There are some things women just aren’t very good at without men, according to this movie’s opening scene – namely operating laptops or assembling wooden deck chairs. So a Hong Kong lady sets up a website to match female clients with willing men in return for a ‘hug’. That’s the premise of this witless entry in a Chinese comedy series that follows the fortunes of four couples. You might surmise that the film’s sexual politics are a tad backward. At one point a young female character is run over – in cherishable slow motion. ‘It’s just a woman,’ says the driver as he climbs out of the wreck and sees his victim’s broken body.
Perhaps the whole thing is a sideways comment on the state of masculinity in urban China. What else to make of a scene in which a construction worker fends off a huge snake with a withered banana? But that would be to look for reason behind a mangled façade of jaw-dropping incoherence. Why does a smart and self-confident female fashion photographer fall for a vain, sexist toyboy? Because a dude with a beard who dresses in black tells her to! Why the appearance of a novelty gay man? Why the gags about domestic abuse? Why the awful music, piped almost constantly in the background? The title might be a garbled reference to Shakespeare’s comedy – and the only thing they both have in common is neither is at all funny. But I can report that after two hours of this guff, it, well, ends, and for that I was very thankful.