Money No Enough 3 Review: Jack Neo Returns With Same Old Kopitiam Chatter About Money Problems…What Else Were You Expecting?

Money No Enough 3 (PG) 

Starring Jack Neo, Mark Lee, Henry Thia, Xiang Yun

Directed by Jack Neo

By now, we should forget about Jack Neo ever making an actual cinematic movie out of this series.

Just treat these harmless, brightly-lit TV-ish installments as scattershot archival records of sorts which nail down the kopitiam chatter and product items of the times in which they are filmed. Which this pic chirpily captures.

In 2008's Money No Enough 2, ERP gantries were KPKB-worthy. Circa now, it's Jacky Cheung concert tickets being more important than helping a friend in trouble. How about Marry-Save, a government-funded scheme to help young people get married and buy homes? Or acquiring “positude” —  short form of “positive attitude” — turning into a gag about prostitutes necessitating a visit to the police station?

Besides mata matters, the hospital is another must-go venue for Neo. He, of course, happily obliges with his everybody-come-together, everything-okay scenes — franchise newbie Xiang Yun plays Henry Thia's wife needing a liver transplant — right at the end.

MNE3 is lightweight, light-hearted comedy-drama that's funny in unintended moments. Like a next-door HDB neighbour spouting long, haphazard father-mother stories. But emitting an occasional gem. Thia's Ah Hui, now a restaurant owner, wanting to kneel down to government officials checking his foreign-local workers quota is hilarious.

Co-scripted by director Neo, some topics hit, some are cringing, some strangely prolonged. There's a weird Christianity-vs-Chinese religion contest that's given way too much screen time. Other inclusions are, self-reflecting this flick, simply same-old-same-old stuff. As Mark Lee's ah-beng bad boy, Ah Huang, instructing his employees to ignore image rights in his online business, puts it  — “I don't care copyright or copyleft, you do copycat”.

So, MNE3 copies the internet product-sell plot already covered in last year's The King of Musang King. But to an angle that isn't particularly interesting. Huang, the villain seduced by the dark side of money to rip off the savings of his kampong brothers, Grab driver Qiang (Neo) and Hui, strikes it rich by dumping expired health supplements online onto unsuspecting folks who adore him.

Man, you'd think the dude's still fishing for another Golden Horse nomination the way he operates as a lone heavy-emo satellite here as the bitter, besieged family buddy playing out his bros by abandoning the straight and narrow for a far more rewarding crooked road. “You have cash, you have power,” he proclaims.

Seriously, what is it about Neo and health supplements? Sixteen years ago in MNE2, this stuff was part of the tale too.

This time, he introduces the next gen of heartlanders — the less hefty young-adult kids forming the Kiasi Generation. Unlike their colourful parents, these office-bound descendants of the old-timer trio are boring law-abiding citizens preferring to get legit permits for everything. Compared to cowboy Uncle Huang who pooh-poohs the urgency to get a fundraising licence even to his own concerned daughter, Kim (Regina Lim), the ethically -onflicted young gun running his company.

Here, you're piqued by the sublime and the supplements.

Why, when Neo takes a dig at cryptocurrencies — dubbed “crypto-come-meh-see” (crypto-quickly-die) by the very Hokkien Thia — does he avoid the subject of money scams, the plague of our modern cyber times?

It's a question that's lost in the noise in the way a plot point about Huang striking big lottery moolah gets discarded like a bad cheque. You tend to forget things in Jack Neo's money mayhem.

Coincidentally there's a terrific Taiwanese movie called Old Fox right now which features this exact same deal about someone leaving the good behind to turn bad for the money.

Go see what a real film in the cinema about this matter looks like. (3/5 stars)

Photos: GV Pictures/Clover Films