Given my love and fascination with the Asian cinema, and the Hong Kong cinema in particular, of course I had to sit down and watch this 2002 romantic comedy titled "Gon Chaai Lit Feng" (aka "Dry Wood Fierce Fire") as I stumbled upon it here in 2023. I had never actually heard about the movie, not that it really mattered.

Writers Chi-Kin Kwok, Gu He, Chi Wai Yeung and Wilson Yip put together an insanely bland and rather disinteresting script and storyline here. The narrative in "Gon Chaai Lit Feng" was sluggish and just generally lacking a proper red thread throughout the course of the movie to guide the audience from A to B. And that made the movie feel erratic and random, and thus draining away any and all enjoyment from it.

I ended up giving up on "Gon Chaai Lit Feng" with only having sat through 40 minutes out of the 97 minutes that the movie ran for. But in those 40 minutes I have to admit that I wasn't the least bit entertained, and director Wilson Yip just failed to capture my interest at all with the bland and pointless script and equally bland and pointless characters.

It was a bit amazing that a romantic comedy with the likes of Louis Koo and Miriam Chin Wah Yeung in the leading roles would strike out that hard. However, they just virtually had nothing to work with here in this 2002 movie. And "Gon Chaai Lit Feng" ended up being a movie that was by no means a memorable movie experience from either of the two.

The movie was lacking totally in both the comedy and romance department, and that made sitting through "Gon Chaai Lit Feng" quite the ordeal.

"Gon Chaai Lit Feng" was a swing and a miss of a movie, one that I will never return to attempt finish watching. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend to fans of Asian romantic comedies.

My rating of "Gon Chaai Lit Feng" lands on a two out of ten stars.

A Chinese doctor/herbalist has the uncanny ability to discern a problem with just a superficial touch on the pulse and look at the tongue. This little romantic comedy about such a person could benefit from such an exam.

Although many of the ingredients for success are here, something doesn't quite gel. Koo has played this same type of role many times, and, in watching this movie, I was instantly reminded of Koo and Sammi Cheng in "Love for All Seasons" -- another movie about a handsome player who gets hooked up with a misfit female Chinese medicine practitioner with a talent for Kung Fu. In both films, the player has his sights set on the successful beauty while the misfit heroine pines away for him. While nowhere near as wacky as "Love for All Seasons" (2003), "Dry Wood, Fierce Fire" (2002) lacks the incredulous "convincibility" of the Cheng-Koo film and the goofy charm that inexplicably existed between the guileless Cheng and worldly Koo. Yeung here seems to get off to a well-intentioned but false start. The humor is thin and seems unable to sustain the plot shortcomings.

While a fan of Yeung's music, I confess I thought this was the first Yeung film I'd seen and that it may have been her first film-- apparently, it wasn't. She had appeared previously in Feel 100% II (also with Sammi Cheng) but something had rendered her presence in the earlier film a blank in my mind. I think that's because while quite pleasant, Yeung is not as dynamic as the screen demands her to be-- at least here. Pity. A touch more over the top goofiness and she might have nailed it. But she does come close at times, just not quite enough. At times, she seemed downright uncomfortable in character. She never owned it, nor did she seem to be enjoying it the way she should have been.

I think there is an inevitable, uncomfortable comparison to Cheng here. This is the type of film that Cheng thrives on. Moreover, Yeung's "new hair cut" and reddish tint when her character makes the great leap forward are all too identifiable with Cheng. The fault isn't all Yeung's, tepid writing and some pacing problems are evident, stranding the potential comic romantic misfire in a state of perpetual kindling. On the whole a not so bad, mildly sweet little movie that might have been a little more.

5.5 out of 10 for a good solid, supporting cast and some moments of tempered sweetness.