Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Comedy/ Science Fiction/ Action
Director: David Chung Chi-Man
Year: 1988
Rating: 
NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
Right on the heels of Paul Verhoeven’s masterpiece, Robocop, the Hong Kong film industry hustled out not one, but two ripoffs, Robotrix, and the subject of today’s review, I Love Maria.
It seems that a criminal gang, led by Ben Lam and Maria (Sally Yeh), have started using robots to stage robberies. There’s Pioneer 1, which is the equivalent of the big, clunky robot in Robocop, and a newer generation robot built by Ben Lam’s character, which has been given the looks of his girlfriend, Maria. A former member of the gang (Lam Ching-Ying), reporter T. Q. Zhuang (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), and tech geek Curly (John Shum), join forces to fight the gang.
Hong Kong movies are not generally noted for their narrative clarity and realism, but there are limits to how much sloppiness I’m willing to tolerate. I Love Maria is a real mess. I can hardly believe that there was a script at all. It’s like the filmmakers were winging it from shot to shot. The story makes almost no sense at all.
Surprisingly, given that the action choreography is by the often excellent Tony Ching Siu-Tung (The Killers, The Moon Warriors), the only halfway decent fight in the flick is between Ben Lam and Lam Ching-Ying. The problem is that pretty much all of the action is done in that flying wuxia style so popular in the early 90s. It’s all wire work.
For the first half an hour or so, I Love Maria is fun in a junky way. The special effects are laughable, but the filmmakers’ spirits are so high, the viewer is apt to go along with it. But the endless broad comedy, paper mache bricks, and spitball dramatics start to wear on you after awhile.
The story’s pure nonsense, so there are no themes to grab hold of. The characters are so broadly drawn, you don’t care about anyone. The action is so absurd that it has no impact. By the end, my eyes were glazing over.
It’s not often that I’m glad when a Hong Kong movie is over, but I couldn’t wait for the end credits of I Love Maria.
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