In an interview with bc last year, Barbara Wong Chun Chun detailed how “Hong Kong people will have gone through ups and downs, [be they] poor or rich.” Looking at her directorial career, which started so strongly with the daring sex documentary Women’s Private Parts (2001) and refreshing 20-something dramedy Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat (2003) before hitting some lows, including last year’s critically panned Wonder Women (2007), it is as if Wong was talking about herself when she said that, faced with downturns, people “almost give up but then have to come back.”

For rather than stop helming films, Wong has gone back to the future with Happy Funeral, an effective, if belated, follow-up to her first feature film that revolved around the antics of six friends turned flatmates who were into playing the game of Truth or Dare. This time around, the insouciant sextet in focus – aspiring director Bonbon (Donald Tong), singer Kay (Tian Yuan), scatty journalist (Elanne Kwong), Pang (Jim Yan), C Kwan and 6 Wing (these two bear the same names as the FAMA Canto-rappers who play them) – light on the idea of making money by organizing a “young line” of funerals that swap traditional rites for those allowing people to fondly and happily remember the deceased.

It may be a great idea but can they successfully execute it? This is a question that may be asked about both the at-times too half-baked young adults but also the makers of this film themselves. With regards to the flatmates, early on they deservedly earn the ire and scorn of Mr Man (Eric Tsang), a tender-hearted funeral director they approach for financial backing for their proposal but they then proceed to demonstrate why their elderly but young-at-heart landlady, Suzy Wong (Candy Hau Woon Ling), believes in them and enjoys their exuberant company. However, the jury is still out – or is at least mixed – about the filmmakers since this schizophrenic offering is a bewildering hodgepodge of the inspired and tired, painfully pragmatic and manipulatively maudlin, caringly touching and self-centredly insensitive.

It doesn’t help matters that Happy Funeral has its share of throwaway cameos – including by Taiwanese Mandopop boy band Lollipop, Mandarin Films’ president Raymond Wong, American singer Howard McCrary and MC Gold Mountain as well as five of Truth or Dare: Sixth Floor Rear Flat’s young adult stars – and, as with Wonder Women, distracting product placements along with sincerely felt scenes. Additionally, it seems strange that the best moments and acting are provided by older members of the cast in a film that places such an emphasis on youth.

In particular, Candy Hau, playing the same impish character as in Truth or Dare: Sixth Floor Rear Flat, doesn’t only demonstrate that she’s game for a laugh but also easily steals the show whenever she appears. Rather ironically too is how the strongest way the movie ends up signaling that the youngsters are all right is through the backing and approval of the older characters played by Hau, well-known TVB host Patrick Dunn and film doyen Eric Tsang.

Yvonne Teh

Truth or Dare

On her deciding to make a follow up film to Truth or Dare: Sixth Floor Rear Flat (2003) some five years down the road:
Every year, the film companies and also the cinemas – the theatre people – asked me to do the sequel. They mentioned it many times. I tried [previously] but I couldn’t come up with an idea that I was really happy with. So I postponed and postponed and postponed. Because Truth or Dare is my first feature – it’s like [my] first love. So if it wasn’t something I thought would work, I’d rather postpone it. [Then] last year, ...I was talking to the producer, Lawrence [Cheng], and we came up with the ‘happy funeral’ idea.

About Candy Hau Woon Ling, whose amazingly game landlady character – Suzy Wong – was born in 1923:
She’s older! She’s actually 87 now! [But at the film’s] premiere, I was sitting next to her... and she was laughing and laughing [at] all the jokes the kids were making. It’s amazing. She is the real Suzy! She’s very spontaneous!

On whether Wong would ever agree to eat shit if she didn’t succeed in fulfilling an ambitious goal – like many of her movie’s characters?
Now, if you dare me to, I cannot do it – eat shit. So I’d just make a goal that I can easily fulfil. But if I were younger, I don’t know... I was more of a rebel when I was younger, I was quite daring!

But Truth or Dare is a very popular game that she’s played herself?
Yes, yes. Literally, in 2003, I was playing with film bosses when we were making this film. We were all playing. [It was] crazy!