I do enjoy Chinese comedy drama like "Poor Prince" but I think this show beat it in terms of really wacky humor. Now I'll admit that I got inspired by this post after supposedly watching Abaranger or Kamen Rider Kiva. Weird? Funny? Freaked out? Be freaked out all you want or criticize my opinion all you want but I think this show, "Love at First Fight" is really a Chinese drama, set in China but in its run, you really just get loads and loads of cartoony humor! I credit Wallace Huo's improved acting and Miriam Yeung-Ting really knows how to act her part, that's why she's one of my favorites.
I felt like this film parodies a lot of stuff that were either common among Chinese in the past, both the good and the bad. Whether it's making fun of the stupidity of making it mandatory to have a male heir (which really led to China's gender imbalance in some areas), to Wu Shilang disguising herself as a male when she's female which was rather poorly done (plus she really hates her role in doing so), your first love (which led to a series of comic stupidity), wanting to get rich fast or well, issues that some enlightened Chinese aren't afraid to admit were very common during the time of British colonial China. Stuff like the obsolete wife/concubinage system are still somewhat featured since back then, sad to say but China was a chaunvistic society. Shilang's father however is a faithful monogamist, something that today's China would encourage.
Perhaps the biggest part of the comedy is how a crisis or conflict (especially Sheng Da's attraction to Shilang or Yisheng's secret love for Xiaoyu as a subplot) can become so cartoony because most of the story is unrealistic. Shilang well, she really hates the fact she was raised as a boy because she has a crush on her childhood friend Li Yahsou (Wallace Huo) who I honestly has those Western features and makes me think, REALLY? But I guess casting Wallace into the role with Miriam made a perfect comic match between them considering that, well you know, awkward stupidity. While I kept saying HUH to a lot of scenes like Yashou surviving those firecrackers which would have killed him in real life. So really, am I watching Looney Tunes or a live action show? Granted, the acting was so well done I really tend to ignore the unrealistic humor here.
Villains here are usually either half-brained or not really all that bad. Chogan Bei's just a creepy stalker and kleptomaniac but he's not all that bad. Meanwhile, Ping Jian is more or less your Yosemite Sam villain who would already be arrested in real life because he's plain incompetent especially when he would later attempt to win Shilang even if he's well, old enough to be her dad. Which reminds me, a lot of the show's conflicts always make lemonades out of lemons. For something really funny, I felt quite challenged to swallow the obvious humor which may have made me like writing nonsense stuff myself.
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