Distributed by:

Tai Seng Entertainment

Language: Cantonese, Mandarin

Subtitle: English, Chinese

Runtime: 117 minutes

Genre: (Comedy/Romance)

 

 

 

During the Soong Dynasty there was this girl named Moth Liu (Cecilia Cheung). Moth is a very beautiful girl who has difficulties in finding the right man. The fact that she beats up all her suitors doesn't help her much and she's quite picky on who she chooses to date. That was until she met Seasonal Chan (Louis Koo), a poet who too is on a quest to find a mate. One day. the two met and fell in love instantanously. The emperor seeing the love the two shared, blessed Seasonal Chan and Moth Liu and the two were married that very night.

All seemed good until Seasonal Chan took Moth home. She's bossy, dominating, jealous and extremely needy. Seasonal finds that by marrying Moth, he has lost all the freedom that he was accustomed to and is now whipped by his wife. The controlling wife would not let Seasonal hang out with his friends and beats him up if he disobeys. This is the premise of the story and it is director's Joe Ma's recent addition for the Lunar Year Festival.

Joe Ma has the tendency of making silly romantic comedies. His recent successful films which I love were "Dummy Mommy without a Baby" and "Fighting for Love," both which I recommend watching. His more recent movies (like Summer Breeze of Love) were not as great as his older ones and because of this, I was reluctant to watch "The Lion Roars." But since Cecilia Cheung stars in this movie, I decided to give it a chance.

I'm a big fan of Cecilia. I bought all her movies and listened to all her CDs. Her best performance has to be "Fly me to Polaris" and "Failan," which in both roles she played the role of a woman of good nature and with a heart of gold. She's a rising star and it's easy to compare her with Maggie Cheung because they look very similar. In time Cecilia may one day be as talented as Maggie and she will no longer be classified as "just another pretty face."

The other lead star Louis Koo is another popular young celebrity in Hong Kong. This is not the first time these two starred in a movie together. They both starred in the horrible film "Legend of Zu" and the more recent one "Mighty Baby." I haven't seen many of Koo's movie, but he seems to be a very good actor.

I mentioned before that this was a Lunar Year Festival movie and viewers will know what to expect from this sort of film. Expect the first half hour to be silly and stupid filled with anachronism and comedy. Then the story builds up and the tone shifts from comedy to drama. And then it get ridiculously stupid at the end. If you're unfamiliar with Hong Kong comedies then I suggest you stay away from this movie. This film is not meant to be taken seriously and the tone is set to be very light-hearted. "The Lion Roars" is great to watch if you're a fan of Louis and Cecilia otherwise I suggest you watch it only when you have nothing else to do. Not that bad of a film, but not that great either. I think that for a period movie, they need to add more martial arts.

 

Overall Score: B-