Adoring [Chong ai] *** (2019, Wallace Chung, Beibi Gong, Landi Li) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director Larry Yang’s always likeable, often charming Chinese multi-story comedy drama Adoring [Chong ai] (2019) is a happy New Year movie intertwining half a dozen stories about pets and their owners. Oh, good heavens, it’s raining cats and dogs!

It doesn’t push too hard or achieve too much, but it is sweet and entertaining, and, occasionally, just odd enough to have a bit of bite. Larry Yang handles the movie well, keeping all the balls juggling in the air successfully, a difficult trick in an ensemble comedy.

It feels a bit fragile in places, with too much slapstick and sentimentality among some actually funny comedy and effective heart-tugging. And of course it ends up too sentimentally, as expected. It bends but it doesn’t break.

The best story has got to be the one about the boy (Wallace Chung) and his pet pig. A couple of the dogs and cats are adorable, but the pig is definitely the star.

Wallace Chung, Beibi Gong, Landi Li, Gaowa Siqin, Hong Tao, Lei Wu, Zishan Yang, Hewei Yu and Zifeng Zhang star.

Most of the stories are about young people, so there is plenty of youth appeal.

The writers are Jianan Ran and Larry Yang, and their screenplay is serviceable to good. Thank goodness the animals don’t speak. They don’t need to anyway, the animal actors are so expressive.

Audiences in a holiday mood will sit up and beg for this one. Disney will probably do well to consider an American remake. It is better than a lot of their home-grown stuff.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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