My Wife Is 18

Although this film wouldn't necessarily be the one I'd name on the Top of 2002 list, I have to say that it is quite humorous as it explores the quirkiness of a mismatched marriage.

Ekin Cheng plays a thirty-something graduate student in London who is struggling to get his M.Phil. Charlene Choi, meanwhile, plays an 18 year old schoolkid from Hong Kong. Both have parents and grandparents who want to matchmake the two and arrange for them to be married. Naturally, they're not keen at first, but after meeting each other independently, they decide to 'marry', if only to please their grandparents and as long as they divorce a year later. They both return to Hong Kong, and start living together, but not everything runs as smoothly wasn't expected.

Casting this film couldn't have been easy, and the selection of an experienced actor as Cheng and an almost rookie in the form of Choi seems to have been considered very carefully. The onscreen chemistry isn't as great as I'd hope, but at least we did see glimmers of it there. Charlene Choi, 19 and whose main means of living is one half of Cantopop duo, Twins, still lacks that onscreen presence, but of the two movies I have now seen her in (the other being Funeral March with Eason Chan), there is talent and I expect her to continue a long way, even if it has to be helped by her singing career. Cheng, however masterful he is, doesn't seem to have been given enough to do in this movie, and his character seems too plain to create interest in.

A good one to watch for a laugh on a quiet night in.