Honey Money Phony (2024)

"Lin Qinglang" (Jin Chen) is on the phone to a man who is telling her that she must transfer ¥3000 or else her account will be shut down. As luck would have it, she's outside a branch of her bank so takes the call inside and quickly identifies a scammer. Rather than report him to the authorities, or shame him on social media, she makes him a proposition. He's not the first to have tried to con this rather naive woman out out of her money. Her ex-boyfriend managed to get ¥200,000 (about £22,000) from her before dumping her. If he can help her get that cash back, she will call it quits. "Ouyang Hui" (Sunny Sun) is quite a charming, charismatic young man and despite their mutual mistrust, they spend some time evaluating their pretty-boy mark "Zhang Zijun" (Wang Hao) - who has already moved onto to his next vulnerable victim. Their target runs a travel agency and so together with his wily uncle (David Wang) and her actress pal "Dong Xiaohui" (Li Xueqin) the pair set about orchestrating a complex sting operation to recoup her money and teach this man a lesson he will never forget. It's quite good fun this, and though maybe a little contrived it allows the engaging Sunny Sun to deliver a mischievous character that, even though fairly venal, proves to be quite a likeable rogue. The quickly paced scenarios are helped along by a cheery score, a few pop songs and, for a change, we don't use a constant stream of mobile phone texts to convey chunks of the dialogue. Of course, there's a burgeoning romance here but with some fun in a Ferrari, a disaster-prone holiday maker and some comedy trust issues, I found it quite an entertainingly daft caper.