Movie Review: Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰

Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰 was laugh out loud funny. I roared with glee for the full 90 minutes.

Because it is such a monstrous train wreck that you cannot believe it ever saw the light of day. To delineate the flaws, gross ineptitude, and cringe-worthy failure of this film would take much longer than I am prepared to sit here.

So let me just say  Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰 makes Wong Jing look like an auteur.

But I must say, now and later, that the film at least succeeds in terms of entertainment. This is truly one of those so-bad-its-good films, and on that level it is a blockbuster. I sincerely enjoyed this film and will buy the DVD, because it made me laugh so hard my abs were sore the next day.

Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰 opens with numerous shots of characters getting hit in the face with volleyballs.

In slow motion.

Yes, balls to the face from Frame 1. Win.

FACIAL!!!

This happens quite a few times during the film, such that every female volleyball player takes a shot in the face.

But here’s also an example of where Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰 failed; during the ‘climactic’ game, it sure would have been funny (and even logical) for Lam Suet to have gotten the same treatment.

It seemed obvious to all of the Gang of Film, so we wondered why it never occurred to anyone making the film.

If you took away all the slow-mo facials, I think the film would be about 20 minutes shorter. But not as good.

Then again, there’s not much story to tell. Two young women work at a restaurant on a beach. The evil rich landlords want to develop the area, destroying the restaurant, the beach, the two girls’ jobs, and their way of life.

How should they settle this dispute? How else?

Parkour!

Well, actually, no, volleyball.

Because women in bikinis jumping up and down in a volleyball game is much more plausible.  Follow the bouncing… balls.

But not just any volleyball game. The BIG tournament that the two teams must enter and work their way up through.

I guess fate decreed they would be seeded in opposite groups so that the climactic game of the tournament would be between them. It’s just a coincidence, the screenwriter assures me.

It would have been funny if they met in the first round, but then you couldn’t have that massive volleyball tournament and the screaming crowd of forty that we see.

Throw in the classic Romeo and Juggs subplot, where love crosses the line in the sand, and you have a recipe for a thrilling sports romance.

Or a celluloid abortion, which is what we get here.

This would be so much better if a topless her was carrying a shirted Him. At least that’s what Him said.

It doesn’t help that the only people with any real acting skills are either rarely seen or not asked to do much acting.

Candy Yu ruins much of Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰 by bringing believability and acting chops to her role,  which really only makes everyone else look that much worse.

Lam Suet makes the most of an embarrassing role, but let’s face it: he’s Asia’s Luis Guzman; he makes any move he’s in just that little bit better.

Jessica C was obviously hired to make Chrissie Chau look like she can act, and Miss C does a remarkable job.

It probably doesn’t help that I was distracted by her astoundingly prominent forehead and spent much of her screen time wondering if her ancestors were aliens or whether or not when she sleeps she dreams in Imax.

    f orehead. That’s a five-head.

I think her forehead is the reason she was wearing a sun visor indoors in the big game at the end. to minimize overshine from the lights.

Because Beach Volleyball is meant to be played indoors. In the dark.

Phoenix Valen (one of the lesser-known Transformers, I think) does better with the hairline, but sits no closer to the driver on the short bus to acting school. Then again, I doubt it was her acting chops that got her involved in the project.

“You’d like to put your balls in our faces, huh?”

AnD’s own Philip Ng has a small role as the most motivated coach in history, who spends almost all his time screaming at his charges.

The odd thing is that he dubbed about 40% of the time. So he will yell something in perfect English at one point, then minutes later say something in Chinglish. It was quite distracting. But funny as hell.

Nevertheless, it looks like Philip had fun chewing on scenery like a stunt double for the shark from Jaws, so I’m not mad at him. He made me laugh, and that’s the best I could hope for.

Yeah… Philip knows Wong Jing ismoney .

But it isn’t just the ‘actors’ who are deserving of scorn. There’s plenty of that to go around.  As previously noted, whoever decided that a viable settlement for a land dispute was a beach sport deserves to be made to swim in the same water that some of **Beach Spike/熱浪球愛takes place in.**

Digression/explanation:Beach Spike/熱浪球愛 deserves a PSA award for doing some of its under/in water filming in the actual water at the beach. The water looks so nasty that even the most uncaring person would have to admit Hong Kong has a pollution problem.

For that matter, whoever decided that the true test of Phoenix Valen’s strength was her ability to defeat Black men deserves to be bitch slapped:

What, you thought I was kidding?

There is also a problem with the light in this film, or rather the lack of it.  Portions of the film are so dark that they are literally illegible. The entire set of NG shots during the end credits may as well have been expunged, since they were impossible to see.

I have been told, however, that this was not so much an artistic choice as much as a matter of making do with available resources. Take from that what you may; I simply wish to make clear that I don’t blame the people whose job ostensibly covers this area. They did the best they could with what they had, and therefore shouldn’t be blamed.

But speaking of illegibility, the subtitles were an absolute howl, rife with errors. My favorite involves the misspelling of a specific word through juxtaposition of the two middle letters such that the resulting word is wrong but not misspelled.

Given the context, it makes for a very funny joke, and since it is likely to get fixed for the DVD, let me share it with you here, complete with a screenshot from the relevant scene:

“Swimming in the ocean always makes me feel clam.”

Beach Spike/熱浪球愛戰 is an absolute mess, but I found myself laughing out loud almost the whole time, for one reason or another. I would actually recommend it, except that it probably won’t be here very long. I’d go watch it again, just for the laughs.

I even volunteered recently to take two lesbian friends to see it, just to gauge their reactions to all the bikinis.

And to say I took two lesbians to a movie.