Good Times Bed Times

Story: Carrie (Sammi Cheng) is a reporter for a tabloid. When one day she returns early from work she finds her boyfriend Raymond (Lau Ching-Wan) making out with another woman. She breaks up with Raymond and soon finds a new boyfriend.
Paul Ko (Louis Koo) is the poster boy of Hong Kong's police force, as he isn't only a great cop, but also has the looks for performing for the media and giving interviews. Unfortunately, he has a problem. Since he had a shootout with a suspect, who eventually escaped, and whereas he was shot in the crotch, Raymond suffers from psychological conditioned impotence. Carrie is sent to investigate if these rumours are true, however soon falls in love with Ko, of course. It's not an unrequited love, but Ko really suffers from his impotence.
Carrie's Ex-boyfriend Raymond is a judge and slowly begins to realize that he has to give up his life as a ladykiller, if he wants to be promoted. By chance he meets young Tabby (Charlene Choi), who wins him over in a very unlikely manner. Although he rejects her on several occasions, there is something about her that makes him want to see her again. Maybe this is love?

Review: What do you get if you gather a bunch of Hong Kong popstars and make a movie with them? Right, a light-hearted romantic comedy without any meaning to it. At least this is what we get with "Good Times Bed Times". The movie has to struggle with lots of inconsequential bits, shallow characters and humour that doesn't work out the way it is supposed to most of the time. Fans of the featured stars might get their money's worth, especially as the sex-theme is handled in a more liberal way than what we are used to see in Hong Kong flicks. Nonetheless, apart from that, there is nothing that makes this movie special at all. There is no good story and the romantic scenes aren't well done either.

Sammi Cheng, as in most of her movies, just plays herself, still this isn't really bad, as she fits well into the movie. Every now and then she even shows some almost real emotions, and when with time she "demands" more from her new boyfriend than what he can actually give, then this also provides some nice funny moments.
Nevertheless, there are lots of small details that could have been elaborated a bit more, like the fact that Carrie always has to carry around her mattress when she moves from one place to another, as it is the only one she can get a good night's sleep on. The way it is, there are a lot of small details, but in the end they remain too insignificant for us to care.
Louis Koo's performance of a man who is loved by the ladies and is a way too yielding cop towards them, is solid, however, can't surprise us. At the expense of his impotence there are at least some neat jokes.

Charlene Choi's character might seem interesting, yet there is no true talent in acting to be found in Choi's portrayel. Highlight of the movie is Lau Ching-Wan, of course. It's apparent that he is playing in a whole different acting league. No matter what he touches it can't get bad. Lau is getting the best out of his role and therefore is also responsible for a few of the not so many really funny scenes.
In a supporting role as superstars who have a secret affair Sandra Ng and Tony Leung Ka-Fai can charm the audience. They also deliver some of the more high-quality laughs.

Sadly, "Good Times Bed Times" isn't coherent at all. There is too much switching between the love couples Carrie/Ko and Raymond/Tabby, so that the viewer soon loses any link to them he might have had initially. This goes even that far that towards the end you aren't interested in the characters anymore. This is even more the case as we already can predict how it will all come to an end, eventually. When Raymond suddenly proposes to Tabby, this feels extremely like a rushed marriage and we are still trying to figure out what exactly we missed in their relationship development. But that's not the only thing that feels half-cooked. The resolving concerning Ko's impotence is also rather disappointing.
Moreover, it's very confusing how we get from one set to another at times. There are no reasons and especially no good ones. There is no script that links the loose scenes, but instead we get a very thin thread that tries to hold the movie together. This imbues the film with an unintentionally artificial style and furthermore is quite unsatisfactory.

"Good Times Bed Times" is an average romantic comedy, that has the conflict of love and sex in the center of interest. Only a minor amount of jokes is really working out, e.g. the scene in which the Wong Fei Hung Theme is played when Raymond is demonstrating an "odd" exercise. However, often enough you'll just scratch your head, for example when one action scene is unnecessarily depicted in "Matrix"-style.
Fans of the actors might get something out of the half-baked romantic scenes and still the rest of the audience also won't get bored by the movie. It's just that the film is going by like an instant product, shot in a few days and being only half-finished, while it may, however, deliver at least a few nice scenes. But come on, that's not enough.

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