Uncle Odyssey Review: Christopher Lee, Mark Lee Can’t Save This Cringey Midlife Misadventure

Uncle Odyssey  (PG13)

Starring Christopher Lee, Mark Lee, Hsu Hsiao-shun

Directed by Chang Ching-feng

Three middle-aged buddies in Taiwan decide to become livestream stars online to fulfil their dreams.

Despite family objections, they pledge to stick together forever, bungee-jump and although not born at the same time, die together. Choy.

Boy, you actually need to be in some kind of uncle-muddle to dig this unnatural, Jurassic-cringy, generally unfunny pic that's so artificially contrived you can see the constuction crane.

It even tells you the film it wants to be but isn’t. 2007’s The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, which it references here.

Heck, it's self-critical too. “Your movies are so out of date,” says the son of one fella, Yong-zhu (Christopher Lee), a bad-tempered, washed-up cinematographer who kaypoh-scolds people on film sets like a lunatic.

I mean, this flick is so old-fashioned and old-school saddled with a very dated sense of Taiwanese-style comedy-drama, you’re puzzled as to why it doesn’t even bother to move out of its men-of-a-certain-boring-age demographic.

Anyway, Yong-zhu's lifelong pals in their self-proclaimed “No Good Old Boys” U-pop group — that's “uncle pop” due to their catchy disco-dancing music video going viral — are low-level film director Chu-sheng (Mark Lee), and Xiang-lin (Taiwanese actor Hsu Hsiao-shun). That last chap is a pharmaceutical company chairman who first drives a delivery truck before segueing to some sort of weirdo transparent van with neon lights.

Seriously, who comes up with a freakshow of such only-in-movies characters? Which, over here, Taiwanese director/co-writer Chang Ching-feng (Go! Crazy Gangster) seems to be putting on without a clear focus. Despite stating in his production notes that good-for-nothing 60-somethings discarded by the Internet world can still “communicate with the younger generation”.

All fine and dandy. Except that Uncle Odyssey doesn’t stick to its initial purpose about accidental celebs hitting it big on social media. The young seniors hire a Saturday Night Fever creepo-instructor and presto, they become stars.

Then the plot literally throws that angle away to veer off-course into a three-amigos deal that goes all mushy. Is this pic supposed to be wacky, tacky or trendy?

We’re talking about grown-ass dudes wailing, a detour to Penang to sell the tale to the Malaysian market along with hospital-bed anguish scenes which Jack Neo would, er, die for.

Okay, good bits are sprinkled. Especially an escape scene in the hospital that's silly-fuddy-funny. The break-the-net setup in the beginning is goofy. Before one direction turns all directions.

Chu-sheng is the mopey ex-Malaysian who copes with a secret ailment, a no-nonsense caring daughter, Zoe (Taiwan’s Huang Pei-jia), and a teenage lost love with a Malay schoolgirl from Penang. Yep, a lot going on here.

Yong-zhu keeps locking horns with his aspiring-film-director son who plans to go to an American university against his wishes. The prehistoric papa challenges the tech buck to see who gets the most views online. While snorting like a bull in topless dad-bod anger. A scary sight you cannot erase even with an exorcist.

Xiang-lin, meanwhile, is the most poorly drawn role. You don’t know what this rich-man-turned-driver's raging-ageing problem is. Except for being a bratty man-child. “Can’t I just enjoy the life I want?” he asks his stern, in-charge missus. Sir, exactly how old are you to still act like a spoilt child?

Bona-fide local resident, Hsu, though, seems kinda odd-man-out here. Maybe both Lee and Lee are simply too Singaporean (or Malaysian). But Taiwanese-OG Hsu looks too old and too Taiwan-drama to truly pass as both SG guys’ longtime pal.

By which time, you wonder whether anyone actually screen-tested this flick to anybody younger than 60.

Probably not. (2/5 stars) out in cinemas

Photo: GV Pictures