to Cathay's filmmaking legacy, this family comedy gets by its thin script with an appealing cast that has perfect comic timing and delightful chemistry)  

Review by Gabriel Chong