Ten years after Money No Enough, Singapore’s most domestically successful movie of all time, director, actor and entertainer Jack Neo (梁智強) and his team return with the sequel Money Not Enough 2, which replaces the original’s comedy with tear-jerking melodrama.
The film revolves around three brothers who live in the materialistic city-state. Yang Bao-hui (Henry Thia, 程旭輝) is the eldest, an uncomplaining husband, father and a deliveryman who wants to live a good life after years of working a lowly job. A puffed-up salesman type, youngest brother Yang Bao-huang (Mark Lee, 李國煌) talks the older sibling into joining his lucrative business that sells health supplements derived from pollen.
Neo plays the middle brother, Yang Bao-qiang, a well-heeled businessman who shows no interest in anything but money and leaves his overbearing, wealth-flaunting wife Ling Ling (Zhu Lin Lin, 朱玲玲) to deal with everything else.
However, the three brothers’ businesses don’t perform as well as planned and a series of mishaps lead to financial ruin. Domestic disputes and bickering break out when their mother, Mrs Yang (Lai Ming, 黎明), begins to show signs of dementia and needs the full attention of her sons.
The film opens with a punchy set piece that ridicules Singaporeans’ ambivalence toward the government with all its regulations and restrictions that, some say, safeguard high living standards for its citizens. The partially animated sequence ends with a crowd throwing a tollgate into the harbor. Amusing and tackily done, the cartoon-like fantasy echoes the youngest brother’s opening remarks: “Singaporeans complain, but they never act to change the status quo.”
Reality sets in as the Yang brothers sit at the dinning table discussing their addictions to status and wealth. Kudos goes to Neo for making an effective and sometimes hilarious caricature of this money-hungry gang.
Then comedy gives way to lachrymose melodrama as the mother’s physical and mental health deteriorates and she becomes a burden to the three Yang households.
Money Not Enough 2 neatly plays on the tension between the nuclear-family lifestyle and the fulfillment of filial piety in Chinese-speaking regions, though the film ends up annoying audiences by expounding a doctrine about family values and loving your mother. This is a well-timed message, though, as the film is released in Taiwan on Mother’s Day weekend.
Eighty two-year-old Malaysian actress Lai was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress for her performance at last year’s Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎).
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Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, there will be no Features pages. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when Features will also be resumed. Kung Hsi Fa Tsai!
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