From the beginning to the end of this movie, you'll be having great great fun! Donnie Yen plays Eddie, a great marial artist and a breakdancer. Eddie wakes up with breakdancing and even puts on his clothes with breakdancing style! The adventures Eddy has in this movie are endless, escpecially with his good friend Mini(Yuen Woo Ping) who he meets while going home from school. Mini just wants to eat, and when he finally has some food, bad luck strikes him again and again. There are plenty of breakdance scenes in here with Donnie showing his amazing skills. He shows us what he's like in the disco and at the gym!Just watch the great breakdance battle with Donnie against his foe. Are you a Donnie Yen fan and didn't see this movie? Shame on you!
4 Reviews
Exemplary Hong Kong comedy
Leofwine_draca17 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
MISMATCHED COUPLES is a surprisingly excellent early Donnie Yen flick, made as his second movie by no less than John Woo (just before he became forever associated with the 'heroic bloodshed' genre). It's a film in which the hilarious comedy is every bit as good as the action, and the decision to have Yen playing a guy who loves to dance is a genius decision because the dancing scenes are among the funniest thing's I've ever seen! Yen's foil is none other than Yuen Woo-ping, who turns out to have a natural gift for comedy as well, and I haven't had this much fun with a film for ages. The latter stages of the film feature the excellent Dick Wei as a rival gym member, leading to an unforgettable duel which has to be seen to be believed. Great stuff, and one of the greatest Hong Kong comedies I've watched.
Cringe-inducing entertainment
DanTheMan2150AD14 May 2024
Mismatched Couples is probably best remembered today as the film where Donnie Yen spends the majority of his time breakdancing to synth-pop tunes, I say this because it's not got much else going for it. An obvious throwaway product that possesses little in terms of actual filmmaking craft, with shoddy acting, an overly repetitive synth score, tired slapstick, toilet humour and name-calling in place of actual dialogue. It's lame and silly, but also energetic and entertaining, albeit in a largely unintentional manner and not one to take seriously. The baby-faced Yen showcases a goofy, agreeable charm weighed down by none of the badass preenings that would typify his later performances. Yuen Woo-Ping's dance choreography comes with the same amount of energy you'd find in his fight scenes but his acting leaves a lot to be desired here, thank goodness he spent the majority of his career behind the camera rather than in front of it. The comedy and mugging are annoying, but the stuntwork, casual athleticism and cheesy energy compensate. As oddly charming as it is cringe-worthy, Mismatched Couples is the type of crazy, entertaining B-level stuff that once made up a good portion of Hong Kong Cinema, and is especially fun today because of its odd mixture of genres plus the glimpse of a gloriously goofy Donnie Yen.
We loved it and we know you will too.
tarbosh2200027 June 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Eddie (Yen) is a happy-go-lucky guy who loves break dancing and Martial Arts. He lives with his stern sister Ah Ying (Wong) and the cute Stella (Mei-Mei). He has a geeky friend named Mini (Woo-Ping), whose clumsiness and awkwardness is always getting him into some kind of wacky trouble. Seeing as Eddie loves the beautiful Anna (Anna Kamiyama, in her only film role), Mini loves Ah Ying, and Stella loves Eddie, many mishaps ensue in their respective quests to win their desired mate. Meanwhile, Eddie faces challenges in his two hobbies: Kenny (Perez) wants to beat him on the dance floor (and the tennis court), while the batty and maniacal Fight Champion (Wei) wants to fight Eddie in the ring. How will Eddie and Mini navigate all this? Will everyone end up with who they want to end up with? Find out today! It's kind of hard to put into words just how awesome Mismatched Couples is. It's loaded to the bursting point with upbeat, high-energy, colorful, happy, funny scenes that work overtime to try and please the audience. On top of that are highly impressive physical feats relating to the dance scenes as well as the Martial Arts scenes. Director (and co-star, as the bespectacled Mini) Yuen Woo-Ping, gets the most out of every scene, which, one after another, are just delightful escapades that are just wildly enjoyable. It's easy to see why he's well-known now. His skills are evident even in this early outing. The same goes for Donnie Yen, who is at his absolute best here.
We're always championing Martial Arts movies as well as 80's dance movies, and, amazingly, we found a movie that combines the two! In other words, this very well could be the perfect Comeuppance Reviews movie. The music alone is very entertaining (as are the sound effects). Add that to everything else, and you have a super-winner. In America, in the 80's, we had comedies like Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), as well as a steady stream of John Hughes movies, among many others. Mismatched Couples should be ingrained in the minds of everyone as a solid, mesmerizingly 80's comedy, and the only reason it's not is simply because it comes from Hong Kong. It absolutely deserves to be in the firmament with all the others, as it preserves a very sweet moment in time, with no apologies.
There's so much more we could say about this movie, but we want to keep things to a "Mini"-mum (heh heh) because we want you to discover the charm of Mismatched Couples for yourself. We loved it and we know you will too. It gets our highest and most enthusiastic recommendation...just see it!
We're always championing Martial Arts movies as well as 80's dance movies, and, amazingly, we found a movie that combines the two! In other words, this very well could be the perfect Comeuppance Reviews movie. The music alone is very entertaining (as are the sound effects). Add that to everything else, and you have a super-winner. In America, in the 80's, we had comedies like Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), as well as a steady stream of John Hughes movies, among many others. Mismatched Couples should be ingrained in the minds of everyone as a solid, mesmerizingly 80's comedy, and the only reason it's not is simply because it comes from Hong Kong. It absolutely deserves to be in the firmament with all the others, as it preserves a very sweet moment in time, with no apologies.
There's so much more we could say about this movie, but we want to keep things to a "Mini"-mum (heh heh) because we want you to discover the charm of Mismatched Couples for yourself. We loved it and we know you will too. It gets our highest and most enthusiastic recommendation...just see it!
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