Category:Moviecomedy Area:New Horse Years:1998 Director:Zheng Delu Starring:Jack Leung Mark Lee Ching Yu Fai
[Plot Summary] The Singaporean movie "Money is Not Enough" is based on the experiences of three Chinese from the same hometown (Ah Qiang, Ah Hui, and Ah Huang) in Singapore. The plot begins with a description of the middle-aged situation of these three people. These three people have little education and struggled in Singapore when they were young. By the time they reached middle age, "Ah Qiang" was already a company employee, married and had a daughter, and had his own house. In his spare time, he often borrowed money to speculate in stocks, and also liked to buy large quantities of Japanese goods on instalment payments. When buying a large LCD TV, he also gets a chance to play a parent-child game as a promotional gift (this game is a foreshadowing of the movie); "Ah Fai" is a broker who often does short selling and buying business and has borrowed money from loan sharks to do business; "Ah Huang" is a bit mentally retarded and can only work as a waiter in an open-air restaurant. He has the habit of betting on horse racing every week. Not only does he use his own salary to gamble, he also borrows money from acquaintances (Ah Qiang and Ah Fai) to gamble. The three middle-aged men often chatted about money over drinks in the open-air restaurant where Ah Huang worked. They were quite proud of their achievements at the time and continued to weave the dream of "making money with money". Their "ambition" (or "greed") grew bigger and bigger, so the "money game" became bigger and bigger, beyond the control of risks, and finally got into trouble one after another. Ah-Chiang failed to get a promotion at work due to his poor English and then had a conflict with someone and quit his job in anger. He then borrowed money to invest in stocks but failed and ended up with a debt of SGD120,000 (approximately NT$2.4 million). He was sued by financial institutions, his property was seized by the court, and even his wife left him with their daughter. Ah-Fai borrowed SGD40,000 (NT$800,000) from a loan shark to start his real estate business, but failed and his debt rose to SGD50,000 (NT$1 million). He was brutally tortured by the loan shark's violent debt collection. Ah Qiang and Ah Fai went to various places to borrow money but could not get enough money to fill the financial hole. They even borrowed money from Ah Huang, a friend from the same hometown (or to get back the money they lent to Ah Huang). Only then did they find out that Ah Huang always lost money when betting on lottery tickets and had no money saved for emergency. When they were at their wits' end and had nowhere to turn, someone refused to lend Ah Qiang and Ah Fai money, but provided business advice and the concept of "membership system". This concept means that after opening a company, customers are required to pay a sum of money in advance (the so-called "membership fee") so that the owner can get a sum of money immediately for emergency, and customers can enjoy low prices when they come to the store to consume in the future. So, Qiang, Fai and Huang started a car wash business together. Not long after the business was opened, Huang's mother, who depended on him for everything, was diagnosed with leukemia. Huang was forced to give up his job and go to the hospital to take care of his mother. Fai was also forced to give up his job and run to Johor Bahru, Malaysia to hide from his debts because loan sharks kept coming to his house to collect debts. Qiang was left alone to run the car wash business and deal with the collection of financial institutions. Just when everything seems to be at its worst, bad luck turns to good luck. So when Huang's mother passed away, Huang received a funeral gift, and after deducting the funeral expenses, he still had 10,000 Singapore dollars (200,000 Taiwan dollars) to support his financial operations. When Huang's mother was buried, Fai sneaked back to Singapore to attend the funeral and encountered a loan shark, chasing and fighting with him. At that time, the Singapore police showed up and arrested the loan shark. It turned out that the loan sharks in Singapore used the same method to collect debts as underground money lenders in Taiwan and Hong Kong, spraying warnings at residences. However, under Singapore law, spraying warnings everywhere is considered a serious crime and is punishable by eight years in prison. Therefore, the Singapore police wanted to arrest the loan shark, so Ah Fai avoided the debt. On the day when parent-child games were given as gifts with LCD TVs, Qiang, Fai and Huang went to Sentosa to participate in the parent-child games. The operator insisted that Qiang’s wife and daughter should also participate, and did not agree to Fai and Huang taking Qiang’s place. In the stalemate, Qiang’s wife and daughter unexpectedly showed up. As the prize for the parent-child game was as high as SGD 100,000 (NTD 2 million), Qiang, his wife and daughter fought hard to pass the level. Qiang’s wife even fell and was bleeding profusely, but she persevered in order to get the high prize to pay off her debts. Because she was more serious and dedicated than other participating families, she finally won the highest prize! Then, when Ah Qiang, Ah Fai and Ah Huang were washing cars together, a white man drove a luxury car to their house and said in English that he had to go to the airport to pick someone up urgently and wanted to pay double the price to wash the car first. Ah Fai and Ah Huang could not understand English and could only smile foolishly. Ah Qiang showed the results of his hard work in English after leaving his job. He was able to talk to the white man and not only made this business, but also won the white man's recognition for his efficient car washing. Moreover, the white man was the director of the company, so the white man decided to hand over the company's cars to Ah Qiang and others for the long-term car washing business. Ah Qiang and others became rich after this big business and were interviewed on TV. Ah Fai even lied and denied that he fled to Johor Bahru, Malaysia to avoid debts. He insisted that he went to Johor Bahru to collect debts and got money to start a business and then achieved his current success. After becoming rich, Fai and Huang spent their money like crazy, borrowing money from Qiang before the end of each month. The story ends with Qiang making fun of his feelings about money.
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