WTH Just Happened?: Where Is Mama’s Boy?
Movies that Have to Be Seen to Be Believed
Ever blind-watched a movie just because you recognized its supporting cast? Have you ever thought to yourself, “Hey, I know this person from the secondary roles they’ve played in internationally prominent films!” and used that as justification to check out the random, obscure titles they spend most of their timing slumming it in? If so, then Where Is Mama’s Boy? may be like catnip to you, though describing this thing merely as “obscure” is a negligent understatement. Like Leon Trabuco’s cursed stash of gold, Steven Cheng’s tragic comic misfire is a treasure that’s probably best kept hidden away from the eyes of man, but mere mention of the film’s star—American Idol punch line William Hung—pretty much guarantees immediate masochistic interest from any movie geek within earshot.
That’s right. Some sick bastard made a movie and decided to cast William Hung in the lead role, either unaware of Mr. Hung’s reputation as the subject of a million mean-spirited memes or possessed by a drive to capitalize on his notoriety. Cheng doesn’t have a particularly impressive résumé to call his own; you probably can’t name a single film he’s directed off-hand without consulting IMDB or Wikipedia, which isn’t a challenge or an insult so much as a simple statement of fact. Cheng is barely even a footnote in his nation’s movie industry. So if you’re moved to ask “Why Hung?”, the immediate, obvious response must be “Why not?” Hung isn’t funny, or charismatic, or compelling, or even talented, but of course laughing at his obliviousness to his own paucity of talent is sort of the point.
So Where is Mama’s Boy? comes from a place of potentially cruel intentions before the first scene plays. Maybe you’re too upright to chuckle at the sight of Hung making an ass of himself, or in this case of Cheng making an ass out of Hung. If so, you’re missing out. Where is Mama’s Boy? isn’t exactly William Hung: The Movie, for one thing. He features prominently in the film, sure, but he’s just one member of its ensemble cast, and arguably he is its least confounding element. It makes a twisted sort of sense that a rube like Hung might eagerly sign onto projects of this caliber, but seeing his veteran co-stars gambol about on screen like stooges feels akin to losing one’s sanity.
If you’ve ever seen Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle, then you’ll immediately recognize Tin Kai-man, Lam Chi-chung, Danny Chan and Wong Yat-fei. They collectively appeared in the former film as a ragtag band of erstwhile martial arts students, cajoled by Chow into pursuing soccer glory. Sans Wong, they each had significant roles in the latter, mostly playing villains. (Tin has himself shown up in other Chow joints like The God of Cookery and King of Comedy.) Put simply, they’ve been in better movies with better filmmakers at the helm, which suggests that on some level they should be shrewd enough to avoid movies such as Where is Mama’s Boy? like the plague. And yet here they are, serving at Cheng’s beck and call.
Maybe they owed Cheng a favor. Maybe he had embarrassing photos of them. Maybe they thought that Where is Mama’s Boy? sounded good on paper, or maybe they really needed the work. In a weird way, it’s sort of comforting having them around, even in such a humiliating capacity. At the same time, the fact that they deigned to lend their comic skills to Cheng’s cause is sort of heartbreaking.
Even without the presence of these actors, and even without Hung’s stunt casting, Where is Mama’s Boy? would be a baffling, relentlessly weird film. The plot revolves around Aunt Huan (Nancy Sit, who, like her male supporting cast members, also has less embarrassing film credits to her name), matron of the Music Paradise, a massage-and-song entertainment parlor where patrons are warned to keep their hands the hell to themselves or face the wrath of its lovely but deadly sirens. Huan’s grope-happy customers are the least of her woes; her sister (played by Tien Niu) has beef with Huan, a beef that runs so deep she hires a trio of bumbling wannabe roughs (our Shaolin Soccer expats) to make trouble at Music Paradise.
But what weighs heaviest on Huan is her search for her long-lost son, a quest she pursues when she’s not busy serving her customers and leading her girls in crummy song-and-dance numbers on a stage that’s so garishly bedecked it’d make Liberace puke, and so seasoned with glitter it’d make Edward Cullen jealous.
Enter the singing hawker Ma Chongyang (Hung), self-monikered as Siu Bang, which roughly translates to “little cake” (and which to the ears sounds an awful lot like “she bangs,” which, well, you can figure it out from there). Where is Mama’s Boy?’s cinematic grammar paints him as the most likely candidate to be revealed as Huan’s son. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. On meeting him, Huan is so charmed by his unfailing kindness that she takes a shine to him immediately, which is precisely where Hung’s celebrity casting fails the movie on every level imaginable. He’s such a horrific singer that we cannot for a second buy into the idea that market crowds might actually enamored of his vocals. Cheng fashions the movie after wuxia period fare, dramas that are action-oriented and character-driven, and the joke of Hung’s presence is totally on him: we’re more likely to give a pass to Where is Mama’s Boy?’s utter disregard for physics than we are to accept Hung as the kind of crooner capable of enchanting an audience.
Once Huan meets Siu Bang, all of Cheng’s disparate elements slowly begin metastasizing into a story. Chan, Lam and Tin engage in a boneheaded campaign to bring Music Paradise to its knees. Each attempt is invariably foiled by Huan, who literally turns into a kung-fu badass during rainstorms, which makes about as much sense as anything else in the movie. (And that’s literally literally.) Apparently, the loss of her boy struck her with an illness that causes her “fighting techniques to become superb” when she hears the sound of thunder, which comes in handy more often than not.
