Director – Lau Chun Wai [Jeffrey Lau], Screenplay – Jeff Lau, Producers – Julia Chu, Jessica Kam-Engle, Li Li, Liao Qian-shan, Xu Jien-ping & Yang Yang, Photography – Fung Yuen Man, Music – Mark Lui, Visual Effects – Centro Digital Pictures Limited (Supervisor – Don Ma), Production Design – Bill Lui. Production Company – Mei Ah Entertainment/Pearl River Film Co Ltd/Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co Ltd/Beijing Bona Culture Exchange Co Ltd.
Cast
Ronald Cheng (Qin Ye Se), Sun Li (Rose), Guo De Gang (Cao Cao), Huang Bo (Zhou Yu), Yuen Biao (Liu Bei), Alex Fong (Guan Yu), Louis Fan (Zhang Fei), Eric Tsang (Zhuge Liang), Jeffrey Lau (Grandpa Buddha), Patrick Tam (General Xia Hou), Huang Bo (Zhou Yu), Huang Yi (Xiao Qiao), Teddy Lin (Minister Lian), Gillian Chung (Sun Shang Xiang), Bruce Leung (Fire Cloud Devil), Yuen Qiu (Land Lady), Yuen Wah (Landlord), Tat Lau (The Boy)
Plot
The thief Qin Ye Se jumps into the water to save a girl Rose from drowning. Back on land, he immediately tries to steal her things. When she comes around, Rose takes him to be the destined One she is looking for because he has just pulled the Purple Sword of Heaven she carries from its sheath. They activate a magical box and are transported back in time to the Battle of Red Cliffs in the 3rd Century A.D.. There they are caught between rival armies only for one of the generals to confiscate the box they need to get back.
Jeffrey Lau is a Hong Kong director who has made over thirty films since first appearing with The Haunted Cop Shop (1987). He gained fame with his fast-paced blend of nonsense comedy, including films such as All for the Winner (1990), The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993) and the A Chinese Odyssey films. (See below for Jeffrey Lau’s other genre films). Here Lau is listed as Lau Chun Wai, his Chinese family and given names, when it comes to the directing credit, and as Jeff Lau when it comes to the screenplay credit. He also makes an acting appearance as the character of Grandpa Buddha.
Jeffrey Lau is a practitioner of the form of Hong Kong comedy known as mo lei tau that specialises in a fast-paced slapstick. Lau’s films characteristically come with a demented pace and mania to them that proves exhausting. Of these, Just Another Pandora’s Box proves one of the most manic of them all with apparently no limits on how silly it can get. In this case, Lau has conceived the film as a giant Parody of just about every (predominantly) Chinese film made around the time.
There are snide asides about The Green Hornet (2011), which was in production at the time where Jay Chou (and it was earlier planned Stephen Chow) travelled to the US to star – at one point, a character announces “I’m off to America to star in The Green Hornet,” while a Hornet lookalike turns up towards the end. There are appearances of a live-action version of Po from Kung Fu Panda (2008), while the film gets in cameos from Yuen Qiu and Yuen Wah, the landlord and landlady from Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle (2008). Not to mention much of the plot takes place during the famous historical Battle of Red Cliffs that was filmed round the same time by John Woo with the epic historical two-parter Red Cliffs Part 1 (2008) and Red Cliffs Part 2 (2009). There’s even a spoof of the recent Peter Jackson King Kong (2005) with Ronald Cheng in drag tied up by natives, as well as scenes quoting Titanic (1997).
A temporally displaced Ronald Cheng and Sun Li
Just Another Pandora’s Box comes with a level of manic slapstick that is exhausting to watch even after a few minutes, at the same time as you frequently have no idea what is going on on screen. There are combat moves that involve defeating opponents using stinky feet, or a baby that urinates with firehose-strength power. There is a song number where a singer playing a traditional guqin is suddenly accompanied by a full orchestra on the soundtrack before various people jump up to join him using accordions and an electric guitar, while the soldiers outside form a chorus. In mid-film, people sing a chorus of Auld Lang Syne (in English), before seguing into what appears to be a Chinese version.
There is a slapstick sequence with Sun Li pretending to be the ambassador from Turkestan and being forced to conduct a masquerade where she has to operate two blow-up dolls pretending to be the ambassador and her sister at the same time as Ronald Cheng insists on serving them some soup. A battle manoeuver has the army shining sunlight reflected off shields into the faces of oncoming horsemen, before pretty girls step out to distract them, only for the girls to duck down and have old ladies behind appear to blow kisses, which succeeds in knocking the horsemen off their horses.
Despite being set at the historical Red Cliffs, which took place in the third century A.D., the film is filled with all manner of anachronistic inventions including electric guitars, cellphones, videocameras and handguns.
Jeffrey Lau’s other genre films include:- The Haunted Cop Shop (1987) and The Haunted Cop Shop II (1988) and the unrelated Mortuary Blues (1990), all featuring cops versus various monsters; the horror comedy Thunder Cops (1987); All For the Winner (1990) and All For the Winner 2/The Top Bet (1991), gambling comedies about people with clairvoyant abilities; the Wu Xia film The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993); the two-part adaptation of Journey to the West, A Chinese Odyssey Part 1: Pandora’s Box (1994) and A Chinese Odyssey Part 2: Cinderella (1995); the Chow Yun Fat fantasy comedy Treasure Hunt (1994); the ghost comedy Out of the Dark (1995); the historical fantasy Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002); Second Time Around (2002), another gambling fantasy; the martial arts fantasy A Chinese Tall Story (2005); the comedy Metallic Attraction: Kung Fu Cyborg (2009); the romantic comedy The Fantastic Water Babes (2010); East Meets West (2011), a comedy wherein Eastern deities become superheroes; A Chinese Odyssey Part 3 (2016); and Kung Fu League (2018) in which legendary martial arts heroes are summoned to aid a nerd.
