Sometimes you gotta say, “What the F**k.”
It’s important to have a dream. And with that dream it’s important to have the passion to follow it, just as the heroes do in Ho-cheung Pang’s “AV”. Four college buddies, sick and tired of being a band of losers, decide to make their dream come true. And that dream is to get laid…with a Japanese porno star – an AV idol. Okay, so they’re still losers, but at least they’re going to do something about making their dream come true. They’re also so pathetic that they make for a really entertaining watch, so you can’t hate these guys. In fact, they’re the kind of friends you’d like to keep around, not only for laughs, but to make you feel better about yourself.
So these four friends manage to weasel their way into a business loan, which will provide them with the cash to pay for their AV idol of choice to fly into Hong Kong from Japan to star in a porno they’re supposedly making. They plan on shooting this thing but really all they’re using this front for is to get laid. The film is never to be released. But when the AV idol’s manager raises her fee, our h***y knuckleheads must then convince a group of college students to act as a production crew…but only if they pay for this once in a lifetime experience. Losers they may be, but these guys just conned the government and a bunch of college students into paying for them to get laid. Choice!
So the show begins as the AV star flies into Hong Kong, ready to work, and what follows is a kind of “Risky Business” type adventure, sans Guido the Killer Pimp. This adventure takes the college buddies and the audience on a bumpy, hilarious ride that finds our central characters learning some major lessons and maybe even growing just a little bit as people.
“AV” is great infectious entertainment with characters so charming in their bumbling ways that you can’t dislike them for their misogynistic mission. They’re just dumb kids. And watching these dumb kids stumble blindly into adult life is a total blast.
